Andrew Marr: You Ask The Questions

What is the real difference between the three main parties? And can I start a fan club for you?

Andrew Marr, 45, was born in Glasgow. After studying English at Cambridge, he joined The Scotsman and, by 1986, was political editor. He joined the launch team of The Independent before moving to The Economist as political editor. Moving back to The Independent he became chief political commentator before being made editor in 1996, a position from which he was sacked in 1998. In 2000, he was appointed the BBC's political editor. A keen amateur painter, he lives in London with his wife and three children.

Andrew Marr, 45, was born in Glasgow. After studying English at Cambridge, he joined The Scotsman and, by 1986, was political editor. He joined the launch team of The Independent before moving to The Economist as political editor. Moving back to The Independent he became chief political commentator before being made editor in 1996, a position from which he was sacked in 1998. In 2000, he was appointed the BBC's political editor. A keen amateur painter, he lives in London with his wife and three children.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you were unable to comment?
FRANCIS BOTTRALL, LONDON

Correspondents are often asked things to which there's no sensible answer. My best recent example was at a Nato summit, when I was asked - from memory - "Andrew, when the doors are shut, and the cameras are off, and they're just by themselves, what's the atmosphere like between Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac?" Er ...

What is the rudest thing you have ever said to Alastair Campbell?
WILL MCCARTHY, OXFORD

Once, long ago, I seriously lost my temper with him and said things that even mud-spattered Anglo-Saxons might wince at. But we are mutually polite.

Are you a bit of a lefty?
PAUL BARBER, PETERBOROUGH

I'm a patriotic anarcho-syndicalist cleverly posing as a well-paid suburban prig. But don't tell anyone ...

What is the real difference between the three main parties?
DULON MIAH, BY E-MAIL

If "real difference" means philosophy, here's my shorthand answer. Labour, by instinct, still wants to redistribute money and opportunities from the better-off to the poorer; the Conservatives don't believe the state is particularly effective in sustaining a good society, and think we're better off when left more to our own devices; and the Liberal Democrats are libertarian when it comes to the state and the law, but higher-spending on social causes. The differences are about the purpose and appropriate limits of political life.

Do you have a female fan base? If not, I might start an Andrew Marr appreciation society myself.
LAURA GRICE, SOUTHAMPTON

This question is too embarrassing to answer. But I would like to point out that I am extremely ugly, hunched and under four foot tall.

What qualities does a newspaper editor need and how many of these do you think you had?
JO KIRBY, LIVERPOOL

An editor needs: reasonable courage, sticking-power, imagination, diplomacy, amazing stamina, ferocious attention to detail, numeracy, chutzpah, moral intelligence (well, not all of them, obviously) and luck. In my case: yes, no, yes, no, no, no, yes, no, yes, no. So, four out of 10: not enough.

How would you reform the Palace of Westminster, given the chance?
CAROLINE ANDREWS, HARROGATE

Halve the number of MPs and double their pay.

For the second time in my half-century I will not be able to bring myself to vote for any party. When politicians stop treating me like a complete idiot I will vote for one of them. When do you think this will happen? Will I live that long?
PETER DONSON, BY E-MAIL

Surely there's a least-bad option for you, among the huge range of views and candidates? There are fools and liars in politics, as in the rest of life, but there are decent, fairly frank politicians aplenty.

If you were marooned on a desert island and were allowed to pick one MP from each of the three major parties to share your solitude, who would you choose?
PAT CARRUTHERS, BIRMINGHAM

This will finish them off, but for what it's worth, Richard Shepherd from the Tories; Charles Kennedy for the Lib Dems; and Frank Dobson for Labour. Or maybe, if it's a very dull island, I'd have to have that Bob Marshall-Andrews. And, bonus point, Alex Salmond of the SNP.

Is it possible to be a successful journalist and a successful father?
MEG WILLIAMS, LONDON

No.

I hear that you paint in your spare time. How would you describe your oeuvre?
GREG NASH, LONDON

Landscapes and portraits in oil and watercolour. They are poor imitations of people I admire, from Marquet to Paul Nash, and really not much good. One day, my fantasy is that I'll time to paint properly and do things that please me, if nobody else.

How often do you deliver a report or analysis that says one thing, when you have good reason to believe that something entirely different is actually true but, for whatever reason, you can't say it?
ROB BEATTIE, BY E-MAIL

Never. The day that happens is the day I should quit or be fired. It would be an absolute betrayal of the audience.

Is it true you only own two suits? If so, why?
VANISHA PATEL, BY E-MAIL

I've got three now, all made by a one-man tailoring shop in the East End: on telly you don't want your clothes to distract from the message, so built-to-last, fairly anonymous, well-cut suits - grey, blue and black - have proved to be the cheapest option. I'd prefer to be wearing a Cameron of Lochiel kilt and 1972-era stripy Man at C&A tank-top.

BBC2's 'Deadringers' portrays you with absurdly long arms, using a mind-boggling mixture of metaphors. What do you think of this? And does it make you laugh?
JACK CUNNINGHAM, OXFORD

Do the Liberal Democrats ever remind you of a winged cow soaring unhappily through the air? Is Tony Blair, plugged into the socket of National Power, in fact the implacable steam-iron for Peter Mandelson's drip-dry career? Do I sit on the suburban sofa of lost ambition, staring at the multi-coloured theatre of democratic vanities, laughing like a drain (and by the way, has anybody ever heard a drain laugh?) at the windmilling triple-joined mannequin, reducing my carefully pumiced similes to chocolate-coated hazelnuts... And why, by the way, is opportunism forever naked? What happened to opportunism in a three-piece suit... Sorry, I seem to have lost the thread.

'My Trade: A Short History of British Journalism' by Andrew Marr is published by Macmillan.