Every interview, someone asks a politician a hard question, and they answer a different question instead. I'm trying to figure out why "I don't know" is basically banned.
I've been watching a lot of interviews lately (yes, this is what I do for fun, leave me alone) and I've noticed something.
Politicians almost never say "I don't know."
You can ask one of them a question that nobody could possibly know the answer to - like "what will inflation be in three years?" - and they will still answer it. Confidently. With a little smile. Like they have a crystal ball in their other suit pocket.
I asked Dad why. He had three theories.
Theory 1: If you say "I don't know", the next day's headline is "Minister Admits They Don't Know." Even if the honest answer is "nobody knows", it gets turned into a weakness.
Theory 2: Politicians are trained. Like, actually trained. Someone teaches them how to bridge from a hard question back to a thing they wanted to say anyway. It's a skill. It's also a bit annoying.
Theory 3: Some of them genuinely do think they know. Which is scarier than the first two.
Here's what I want to see one day: a politician who says "good question, I don't have a full answer yet, I'll come back to you on Friday." And then actually does. I think that person would win a lot of votes from people my age, because we can smell a dodge from a kilometre away.
Until then, here's a little game you can play during election interviews: every time someone answers a question they weren't asked, give yourself a point. By the end of a six o'clock news bulletin you'll have enough points to buy a small car.