Getting a straight answer from politicians in 2019 has become noticeably and increasingly difficult, the Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis has said.
The TV journalist was at the Cheltenham literature festival on Saturday to talk about her book Airhead: The Imperfect Art of Making News, which takes readers behind the scenes.
She was asked what her one question would be if she had Boris Johnson on Newsnight this week.
“I’m not entirely sure it matters what question you ask Boris Johnson,” she said, to audience laughter.
“I think increasingly I really come to appreciate the people, the politicians, the interviewees, of any stripe and size who are able to answer a question. It seems such a small, gentle thing to demand in 2019 but it has actually become the biggest ask that we can make.”
Maitlis said it was of course a key part of her job to elicit truthful answers from politicians but proved increasingly difficult.
“What I notice now is that a lot of the things that are said to us on camera, on air, are not particularly believed and quite often not true. It is an extraordinary position to be in. It is a really weird position to be in as a journalist.”
She gave as an example a politician telling her there was absolutely no doubt that Theresa May would get her Brexit deal through and then, off air, they casually admitted they would lose by about 80 votes.
“You just think, wow, that was three seconds, that was three seconds later!”
Maitlis said there was a real climate of politicians infantilising language, thinking that three words would shut down debate.
“It is a way of saying if you question something, you’re not an optimist … you’re being a bit negative or you’re not patriotic.”
That could be on any political side, she said, “whether it’s ‘Get Brexit done’” or ‘People before privilege’.”
Maitlis was announced as the new lead presenter of Newsnight in March and is grateful that viewers seem decreasingly interested in what she wears on screen.
That may change, though. The show got a recent relaunch and now has fuchsia sofas. It means she can now probably wear only black, navy or white. “My life has become incredibly simple since the relaunch because you don’t want to clash with a fuchsia sofa,” she said.
