Confucius say, “Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure.”

Having ignored these wise words; Natalie Bennett, leader of the Greens, has no doubt crawled into a hole to hide for a while and lick her wounds.

This morning she was quizzed on the radio about some figures on Social Housing. She ummed, ahhed, coughed and spluttered and generally made a bit of a pillock of herself. It was truly awful. If you’ve not listened to the interview and you get a kick out of schadenfreude, set your cringe-o-meter to high and have a listen here

So, why am I blogging about the misfortune of Ms Bennett? She has nowt to do with platforms, pensions or investments.

Preparation is the answer. It doesn’t matter what the subject and it doesn’t matter who’s interviewing you. It could be Paxo, it could be an intern on a community radio station. If you’ve not prepped, you (and worse still the company you’re representing) risk coming across as ill-informed and irrelevant.

I’ve had to prep many execs and company spokespeople for interviews over the years. Some recorded, some live. The best spokespeople are always prepared. They accept that they are there to make their company look good. They accept they might be asked awkward and uncomfortable questions. And they accept that they need to do their homework, not just on the topic de jour, but on all the toxic stuff that you hope never to have to answer.

I suspect Natalie Bennett might be doing one of two things today: Accepting she was to blame for being utterly unprepared and taking personal responsibility, or firing her PR adviser whose job it is to ensure she doesn’t come across as Kermit the frog!. (a green Muppet, Geddit?)