Labour unhappy at ITN interview with Prime Minister

The television regulator is expected to ask ITN to justify its interview with the Prime Minister last week, following a complaint by the Labour Party. Labour complained that the seven-minute interview, which led the News At Ten bulletin on the night of the TWA 747 crash off New York, broke the legal requirement on ITN to preserve "due impartiality".

The Independent Television Commission is believed to have accepted that ITN has a case to answer, despite the assertion by Stewart Purvis, the ITN chief executive, that "there was absolutely no deal ... about where the interview would be placed in the programme". Labour officials claim the interview was "soft" and that an equivalent slot was not offered to Tony Blair. John Rentoul