Channel 4 News anchor Krishnan Guru-Murthy has said the media’s decreasing access to senior politicians has become “worse than farcical” and “very bad for democracy”.

In his Ways to Change the World podcast, Guru-Murthy said it had become “relatively rare” for cabinet ministers and other high-profile politicians to engage with the media.

But, he said, 20 years ago they would appear on programmes like Channel 4 News, Newsnight, BBC Radio 4’s Today “and pretty much anyone who would ask”.