She’ll never do it. She’d have to be mad. Why take the risk? That’s what everyone said when I announced at the end of my BBC1 interview with Rishi Sunak that we were still hopeful that Liz Truss would also agree to a half-hour in-depth conversation in prime time. Well, guess what? She has agreed and will come into Broadcasting House just a week before most people expect her to move into No. 10. Too late to have any impact on the result, say the cynics. That ignores the fact that 10 to 15 per cent of the Tory selectorate will not, I’m told, vote until the last minute. More importantly, it ignores the tens of millions of people who have had no say in the choice of their next prime minister.

Politicians and their advisers fear that TV interviews have become what one described to me as ‘gotcha, gotcha, gotcha; clip, clip, clip; share, share, share’. They believe that click-hungry broadcasters are more interested in creating social media videos watched by millions than grown-up conversations watched by many fewer. I think they underestimate the public. Around two million people watched my interview with Sunak live. More than three million listen to the big 8.10 interviews on the Today programme. They want to see and hear their leaders questioned, challenged and tested about the decisions which shape their lives. Credit to Truss and Sunak for agreeing to just that.

During this campaign, Conservative writers have seemed shocked to discover that their assumptions – about, say, the value of low taxes or sound money; companies making profits or unions disrupting people’s lives – are not shared by millions of voters. Particularly by the young. Is it any wonder, when for years politicians have been programmed by their minders to speak in short pre-scripted, focus-group-tested soundbites rather than to make an argument as Margaret Thatcher did when she faced Robin Day or Brian Walden? All too often interviewees sound like political jukeboxes filled with tunes which they are eager to play again and again. After asking a question, I can sometimes hear a short pause followed by a whirring of mental cogs before track A1 (energy prices) or track B5 (immigration) is played. People deserve better.

I’m writing this while on holiday on the Suffolk coast. On my way here, I drove past a once empty plot of land which is now filled with hundreds of multicoloured containers stacked one on top of the other. ‘What’s in them?’ I asked someone in the know. The answer was ‘unused and unusable PPE’. It’s been estimated that around £4 billion worth of masks and gowns and gloves did not meet NHS standards. That’s the bad news. The good(ish) news is that there’s talk of burning it to generate power which will be much needed this winter.

Talking of wasting vast sums of money, I am reading a new book about my team, Manchester United. 1999: Manchester United, the Treble and All That, the story of United’s glorious treble-winning season, describes how Sir Alex Ferguson trained and motivated his players to work harder than anyone else and to play for each other. In the middle of their packed history-making season, he flew his team to Aberdeen to play a testimonial for the kitman at his old club. ‘Loyalty,’ he told his wealthy, privileged young players, ‘should always be recognised and rewarded.’ The Boss understood that however much money you have, it is people who really matter.

It is also people who make a holiday. Soon after we began ours, we learned the desperately sad news that a good friend had died weeks after discovering she had a brain tumour. We’ve been to visit other close friends here who are seriously ill. It has, I hope, reminded me that what really matters is not the next interview but friendship and fun. At this year’s village flower show I will think of Holly and the others who can no longer share the joy of seeing who has won the competition to grow the longest carrot or the largest marrow, or make the best scarecrow. Last year I won that with an entry entitled ‘Working from home’. My scarecrow’s top half was dressed in shirt and tie, his bottom in a wetsuit. He held a laptop in one hand and a life-jacket in his other. A fellow hack who lives locally is determined to knock me off my throne. His scarecrow will be badly dressed and hold a sign which reads ‘jobless’ and asks for support for him and his families. He’s named him ‘Boris’. I’ll just have to hope that the judges are also members of the local Conservative party.