Perhaps the biggest interviews I have ever done were with Theresa May and Boris Johnson. Both interviews received blanket media coverage, but for different reasons.
At the beginning of October 2017 Theresa May made her annual speech to her party conference in Manchester. I was not in the hall, but instead commentating on it for CNN in the hall next door. Midway through the speech I realised that everything had fallen silent. It turned out that a stand-up comedian had gone onto the stage and handed Theresa May a P45. A few minutes later a couple of letters from the conference backdrop slogan fell off. And to top it all, the prime minister had lost her voice and at times could barely speak. But she soldiered on and eventually her nightmare came to an end.
For several months I had been trying to persuade Number Ten to do a phone-in in the LBC studio. Much to my astonishment, they agreed to do it the week following May’s disastrous conference speech. She was the first prime minister since Tony Blair to do a radio phone-in outside an election period. These things always carry a slight risk for a politician because they can never be sure they won’t be tripped up by a member of the public. Interviewers can be tame beasts compared to Jill in Sidcup.
We took several calls and I thought she dealt with most of the questions very well, including one from a Conservative who told her that the only way of defeating Jeremy Corbyn was for her to stand down. Not an easy one for any politician to navigate.
But it was Brexit that produced the headlines. An Italian lady phoned in to ask about EU citizens’ rights post-Brexit and mentioned a possible second referendum. I then asked May the same question I’d asked Jeremy Hunt a week earlier: if there was a new referendum now, how would she vote? She simply refused to answer the question. Five times. She prevaricated, she obfuscated, she said she didn’t answer hypothetical questions. I said to her that she was leading a government that was implementing Brexit, so surely she thought it was a good idea and could therefore say she would vote Leave in another referendum. I got a death stare. I then said, “Well, if her health secretary could answer the question, why couldn’t she?” Answer came there none.
Some people thought I shouldn’t have asked her such a question – I must have known I wouldn’t get a straight answer. Others seem to think it was the most brilliant question an interviewer has ever asked. It wasn’t. I honestly thought she would follow Jeremy Hunt’s lead and say that, knowing what she knows now, she would vote for Brexit.
The clip was played out on every single news programme ad nauseam over the ensuing 24 hours. Andrew Neil on This Week called it “The Iain Dale Question”. I suppose one positive emerged from it: no one could ever again accuse me of being a Tory patsy interviewer.
She and her team were less than pleased. I never interviewed her again.
In June 2019 I was asked by Brandon Lewis, the chairman of the Conservative Party, if I would compère a series of hustings that the two finalists (who turned out to be Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt) in the race for the Tory Party leadership would be doing all over the country. In the end I agreed to host ten of the 16 events. The first was in Birmingham. It proved to be rather more exciting than I had anticipated.
The previous evening the Guardian had broken a story that the police had been called to the flat in South London that Boris shared with his girlfriend, Carrie Symonds. There had, apparently, been a “domestic”, which their neighbours had helpfully recorded on their phone and then called the police. What actually transpired is still a matter of conjecture, but it was a story that led in all the Saturday morning newspapers and news bulletins.
I travelled up to Birmingham with Brandon Lewis. “You do know I’ll have to ask Boris about this, don’t you?” I told him as we whizzed up the M1. “And if I do ask him about it, the audience will boo me.” When we got to the venue, I popped my head around the doors of both green rooms to say hello to the two candidates and their teams. Boris approached me, hand outstretched, and we indulged in some small talk. He then looked me in the eye and said, “You’re not going to mention this stuff in the papers, are you?” “Of course I am,” I said. “I won’t labour the point, but you must understand I will have to ask about it.”
I then assumed he would mention it in his five-minute speech before my interview section began. I was wrong. He didn’t. So I approached the subject immediately.
“Why were the police called to your house last night?” To applause from the audience, our aspiring prime minister said, “I don’t think they want to hear about that kind of thing. I think they want to hear about my plans for this country and my party.” He started to ramble on about red buses. My third attempt was brief and to the point: “Just answer it – it’s a very simple question. If the police are called to your home, it makes it everyone’s business.” Boris replied: “People are entitled to ask about my determination and my character. When I make a promise in politics, I keep that promise and I deliver.” I tried again: “Does a person’s private life have any bearing on their ability to be prime minister?” Totally avoiding the question, Boris said, “I have the determination and the courage to deliver.”
When the booing started I resisted the temptation to burst out laughing. I had a job to do and I was damn well going to do it. Had I not done I would have been a journalistic laughing stock, and rightly so.
In the write-ups afterwards the atmosphere was described as “Trumpian”. It was nothing of the sort. Had this happened in 1985 they would still have booed. Their tribal leader was under attack and they were going to circle the Tory wagons around him. I got that. In other circumstances, and had I been among them, I may well have joined in.
After the fifth time of asking I decided to give up. To go on would have been gratuitous. He clearly thought that if he gave an inch and offered any detail, it would have been open season for the rest of the media, and events proved him correct. To this day we don’t know any more about what actually happened than we did then.
I hadn’t realised the whole thing was being broadcast live on Sky News and the BBC. The rest of the interview and Q&A passed off without incident.
This is an extract from Why Can’t We All Just Get Along: Shout Less. Listen More by Iain Dale, out on 6 August.
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