Why it was pointless for Mumsnet to ask Boris Johnson if we can believe him

A Mumsnet user asked the prime minister: ‘Why should we believe anything you say when it’s been proved you’re a habitual liar?’ John Rentoul didn’t think much of it

The man himself got away with a fairly soft interview about how good he is at changing nappies (PA)

It was theatre, if you think throwing rotten tomatoes at a celebrity in the stocks is theatre. The opening question to Boris Johnson when he agreed to answer Mumsnet users’ questions was more of a statement: “Why should we believe anything you say when it’s been proved you’re a habitual liar?”

As questions go, it was strictly rhetorical, purely for effect. Indeed, it was logically pointless. If you start by telling someone they are a liar, you are saying that you do not believe anything they say, so there is by definition no way they can persuade you otherwise.

I don’t blame Justine Roberts, the founder of Mumsnet, who was putting the questions on behalf of her users. She said that the opening question was typical of about half the questions users had sent in, so she was merely the medium, not the messenger. But if there were so many similar questions, she could at least have chosen one that wasn’t quite so self-defeating. “Why do you think so many people think you are a liar, and how can you persuade them you are not?” would have been a more interesting question and it might even have elicited a more interesting answer.

As it was, the prime minister didn’t seem too put out. Given that the opening question was formally pointless, one of the purposes of it, from the point of view of the questioner, would have been to see Johnson squirm. In which case, all those who wanted it asked would have been disappointed. Johnson looked minimally offended, but tried to respond in good humour: “First of all I don’t agree with the premise of the question. But I think the best way to answer that is to say: look at what I get on and deliver; what I say I’m going to do. That’s what I am in politics to try to do. I’m there to try to make things better for people if I possibly can.” And a bit more waffle.

He later got on to explaining why he thought he hadn’t broken the law – which is the subject on which he stands accused of “knowingly misleading” parliament – because he thought it was his job “as a leader” to keep up his staff’s morale, which included thanking them for their hard work and saying nice things about them when they left. He also tried to point out that the police seemed to agree with him, as he wasn’t issued with a penalty notice for any of those gatherings – only getting one for the time he and Rishi Sunak were ambushed with some birthday sandwiches in between meetings (“that miserable event”).

Those were substantive responses to the question he might have been asked, but instead the first few minutes of the interview were wasted on a pointless question and a waffly answer.

Not that most people will have thought that the question was wasted. They are not interested in Johnson’s replies because they have already decided that they are worthless, so the main point of the question for them is to send a signal, to let the prime minister know how much he is despised – and in asking the “question” to let other people who despise him know that you are one of them.

But what, really, is the point of that? Some people will imagine that this is “holding the powerful to account” and that it is what journalists ought to be doing at every news conference. On the contrary, pointless questions let the powerful get away without scrutiny because they can drivel on about delivering on the people’s priorities instead of explaining and defending what they are doing.

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The Mumsnet majority are engaged in magical thinking: that if only someone were courageous enough to call Johnson a liar to his face, he would finally realise the error of his ways and promise to mend them. Especially if he is called a “proven liar”, because then he would be trapped. Or he would be if he could be sure what the questioner meant.

Is it a reference to being sacked by The Times for making up a quotation as a junior reporter? Or to being sacked from the Conservative front bench for denying to Michael Howard, the party leader, that he was having an affair with Petronella Wyatt? Or to more recent statements as prime minister, in which case the phrase that Mumsnet user Tim Booth’s Eyes is looking for is “not (yet) proven”?

While everyone was cheering brave Roberts for socking it to the man on behalf of millions of people who feel their voices are never heard – although their opinions are the dominant ones in the media – the man himself got away with a fairly soft interview about how good he is at changing nappies.