Let’s be clear, minister: that’s as clear as mud
...OR WHY POLITICIANS’ REPETITIVE INTERVIEWS ARE CLEARLY INFURIATING
I’VE never had breakfast with a government minister, but I can imagine how it would go. First, I’d wish him good morning, and ask him how he had slept.
Minister: ‘ Let’s be clear about this, I’ve made this very clear.’ Me: ‘So you slept well?’ Minister: ‘ I’m not going to get into hypotheticals. I’ve made that very clear. I couldn’t have made it clearer.’
Me: ‘Tea or coffee?’ Minister: ‘It’s never been a question of tea or coffee, we’ve always been very clear about that.’ Me: ‘So you don’t want . . .’ Minister: ‘ If you’ll just let me finish.’
Of course, in some sense there’s no need to imagine it. Anyone who listens to Radio 4’ s Today programme each morning is offered a daily opportunity to share their breakfast with a minister.
Yesterday, it was the turn of Mark Harper, the Secretary of State for Transport. From a radio car in Yorkshire, he seemed to be making some sort of announcement about railways — though, as far as I could gather, it was really a re-announcement of an announcement he had already made, four months ago.
I suspect he had three cards on his laps, with the words ‘ game - c h a n g i n g ’ , ‘welcome’ and ‘transformational’ in thick black felt-tip capitals. His task was to repeat them as often as possible.
The Government had, he said, given ‘game-changing’ amounts of money to select local authorities. It was, he added, a ‘ transformational’ amount of money.
Maybe, said Mishal Husain, but why were councils going to have to wait for it until next year, when they could be spending it now?
‘ This is a transformational amount of money that they’ve never had before,’ he replied. Such a huge sum meant that they needed extra time to work out how to spend it. It was, he added, a ‘game-changing’ amount.
He said the councils would welcome it, and then he repeated that they would welcome it, adding that it would be ‘ welcomed by people across the country’.
In fact, he told us that they would welcome it three times in the same sentence, and ended by describing the amount, once more, as ‘ game- changing’. After five minutes of this — the verbal equivalent of kicking a ball against a brick wall — Mishal said: ‘Let us turn to events of the weekend.’
The new topic of conversation was Lee Anderson, the latest in a long line of hand-picked blabbermouth blockheads to be first deputy chairman, then former deputy chairman, of the Tory party.
Harper’s brief, it emerged, was to make it ‘very clear’ that Anderson had been wrong to say that ‘Islamists’ had ‘ got control’ of London Mayor Sadiq Khan, but on no account to say why — ‘I’m not going to get into that’.
It was a bit like a maths teacher declaring that two plus two equals three is wrong, but refusing to give a reason. Like so many MPs on the Today programme, Harper feels that the best way to ward off the next question is to repeat his first answer over and over again.
If the interviewer tries to ask another question, simply accuse her of interrupting, and then, after she has given way, go on repeating what you have already said. ‘What Lee Anderson said about him was wrong, and he shouldn’t have said it . . . swift action was taken . . .’ Mishal tried to get in with another question, but Harper suggested he had more to say on the matter. ‘ Hang on, hang on . . . that’s why swift action was taken and that swift action was welcome. It sends a clear message that those sort of comments are not acceptable.’
BY NOW, I had started counting the times Harper said the words ‘clear’ or ‘very clear’. In the six minutes devoted to the Anderson question, he said that he wanted to send a ‘clear’ message; that he had been ‘very clear’ that Anderson was wrong; that he had made his position ‘very clear’; and that his party was ‘very clear’ about the need for ‘firm action’.
‘We’ve been very clear about it, there’s no place for hatred in our society against any group of people, the Government’s been very clear about that.’
In all, he said he was ‘clear’ or ‘very clear’ 13 times in this sixminute section, or, on average, once every 30 seconds. Pity the poor students! Had it been a drinking game, I would have fast become legless.