by John Rentoul
Nile Gardiner, Daily Mail, 9 December 2009. The President had given a speech about Afghanistan in which he did not mention the UK.
Sebastian Shakespeare, London Evening Standard, 15 December 2009. An unusual achievement in asking, about the invasion of Iraq, two Questions to Which the Answer is No in a single headline.
Iain Martin, on his blog, 7 January 2010. I said at the time that I feared that this was a Question to Which the Answer is No, and so it proved. When Alistair Darling published his memoir of his time as Gordon Brown’s Chancellor, Back from the Brink (Atlantic Books), in 2011, he wrote: ‘I met him later that afternoon, shortly after 4 o’clock ... He was in a dark mood, unsurprisingly, but there was no way that he was going. He was convinced that he had to stay on and see it through. We had a long talk about the need for him to engage with his colleagues ...By the time I left the room, I was satisfied that we had a mutual understanding of what we needed to do together.’ A pity.
Mail on Sunday leading article, 24 January 2010. A rather special one, this, and possibly the first Question to Which the Answer is No in my collection that was not a headline. Such a pile-up of a sentence, with at least three subtextual slurs on David Miliband, that somebody must have been very proud of it.
Ed Yong, Not Exactly Rocket Science blog, 2 February 2010. Ed Yong reported the findings of a Birmingham University study, which found, surprise, surprise, that ‘reactors’ move more quickly than ‘initiators’, but that this is not enough to make up for the 200 milliseconds it takes to start reacting in the first place.
Daily Mail, 6 February 2010. This cover line on the Saturday Weekend section carried a rehash of an old story about Oscar, a cat in a nursing home in America that can tell when residents are about to die.
Daily Mail, 6 February 2010. A classic conspiracy theory, which would depend on executives in pharmaceutical companies taking a substantial risk of going to jail.
A mystery billboard, somewhere in America, 10 February 2010. Spotted thirteen months after George W. Bush left the White House.
London Evening Standard, 25 February 2010. Nor a plague of boils, darkness over the land, rain of frogs or any of the other evils predicted by a Conservative pre-election campaign against the ‘Hung Parliament Party’.
Socialist Workers Party poster, 4 March 2010. This was the title of a meeting organised by the SWP on 4 March 2010, although how many of its target audience will know anything about the student unrest of 32 years earlier is debatable.
John Rentoul, Independent blog, 11 March 2010. Another historic first, this was a question in the series that I asked myself, on the Independent blog, about a YouGov opinion poll putting the Conservatives on 37 per cent and Labour on 34 per cent.
The result of the election two months later was a Conservative lead of seven points, with 37 per cent to Labour’s 30 per cent, thus proving the wisdom of Tom Freeman’s all-purpose news report, which I reproduce with his permission:
A newly released statistic shows that the thing it measures has sharply and unexpectedly changed. The move takes the number index past the psychologically important level at which over-excitable fools gibber a bit.
The sheer oddness of the number, which has been met with gaping and shrieks aplenty, almost certainly means that it means very little. The index usually only changes gradually, and this latest statistic represents the biggest ever change since records began not all that long ago. The nearest comparison was the sudden shift a couple of years back, after which nothing much happened except that it later turned out to have been wrong.
Today’s statistic is the first provisional estimate for the number covering a period of time that did actually pass some while ago without anyone noticing anything unusual. It is still liable to be revised a few times as new data comes in, then encased in concrete and dumped in the sea, before being revised again in a very quiet voice in the dead of night.
A spokesman from the Institute For Stuff (IFS) said: ‘You got me out of bed for this?’
Paul Richards, Progress magazine, 12 March 2010. This one was cheating, because Paul Richards, who asked it in an article in Progress magazine, did not imply that the answer was yes. He was actually making a point about the misuse of historical conjecture, comparing Douglas Carswell, the Conservative MP, who suggested that the Levellers were early Tories, to the spiritualist interviewed by the Sun in 1992, who was asked how Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin, Karl Marx and Chairman Mao would have voted (Churchill was for John Major; the rest for Neil Kinnock, naturally).
