BBC presenter Andrew Neil has thrown down a gauntlet to Boris Johnson challenging the prime minister to face an interview with the veteran journalist before polling day.
The Tory leader has continued to dodge whether he would submit himself to questioning by Mr Neil ahead of the general election, insisting he has already put himself forward for unprecedented media scrutiny.
Addressing the prime minister straight to camera following an interview with Brexit party leader Nigel Farage on Thursday night, Mr Neil said: “It is not too late. We have an interview prepared. Oven-ready, as Mr Johnson likes to say.”
He added: “The theme running through our questions is trust — and why at so many times in his career, in politics and journalism, critics and sometimes even those close to him have deemed him to be untrustworthy. It is, of course, relevant to what he is promising us all now.”
Mr Neil said the BBC had been asking the PM for weeks to give them “a date, a time, a venue. As of now, none has been forthcoming,” adding that no broadcaster “can compel a politician to be interviewed”.
The presenter has already put fellow party leaders Jeremy Corbyn, Jo Swinson and Nicola Sturgeon through a comprehensive grilling. The interview with Mr Corbyn led to days of negative headlines about Labour’s handling of anti-Semitism.
“Leaders’ interviews have been a key part of the BBC’s prime-time election coverage for decades”, Mr Neil said.
“We do them on your behalf to scrutinise and hold to account those who would govern us. That is democracy.” He added that the BBC had “always proceeded in good faith that the leaders would participate [in interviews] . . . In every election, they have — all of them, until this one.”
Speaking in Derbyshire on Thursday, Mr Johnson said he had already and would continue “to submit to the interrogation of the media”.
He said: “I’m the first prime minister to do . . . two one-on-one leadership debates, several hours’ worth of phone-ins, endless press conferences and interviews with all sorts of BBC people called Andrew.”
This latter point was a reference to an interview last weekend with the BBC’s Andrew Marr, widely seen by some as a slightly softer touch than his namesake.
Mr Johnson is also the only major political party leader not sit down before the election and do for an interview with ITV’s Tonight programme.
A spokesman for ITV said the programme “have contacted his press team on repeated occasions with times and dates offered to film an interview. Boris Johnson’s team have today confirmed he will not be taking part.”
