John Humphrys on the privilege of being a prizefighter It is the politicians who face the robust questions, and for obvious reasons. They need to be held to account and the broadcasting studio is one arena in which that can happen. We interviewers get an opportunity denied to most. No doubt your questions of the Prime Minister or Chancellor would be as valid and informed as mine, but I have the huge privilege of being able to ask them and you don't. When those interviews turn into prize fights, it usually means an opportunity has been wasted. Usually, but not always. If a politician loses his cool, it can give the audience an insight into his character. If the interviewer loses his cool, it's unprofessional - though there have been occasions when I would plead some pretty powerful mitigation. The bigger issue is whether adversarial, sometimes aggressive, questioning of politicians is counter‑productive and perhaps even damaging to the democratic process. This is not something, incidentally, left entirely to the whim of show-off presenters. My former editor, Ceri Thomas (now head of news programmes), has been worrying away at it for years. In this country, we have been doing it for more than half a century. The shift from deferential to adversarial probably began with Robin Day's interview with Harold Macmillan in 1958 and it is only relatively recently that it has come under real pressure. The most obvious question is: does it work? And the most obvious answer is: show me a better way. I do not believe that seasoned politicians are so naïve as to be seduced into confessing their sins (if sins there be) or incompetence by a sympathetic approach. The equivalent of scented candles and subdued lighting with a little gentle massaging does not work in a live news studio with clever, tough, well-briefed politicians whose career or reputation may be at stake. Nor, incidentally, does the interviewer forswearing interruptions. It's fine to let the politician ignore the questions and deliver a party political broadcast if you have infinite time and an audience with infinite patience, but you don't. And they don't. There are some tactics that are used these days less often - if at all. It is rare now to hear what the former BBC director-general John Birt called the "rabbit punch" - the opening question without substance, designed to destabilise. Good riddance to it. But it is a foolish politician who neglects to bone up on the price of a pint of milk - just in case. If a politician is ignorant or arrogant, incompetent or lazy, the listener has a right to know. Put into slightly loftier language, our intention must be to hold to account, to challenge, interrogate, and represent other points of view. The best we might hope for is a moment of revelation - an insight into policy, politics, or character - but they are rare. The least is that our audience is better informed by the end of it. Robin Day got it about right when he wrote that the interviewer should remember that he or she "is not employed as a debater, prosecutor, inquisitor, psychiatrist, or third-degree expert, but as a journalist seeking information on behalf of the viewer." And, yes, we want to entertain. The conversation has to be engaging. And all our research tells us that the audience is more likely to be engaged if there is a little heat as well as light. Let's accept (and I know many of you won't) that the adversarial approach does "work." End of debate? There is another, possibly more important, question to ask. Is this process corrosive of public trust in the political process? Might it be one reason why turnout at elections and respect for people in public life have fallen? If our style of interviewing exposes politicians to ridicule or contempt and contributes to melting the institutional glue that holds this country together, then we have a serious charge to answer. I would argue that the greatest threat to democracy is apathy. Once people stop showing an interest in what their elected representatives get up to, we're in big trouble. And if the listening figures for Today are a guide, there is little sign of that happening. Serious political discussion in one form or another is still at the heart of the programme and the audience clearly wants it. Our figures climbed above seven million last year and stayed there. And Lord knows that's not for want of alternatives. Interviews help define our relationship with politicians. It is tempting to fall back on those old sayings that have gained currency over the past few decades. Journalists should "speak truth to power." Interviewers should always ask: "Why is this lying bastard lying to me?." And, according to HL Mencken, the relationship between journalist and politician should be that between the dog and the lamp-post. They are all wrong for one reason or another. Since when did journalists have a monopoly on truth? Politicians do not lie by default. And journalists have no God-given right to abuse them. Thomas Jefferson got closer to it when he said if he had to choose between a country with no government and one with no newspapers, he would choose the former. I like to think he would have included broadcast interviews if they'd been available in his day. When Tony Blair left office in the spring of 2007, he gave me two long, live valedictory interviews, the first on domestic affairs and the second on foreign policy - inevitably dominated by Iraq. I spent many hours with my editor discussing what questions we should ask and what tone we should adopt. It's for others to judge whether they succeeded in shedding any light on the Blair years and what informed his decisions, but one thing struck us. For each interview, Mr Blair removed his jacket and by the end his shirt was so drenched in sweat that he had to change it for a fresh one. As Ceri Thomas put it, the intense mental focus he devoted to the interviews was hard physical effort. A trivial illustration perhaps, but if serious questioning makes serious politicians sweat a little, there must be some value to them.