Cut short

‘She hung up and ended the interview,’ said John Humphrys on Saturday morning’s Today programme (Radio 4), sounding rather bemused.

‘She hung up and ended the interview,’ said John Humphrys on Saturday morning’s Today programme (Radio 4), sounding rather bemused. Had he really been cut off mid-round? The battle not yet won. He’d just been talking to Reem Haddad, director of Syrian state television and also, or so the BBC’s website declares, a spokesperson for the Syrian administration (an odd combination of roles, one might think).

Haddad had questioned Humphrys’s use of the number ‘500-odd’ persons as having been killed by state troops during the current uprising in Homs and Deraa. ‘What lovely numbers you give me,’ she said. Humphrys responded from his lofty eminence as the BBC’s man in London by asking her, ‘Can I suggest to you the way it is done in a civilised and democratic country. That is to allow reporters, independent…’