Psychological Science, 16 March 2010. The study discussed in this article suggested that doing something virtuous in one part of your life gives you the licence to behave badly in other parts.
Daily Mail, 18 March 2010. ‘It seems like a crazy idea,’ said Hank Albarelli, ‘an investigative journalist and author’ quoted by the Mail. ‘If someone came to you and said a CIA unit were going to poison a French town with acid, you’d laugh at them. But that’s what happened – no question.’ No further questions, your honour. Oh, wait. There are.
Daily Mail, 20 March 2010. At this point I began to suspect that the Daily Mail’s sub-editors were doing it on purpose.
John Rentoul, Independent blog, 21 March 2010. This was a question asked, unfortunately, by me, on the Independent blog, on the assumption that Labour and the Liberal Democrats might form a coalition in a hung parliament. Even on that assumption, however, it was a stupid idea. When the Lib Dems did enter a coalition a few weeks later, the Conservatives did not feel that they had to offer them the Chancellorship.
UK Forces Media Ops blog, 21 March 2010. A question asked on the blog of the UK Forces Media Ops team in Helmand. If they meant did it have oil, the answer was no. If they meant would it become an environmentally unsustainable collection of air-conditioned skyscrapers in a desert, the answer was still no. If they meant would westerners there get into trouble over women and alcohol, the answer was: not for much longer.
George Pitcher, Telegraph blog, 23 March 2010. Asked by the religion editor of the Daily Telegraph on his blog. An update of the Government’s National Security Strategy had mentioned the possibility that terrorists might try to attack London with a ‘dirty’ nuclear device. But this Question to Which the Answer is No ought to win some additional prize for sheer illogical noodliness. It posits this thought process in the mind of the average voter: ‘I’m worried about jihadist terrorism; I was going to vote Tory but now I won’t.’ It makes sense to the Reverend Pitcher, anyway.
Daily Mail, 25 March 2010. The Daily Mail sub-editors were trying to subvert my series by making it hard to know whether they had asked a Question to Which the Answer is No or not. In fact, this, on a comment article by Stephen Glover, was not. They meant, ‘Is there now any area of our lives ... ’ Instead, they managed to ask, if you untangle the double negative and correct the grammar, ‘Is there an area into which the Nanny State will poke its nose?’ To which the answer is yes.
Will Straw, Left Foot Forward blog, 30 March 2010. Will Straw at Left Foot Forward wrote an article that had everything: microblogging, suspect use of statistics and a Question to Which the Answer is No.
Daily Mail, 30 March 2010. The Daily Mail sub-editors showed increasing ingenuity in finding new ways to provoke me. ‘Researchers say’ is a lovely touch on this strapline, above a huge headline in the health section, ‘The Toxic Timebomb’.
The Spectator, 2 April 2010. A question asked by Alex Massie, paraphrasing a speech made in the US House of Representatives by Hank Johnson, a Democrat ‘whom the good people of Georgia’s Fourth Congressional District have seen fit to send to Washington’, as Massie put it. Johnson was concerned that the Pacific island of Guam, an American territory, was listing and ‘may tip over’.
Manchester United supporters’ forum, April 2010. I have no idea what this question is about, or why it was asked on a Manchester United supporters’ internet forum, but I am pretty sure that the answer is no.
Keep Tony For PM blog, 8
April 2010. Asked by Blair Supporter on the blog that was still called ‘Keep Tony For PM’ nearly three years after his departure from Downing Street, about the Blair-hating film, The Ghost Writer, directed by Polanski from the novel by Harris, a former friend of the Blairs’. I said she would not sue, not because the portrayal of her and her husband in the film is not defamatory, but because she is not mad.
Peza, 9 April 2010. A question asked by Peza, who appeared to be a cat, on an internet forum. One reader had a good reply: ‘Peza, are you drinking that vodka flavoured milk?’
