Malcolm Turnbull had some advice for Leigh Sales and other journalists on interviewing style. Credit:Channel Ten

It's easy to imagine Leigh 'Redbeard' Sales and Emma 'The Stangler' Alberici with knives in their eyes and cutlass to hand making short work of a pompous, ruffle-wearer like Bolt, but one would have thought Malcolm Turnbull was made of sterner stuff.

Perhaps the foot massages, milk baths and fine cognac enemas with which Bolt's producers routinely ply conservative ministers of Crown left Malcolm somewhat dizzy and disoriented. He was surely not suggesting that the next time Alberici has, for instance, some numpty from Hizb ut-Tahrir on , that she go soft on him? He surely approved of Sales' world class shirt-fronting of the former Labor treasurer Wayne Swan when she asked him how could he look the country in the eye?

But of course no politicians enjoy being questioned. Not even forensically, as Turnbull suggests.

Complaining about 'aggressive' questioning when the audience might be better served by simply joining a chap at his club for a leisurely supper, followed by cigars and brandy in the billiards room, and a good long chat about the issues of the day, ignores the reality that most TV interviews run for only a few minutes. And if the interviewer doesn't aggressively pursue a line of questioning, even the dimmest politician will flap their gums until they've filled all of the available airtime with the sickly sweet reek of their own stewed brain farts.