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  Eddie Mair on Boris Johnson interview: a lesson in student journalism
  
  Trainee reporters land interview with BBC man after show revealed the 'less
  
  cuddly' side of London mayor
  
  Link to video: Boris Johnson accused: 'you're a nasty piece of work'
  
  Eddie Mair has told a group of journalism students that he was aiming to focus
  
  on some of the "less cuddly" aspects of Boris Johnson's career in his now
  
  infamous "bicycle crash" interview with mayor of London last weekend.
  
  The presenter of Radio 4's PM, who was standing in on Andrew Marr's programme
  
  while Marr recovers from a stroke, concluded he had succeeded in at least
  
  "unsettling him" - although the verdict in the hours and days later was that his
  
  calm but persistent interview left Johnson reeling and his political prospects dented.
  
  Speaking to a group of media students from Northampton university, Mair said:
  
  "We achieved what we wanted out of it [the interview], which was to look in detail
  
  at some of the stuff that appeared in the documentary that is a less cuddly picture
  
  of Boris than the public know and to get him to talk about that."
  
  Mair was questioning Johnson ahead of last Monday's sympathetic BBC2 documentary
  
  on the Conservative mayor of London by political journalist Michael Cockerell, in
  
  which Johnson admitted he would like to become prime minister should it be the case
  
  "that the ball came loose from the back of a scrum".
  
  However, Mair said that his interview put Johnson in a very different light: "I think
  
  we made him think a little, or at least slightly unsettled him from his usual very
  
  measured and very confident performance ... it was about trying to examine other
  
  aspects of his past and his character."
  
  The BBC declined all requests for interviews with Mair in the wake of the interview,
  
  leaving his on-record conversation with the students as the only interview given
  
  by the broadcaster', who it has been suggested could take on Jeremy Paxman's inquisitorial role.

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