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You could practically hear the tumbleweed roll by during the long pauses as Green Party leader Natalie Bennett stumbled to answer questions about her own manifesto on Tuesday morning.
The interview on LBC - conducted right after Bennett told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the West should consider giving concessions to Vladimir Putin - was described by one Twitter user “the worst party leader interview ever given”.
In honour of Bennett’s nightmare morning launching her party’s election campaign, here’s a chance to cringe your way through some other political interview corkers once again:
1. Jeremy Paxman and Michael Howard
The infamous 1997 interview in which Paxman asked Michael Howard, then Home Secretary, the same question 12 times. Even then Howard couldn’t come up with a straight answer.
2. Nick Robinson and Nigel Farage
The Ukip leader was left chasing his tail outside Parliament in 2014 after Nick Robinson strong-armed him into logically admitting that a UK national could work as his secretary - a job that he currently employs his German-born wife to do.
3. Jeremy Paxman (again) and Chloe Smith
Chancellor George Osborne sent along his then junior minister Chloe Smith to face Paxman on the government’s 2012 fuel-duty U-turn - a decision he surely lived to regret.
4. James O’Brien and Nigel Farage
LBC’s James O’Brien gave Nigel Farage such a grilling in 2014 on his attitude towards immigration ahead of the European Elections that the Ukip director of communications tried to intervene to bring the exchange to a halt.
5. Diane Abbott and Andrew Neil
In the run-up to the Labour leadership contest in 2010 Diane Abbott managed to put her foot in it on both expenses and race issues when speaking to Andrew Neil on This Week.
6.Lord Pearson and Jon Sopel
During the 2010 election the then Ukip leader Lord Pearson left Jon Sopel at a loss after he refused to talk about the Ukip manifesto when questioned on the BBC’s campaign show. Self-sabotage at its finest.
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