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TONGUES WAGGED and the chattering classes chattered. Why was Mark Little leaving one of the plum jobs in television journalism? What did his decision say about the state of the media? And what on earth was he going to do? He tells PAUL CULLENwhy

At least George Lee defected to the known world of politics, a mere hop across the plinth of Leinster House, but why was Little, who presents his last Prime Timeon Thursday, after seven years at the helm, turning his back on the cameras? As we met last week on a bleak midwinter, pre-Budget morning, the still boyish-looking 41-year-old is keen to scotch a few rumours. He is the Prime Timepresenter who doesn’t have eight children or front Battle of the Sexes, but he bristles at suggestions that his departure might have been prompted by pique directed at Miriam O’Callaghan. Tabloid claims that he might have been resentful of his colleague’s bigger wage packet were “just nonsense, Chinese whispers become fact”.