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The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked] 
THE BOOK OF TELLS Political interviews in Britain remained obsequious until the arrival of Reginald Bosanquet, who is credited with producing the first aggressive interruption of a British politician, although by today's standards it was a model of reticence. It happened in 1957 when Bosanquet interviewed Harold Macmillan. 'Sir', he interjected, 'as time is short could we question you on a domestic matter which I think is uppermost in our minds at the moment?' 'If you must', replied Macmillan. Gone are the days when interviewers apologized for interrupting, or allowed politicians to set the agenda for the interview. Nowadays interviewers have much more power and they are prepared to be combative. Politicians are now understandably nervous about interviewers, especially when, like the BBC's Jeremy Paxman, they are reputed to eat politicians for breakfast. Paxman is best remembered for a television interview in which he asked Michael Howard, the then Home Secretary, whether he had threatened to overrule the director of the Prison Service. The Home Secretary gave an evasive answer, so Paxman kept repeating the same question until he got a satisfactory answer. Indeed, he asked the same question a total of fourteen times! For a combative interview to take place it's necessary for both parties to play by the rules. There are occasions when both parties get hot under the collar - the altercation in 1988 between Vice President George Bush and Dan Rather, the CBS anchor, over the Iran-Contra affair is one example - and there are times when the interviewee decides that enough is enough and leaves. 12 This has happened several times with politicians. In 1982, when Robin Day was interviewing John Nott, the Defence Secretary, he referred 160

POLITICAL TELLS to him as a 'here-today-gone-tomorrow politician'. Nott stood up and left the room. Henry Kissinger also walked out on Jeremy Paxman when Paxman asked him, quite rightly, whether he felt like a fraud accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. Because interviewers now potentially wield more power than politicians, politicians need to find ways of ensuring that interviewers don't give them a tough time. One way to do this is for politicians to stamp their authority on the interview by showing that they are not prepared to be interrupted. Another is to be emphatic about their opinions. George W. Bush, for example, frequently uses the expression, 'make no mistake about it', to press home his point of view. One of his signature tells is a 'micro-nod', a barely perceptible dip of the head, which he tags on to the end of a statement, like a corporeal full stop - as if to say, 'There you are, I've told you now. There's nothing more to be said on the subject!' One of Margaret Thatcher's signature tells is the 'eyeflash'. Whenever she wants to emphasize a statement and make it appear incontrovertible, she momentarily enlarges her eyes, using them at the end of her utterance to create a pair of ocular exclamation marks. This is quite different from what happens in the 'eye-puff', where the eyes are opened wide in order to create an impression of childish attentiveness. Another option available to politicians is to intimidate the interviewer. This can be done by undermining the interviewer, attacking the question, and suggesting that the interviewer is misinformed or biased - in short, by breaking the interviewer's rhythm and undermining his or her confidence. One way to do this is by producing lots of 161 The Ultimate Body Language Book






