Iain Dale’s Diary blog, 11 April 2010. A question asked by Iain Dale, the Conservative blogger, about this UK Independence Party election poster. The answer was, of course, no, it is offensive, silly and insulting to the intelligence of the voters. UKIP won 3.2 per cent of the vote at the election.
Guardian, 13 April 2010. If they meant that blokes with grey pony tails would play air guitar with models of molecules and illegally download books about the Large Hadron Collider, I don’t think so.
Toby Young in the Daily Telegraph, 15 April 2010. A somewhat perverse question, given that Rowling had just written a passionate pro-Labour article in the previous day’s Times, which concluded: ‘I’ve never voted Tory before ... and they keep on reminding me why.’ She also donated £1m to the Labour Party in 2008. Nevertheless, Young suggested that she was a closet Conservative, comparing Hogwarts to Eton and Quidditch to the wall game, and claiming that Rowling’s fictional school is ‘heritage Britain sprinkled with fairy dust’.
Never mind that Young missed the point about the artistic imagination, he had missed an even more telling piece of evidence for his ridiculous argument. The currency of Rowling’s wizarding world consists of knuts, of which 29 make a sickle, of which 17 in turn make a galleon. She is not only nostalgic for the pre-decimalisation world before 1971, therefore, but a Eurosceptic who would view a single currency divided into cents with horror.
Or, possibly, not.
This was not the end of the matter, however. Tim Johnson, a blogger known as Conservative Party Reptile, wrote to point out the following:
The subplot of The Order of the Phoenix is that the Ministry of Magic is concerned that the headmaster of Hogwarts is running it as a sort of Dumbledorian madrassah, training up students to fight the Government. As a result they impose ever more centralised control of education, imposing a school inspector who gradually increases her power to remove teachers, micro-manage the school rules and eventually take control of the school curriculum itself. This process of greater state involvement in education is portrayed as extremely malign, with the curtailment of independence stifling the quality of education and leading to a counter-productive focus on passing tests, regardless of their applicability to real life. At the end, the students rebel and force the return of Dumbledore and the end of Government meddling.
Nice try, sir.
Oliver Burkeman, the Guardian, 20 April 2010. An early sign of the Guardian’s adoration of St Nicholas was Oliver Burkeman’s question. Clegg had pulled off the amazing feat of exceeding the low expectations of him in the first televised debates between party leaders in British election history. The Guardian went on to urge its readers to vote Liberal Democrat before regretting it.
Peter Kellner, yougov.co.uk, 20 April 2010. More Clegg-mania from Peter Kellner, the president of YouGov, the opinion polling company, with this question on his website.
Fox News, 28 April 2010. Winner of the 2010 Outstanding Effort Brass Plate, asked by Fox News and first spotted, to my chagrin, by Oliver Kamm, from whom I stole the idea of the series in the first place.
Daily Mail, 3 May 2010. This headline was found on an impenetrable story by Richard Kay, a diarist, about the 10th anniversary party of Cherie Blair’s legal chambers, Matrix, with added innuendo of the usual ‘They’re all mad’ variety.
Iain Dale’s Diary blog, 6 May 2010. One of my favourites in the series, a question asked by Iain Dale on his blog on election night, shortly after the polls closed at 10pm and the exit poll, run jointly by the BBC, ITN and Sky, was published. Reassuring his fellow Conservative supporters, he wrote:
So the exit poll shows the Tories on 307 seats, 19 short of an overall majority. Don’t panic chaps and chapesses. My view is that by 4am this poll will have been shown to be wrong. It seems too incredible to be true that the LibDems are only predicted to get 59 seats. I’ll run naked down Whitehall if that turns out to be true.
The result, confirmed the next day, was that the Tories had exactly 307 seats and the Liberal Democrats did not even win as many as 59 seats, ending up with 57. The naked run down Whitehall has not yet taken place.
