45 minutes

There's a deal of troubled soul stuff in The Observer's interview with John Sweeney. But the analysis of how to knock off an election campaign vox pop rings true...

Before he left, like everyone else, Sweeney was doing vox pops about Brexit. He got it down to a fine art. “I would get off the train, head straight to the main square, find the guy on a mobility scooter with a Waffen SS sticker and get his views on taking back control. Then head over to Waitrose and find some professor on their day off to put the Remain argument. Then, on the way back to the station, a mother with her kids saying: ‘I just want them to get on with it.’ Forty-five minutes tops. I could do it. But it wasn’t anything to do with journalism.”