Paul Osborne

You need to make sure that you're doing your job.

So were you surprised that it became such a major diplomatic row?

That's literally the line from one of the news reports, isn't it?

Major diplomatic row.

It was a confluence of so many things, wasn't it?

Obviously there was the Ofcom complaints that were coming in.

There was the behaviour of what was going on inside the house.

And then...

completely by coincidence, Gordon Brown is arriving in India at the same time.

Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, I think it was already part of the news that he was, you know, he was in line for the prime ministership.

And then, yes, then making prime minister's question time and Tony Blair having to make a comment on it.

Yeah, that was all unprecedented.

The early stages of it, I think, were a little bit more familiar and then it just kind of snowballed and took over.

I mean, yes.

It's kind of like, you know, you're sort of like, you know, shaking your head and, you know,

wishing that she and the others weren't making it worse.

So, you know, I felt protective towards her, but then I also, you know, I knew that I had responsibilities as a producer to make the show and to make it fair and balanced.

And that, you know, there was a collective responsibility to decide what was legally and ethically fit for broadcast.

Whilst it was moving really, really fast, and again, it was unprecedented, we had had controversy before, but it had never been to that scale.

Um, there's legal and editorial guidelines coming together to decide what is going into the show with, you know, a time limit on when those decisions can be made.