Richard Madeley abruptly stops interview after Gavin Williamson repeatedly dodges question about Putin

Presenter asks: 'Right, you’re not going to answer, are you?'

TV presenter Richard Madeley abruptly stopped a live interview with the defence secretary after the minister avoided answering his question four times.

The ITV Good Morning Britain guest host asked Gavin Williamson whether he regretted telling Russia to “go away and shut up” after Moscow denied carrying out a nerve agent attack in Salisbury.

But the defence secretary responded by paying tribute to health workers who treated Sergei and Yulia Skripal and talking about the international response to the chemical attack.

Mr Madeley repeatedly interrupted him to demand an answer, before finally stopping the interview.

The exchange began by the presenter saying: “You told Russia to ‘shut up and go away’. Do you regret that now? Do you think it was a bit too informal?”

Mr Williamson responded: “I’d like to pay tribute to the health service personnel who did an amazing job...”

Mr Madeley then pressed the defence secretary several times for an answer and Mr Williamson failed to address it.

The conversation culminated with the TV presenter dubbing Mr Williamson’s address to Russia “Trump-esque”.

Mr Madeley said: “Please don’t tell me what happened, because we know what happened. Do you regret using that language? That is the question.”

The minister responded: “What was right was actually that we came together with our allies and made it absolutely clear to Russia that they couldn’t act in that...”

The host said: “Right, you’re not going to answer, are you? OK. All right, interview terminated because you won’t answer the question. It would be helpful if you answered a straight question with a straight answer.”

After terminating the interview, Mr Madeley said: “What are they like? What are these politicians like, when you give them a straight question?

“It would have been so easy to say, ‘No, I don’t, I think it was an appropriate expression’, or to say, ‘Yes, probably, on reflection, I should have perhaps been a little more formal’.”

Mr Williamson was speaking from West Midlands Safari Park in Worcestershire, where he was meeting military personnel preparing to go to Malawi to train park rangers to protect elephants and rhinos from poachers.

PA contributed to this report