In Competition No. 2851 you were invited to mark Jeremy Paxman’s departure from Newsnight by supplying an extract from an interview with a politician or statesman in which the interviewer doggedly but unsuccessfully attempts to get a straight answer to a straight question.
Even if you didn’t specify Paxo as your questioner, I was looking for something of the spirit of the man in your inquisitorial style. You didn’t hit his contemptuous, eyebrow-arching heights—who does?—but you provided an entertaining feast of mealy-mouthed obfuscation.
The winners take £30 and W.J. Webster nabs the extra fiver for an entry that features a slippery Boris Johnson.
W.J. Webster
I. Would you like to replace David Cameron as Prime Minister?
B.J. With whom? Good grief, man, there’s no vacancy and I’m no kingmaker.
I. Nor a potential rival?
B.J. He is my leader and I think of myself as his fidus Achates.
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