The terror of being on Any Questions without any easy answers

I enjoy BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions and feel privileged when I am asked to join Jonathan Dimbleby’s panel.

I enjoy BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions and feel privileged when I am asked to join Jonathan Dimbleby’s panel. But like (I suspect) any other panellist when the On Air light goes on, I’m conscious of a temptation to play to the gallery and adjust my opinions and the force with which I express them to maximise either cheers or boos — or at least elicit a strong reaction. The reaction one most fears is the bored or baffled silence that may follow too nuanced or uncertain an answer.

This is not a modern tendency, or the peculiar influence of Any Questions. It’s the way an open democracy pushes those who seek public approval. ‘Have I said something foolish?’ was the reported reaction of Phocion to his friend, Diogenes Laertius, after the crowd applauded a point in his speech, 2,161 years ago.