Daily Mail, 10 May 2010. A classic, asked by the Daily Mail and drawn to my attention by Matthew Barrett. Barrett, who started to collect a rival series of Questions to Which the Answer is No on his blog, Working Class Tory, gave up and paid me the ultimate compliment: ‘You have proved to be the best compiler of useless headlines in the blogosphere.’
Chris Ames, iraqinquirydigest.org, 12 May 2010. A question of numbing self-absorption asked by Chris Ames of the antiwar Iraq Inquiry Digest website. The answer was of course in the negative because the old government revealed the truth about Iraq at all times. The belief that there is some hidden truth about the war that has to be ‘revealed’ is a conspiracy theory held by those whose opposition to the war was, or became, so fierce that they were convinced that no reasonable person could have supported it for the reasons given.
James Delingpole, Telegraph blog, 14 May 2010. James Delingpole, a man with possibly the most unreasonable views on climate change in a crowded field, asked this on his Telegraph blog after Chris Huhne’s appointment as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.
Ian Leslie, Marbury blog, 17 May 2010. An easy one, this. Leslie explained why the answer is no, too, which is against the rules but the question is too interesting not to be included.
Researchers looked at hundreds of professional penalties and fed the results into a computer, breaking them down according to where the shot was placed, where the keeper threw himself, and whether a goal was scored or not. From this they were able to work out what the optimal strategies were for taker and keeper. It turned out the best strategy for the keeper is to stay where he is. Takers send the ball down the middle about 33% of the time, and left or right about 15% each.
He did not explain what happened to the other 27 per cent of penalties, but let us not be distracted. The point is that, rationally speaking, goalkeepers ought to stand still.
Given the high stakes involved, the hundreds of hours of experience, and the high-powered training programmes supporting them you’d think goalies would adhere to this strategy. But they don’t: goalkeepers stay where they are in only about 6% of penalty kicks.
The researchers interviewed goalkeepers to find out why, and reported:
Goalkeepers feel a pressure to act because they would feel guiltier missing a ball while staying in the centre than missing it while trying to do something.
Which is all very well but only reinforces my belief that it is demeaning for a professional sport to decide the outcome of tied matches by a bout of what is, in effect, scissors-paper-stone.
Christian Today, 20 May 2010. I was distracted by the constitutional novelty of the formation of a peacetime coalition government, but fortunately my friend Oliver Kamm spotted this one, asked by an Australian magazine called Christian Today.
Mike Smithson, politicalbetting.com, 20 May 2010. The other big political story of the middle of 2010 was the start of the Labour leadership election campaign. Diane Abbott came fifth out of five candidates, the first to be eliminated, with 7 per cent of the vote on in the first round.
Daily Mail, 21 May 2010. A sensational return to form by the Daily Mail after a dull patch. This story about the claims of Craig Venter, a supposed geneticist, to have created a living cell could have been created in the Mail’s own journalistic test tube. Elsewhere in the newspaper,
Michael Hanlon, the Mail’s science editor, commented on the Venter story, asking another Question to Which the Answer is No: ‘Has he created a monster?’
Samira Shackle, New Statesman, 21 May 2010. This was what some Conservative MPs were saying, apparently, about the new Prime Minister’s attempt to take over the 1922 Committee, which since, er, 1923 has been the exclusive preserve of back-bench MPs. David Cameron wanted it to allow ministers to attend and vote at its meetings.
An earlier Mugabe comparison had prompted me to propose a Protocol to Godwin’s Law. I suggested that the following should be appended: ‘The first one to compare his or her opponent to Robert Mugabe loses the argument.’ Unfortunately I got Godwin’s Law wrong. I thought it said that the first person to mention the Nazis loses. It actually states that, the longer an argument on an internet forum goes on, the probability that someone will mention the Nazis will approach 100 per cent. Which is sort of the same thing, expressed differently.
Charlotte Gore, Spectator, 23 May 2010. As the Liberal Democrats got nothing out of the coalition that David Cameron did not want to do anyway, apart from a referendum on electoral reform, which they lost, and twenty-two ministerial jobs, the question answers itself.
