LBC, Election 2019

This is the Daily Trail.

I'm Sheila Fogarty.

And I'm Matthew Thompson.

Coming up, Boris Johnson defends his decision not to do the Andrew Neal interview.

And we have another debate to look forward to.

Tony Blair and John Major will appear alongside each other to urge

you to vote tactically. And a leaked document on a trade deal and its impact on Northern

Ireland is being dismissed by the Tories. Let's start, Matthew, with that Andrew Neal interview.

Or lack thereof.

Andrew Neal last night put out a short video, just a piece to camera, of him speaking,

in which I think he very cleverly sets out what he, well, he says, I would have asked,

I would have asked, I would have asked, I would have asked, and then instead of a Boris Johnson

interview announces, you've got tumbleweed and the absence of the prime minister.

It's a very effective way of saying, come and have a go if you think you're hard enough, really.

Indeed. And he finished it with a really cutting line. He said, you know, Boris Johnson, if he's prime minister, is going to have to stand up to President Z of China, to Donald Trump, to Vladimir Putin.

And he wouldn't come for half an hour and stand

up to me.

Which I thought was, you know, and it's a very effective thing to do and lots of people on

social media when this, obviously this goes back a week or two to when Jeremy Corbyn was

well, politely let's say, challenged robustly, you might say, unchartedably say rather taken

apart by Andrew Neal in that interview.

...