The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

THE BOOK OF TELLS
deciding in advance what they're going to say in an interview,
regardless of what questions they're asked.
• GOING ON THE ATTACK. This is the next most common
response. Politicians often dislike the questions they're
asked. Sometimes it's because they feel the question is
biased or intended to make them look silly; at other times
it's because they think the question is factually incorrect
or just plain objectionable. Faced with a nasty question,
politicians can either play by the rules and provide
something that looks like an answer, or else they can
attack the question and say what they dislike about it.
Attacking the question is actually a fairly common
response and it offers two clear advantages - it puts the
spotlight back on the interviewer and helps to unnerve
the interviewer and discourage him or her from asking
difficult questions later on. It's even more intimidating
when the politician attacks the interviewer by suggesting
that he or she is uninformed, biased or unreasonable.
Politicians differ in their preferences for these two
strategies. For example, when she was Prime Minister,
Margaret Thatcher was more likely to attack the interviewer,
whereas Neil Kinnock, the Leader of the
Opposition, was more likely to attack the question.
• GIVING HALF AN ANSWER. The next most common
way of dodging a question is to offer an incomplete
answer. This happens when a politician responds to a
question that has several parts, or deals with only part of
a question, or starts to answer the question but gets
distracted and fails to provide a full answer.
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