Emily Thornberry is taking a drubbing today on the back of a Sky News interview where she accused presenter Dermot Murnaghan of sexism for asking to name her French counterpart.
In a whiny follow-up exchange on Radio 4, the shadow foreign secretary claimed that – as a woman – she must “fight harder to be taken seriously”.
She was hoping, she said, for a “serious interview”, but instead was confronted with pop quiz-style questions that would apparently never be asked of Defence Secretary Michael Fallon.
But was she really being singled out? The on-air quiz is a well-used journalistic device that has been part of our political culture for years.
The trick has claimed many a minister before – the difference is that none of them claimed that it was part of a sexist conspiracy. Which it isn’t.
Let’s remember this nugget from 2014, when then-chancellor George Osborne was grilled by a panel of children eager to find out whether he knows what 7 x 8 is:
(56, George).
In 2013 sports minister Helen Grant was humiliated when she failed to answer five sports questions in succession on live TV – even failing to name the FA cup winner:
Indeed, the trick is not just for journalists. Politicians love it too – even Labour ones.
It may be difficult to imagine Labour in power – but cast your minds back to 2009, and see schools minister Ed Balls launch GCSE maths and biology questions at a gormless Michael Gove, countering suggestions that the tests had been “dumbed down”.
Rather than crying sexism after one tough interview, Thornberry’s time might have been put to better use either boning up on her interview technique or, well, learning her brief in the first place.
