Johnson nailed if not Neiled

Section 31 is a fictional organisation in Star Trek.

But it is also the section of the Broadcasting Authority Act in Ireland under which RTE was prohibited from broadcasting IRA spokespersons initially but later also Sinn Féin representatives and members for most of the period of the Troubles.

Journalists were especially vocal in arguing against the ban, partly on grounds of freedom of speech but also because they believed the ban protected Sinn Féin from proper public scrutiny. Once the party’s leaders were grilled on air and confronted with the “hard questions”, they would be badgered into admission and submission, the veil of silence concealing their moral depravity wrenched away — forever.

The ban was allowed to lapse by the then Minister in charge of broadcasting, Michael D Higgins, in January 1994, 8 months before the IRA declared a ceasefire. Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and their colleagues surrendered willingly to the scrutiny of the airwaves, surviving the experience with minimal discomfort. Those convinced the party was captive to its armalite past remained so. Those convinced of its conversion to the ballot box were not persuaded otherwise.

The media spectrum has expanded and the cycle of current affairs has accelerated dramatically in the 25 years since the Sinn Féin ban was lifted. In the run up to the election that Ireland faces in the next six months, party leaders will participate in countless “one on one” interviews and debates. In theory, these events are a contribution to the democratic process, and audience participation in debates a further enhancement of their democratic relevance. But do these interviews proliferate as a quality enhancement of the political process or because of their commercial utility as cheap light entertainment?

In theory, there are several ways in which political interviews contribute value to society. First, they render our leaders visible to us. Second, they allow our leaders to explain their policies and plans to us and to reveal something of the kind of person they are. Third, they allow those policies, plans and personalities to be tested by interrogation.

The presumption is that politicians are broadly but not entirely honest and truthful. So, as well as drawing out information, the interviewer’s job is to patrol politicians’ fidelity to honesty and truth. The purpose of the interview being to generate light rather than heat, adherence to a kind of Queensbury rules is also required. The interviewer is courteous though not obsequious. Questions and responses proceed strictly sequentially with interruptions only for clarification or to nudge the politician back towards the straight and narrow when they might occasionally drift from it. The relationship between interviewer and interviewee is fundamentally co-operative though not collaborative.

Maybe political interviews were like that once, but they certainly are not today. The relationship between interviewer and interviewee is fundamentally antagonistic. Interviews are trials predicated on presumption of politicians’ guilt and shiftiness rather than innocence and openness. They are about holding politicians to account, sure. But not by some neutral process to yield information and insight but rather by making politicians squirm. Interviews have become a gauntlet, not a cakewalk.

Politicians feel obliged to do them, partly because they are an established part of election campaigns so ducking them doesn’t look good and partly because, like Prince Andrew, politicians are frequently vain enough to imagine that they can stay dry and look good no matter how heavy the rain the interviewer pours on their parade.

Interviewers are no less vain. Is there any among them who does not imagine that they can deliver the knockout blow that will leave the politician floundering if not out cold, and whose greatest desire is to do just that, less in the public interest than for their own aggrandisement?

So politicians come to interviews armed less with the unanswerable ammunition of demonstrable truth, but with a defensive armoury of soundbites, catch phrases and all-purpose “stock” points with which to wrap their interviewer in a kind of asphyxiating verbal bear hug from which the interviewer can only periodically free their arms to get in a few jabs. Almost never will answers proceed without interruption because interviewers know that politicians will simply drone on with self-serving rehearsed spiels to wind the clock down.

A perfect example was the pre-election television interview between the BBC’s Andrew Marr and Boris Johnson. This was framed by Mr. Johnson’s unwillingness to present himself before the BBC’s premier pugilist interviewer, Andrew Neil, thus obliging Mr. Marr to strain to project himself as at least as aggressive and dangerous an interrogator as Mr. Neil would have been, “heavyweight” enough to joust with Mr. Johnson.

I decided to read the 6,000 word transcript before watching the 27 minute interview on Youtube so that I could absorb the content before being bombarded by the bombast.

The first and largest part of the interview, 11 minutes, was about the cluster of issues arising from the terrorist incident in London the previous day when Usman Khan had killed two people before being shot dead by police. Remembering that this interview was supposed to be about the choice of leader to manage the country’s affairs for the next five years, it is questionable why so much of it should be devoted to the issue dominating the news cycle on the particular day but which was likely to disappear from the charts within days. But for the modern media, a moment of present trumps years of future.

Mr. Khan had previously been jailed for terrorist offences in 2012, but released after serving only a portion of his sentence under an early release programme established by the Labour government in 2008. So, most of this section of the interview consisted of Mr. Johnson blaming the incident on Labour’s early release legislation and Mr. Marr blaming the Tories for having done nothing about the programme during nine years of office — including a stock query whether Mr. Johnson might want to apologise for the fact that the attack happened. The Prime Minister stepped around that trap.

Much of the rest of the interview was played to a similar common theme; Mr. Marr parading how public services had been eroded in the recent past and Mr. Johnson parroting about his intended heavy investment in these services in the near future.

Both were essentially talking past each other, questions and responses peppered with interruptions.

At various points along the way, Mr. Marr prospected for “gotcha” moments. First, he asked how many others were out on the streets on early release like Mr. Khan. But Mr. Johnson was able to give the exact figure; 74. Then he asked what measures the government was taking to keep an eye on them. But Mr. Johnson was able to nail that too.

Mr. Marr moved on. “Do you know how many magistrates and crown courts you have closed as a party in the last ten years? Do you know how many have been closed in England and Wales?”

Mr. Johnson parried weakly: “We will be making investments to the Criminal Justice system.”

Mr. Marr sensed blood: “Do you know?”

Mr. Johnson surrendered: “- across the board. I can’t give you a figure.”

Another “playful” technique is cat and mouse — when the interviewer signals that a punch is coming without revealing from where exactly.

Mr. Marr: “You are a man as everyone can hear right now. You’re a man who enjoys using words. You’re a very literate man. You had wonderful libraries when you were growing up. You had wonderful libraries at Eton and Oxford. Does the rest of the country deserve to have very good libraries as well?”

Mr. Johnson: “It certainly does and if I look at the…”

Mr. Marr: “So why have you closed 500 libraries around the country?” Straight into the solar plexus.

Another interviewer advantage is the ability to shift subjects rapidly if the previous one has failed to yield embarrassment paydirt.

After the libraries, it was a quick canter through work benefits to child poverty, a brief swing by Brexit (and Northern Ireland), the risk of an economic downturn derailing Tory spending plans, Islamophobia in the Tory party, Andrew Neil, Donald Trump to the finish, all in 10 minutes, less than the time allotted to fallout from London Bridge alone, too little time to yield any illumination.

Neither man was addressing the other at all, but the audience beyond the curtain to whom they were really if indirectly talking about themselves. Mr. Marr was saying: “Look how I grilled him, tripped him up a few times, left more than a few bruises. Aren’t I the man!” Mr. Johnson: “I got through that okay, jacket a bit ruffled but no serious damage. That’s the BBC done.” The “issues” were only raw material.

Imagine an interview where the questioner asked only short questions and the respondent replied with equal precision addressing only the question that was asked before the questioner came in again.

Or, if the interview was really about education rather than entertainment, the correct approach might be even more extreme. The interviewer would submit the proposed questions in advance, the politician the proposed replies. Then there would be some back and forth to reach agreement on the language of both which would be what each would use, to the letter, when they got to the studio.

Of course, either of those formats would cause the audience to switch to Netflix in droves, but we might end up being better informed if at no risk of insomnia.