Almost everything that happens in British politics these days is enough to make even the most ardent defender of politicians hold their hands up in despair. I suspect we hit at least three new nadirs this last week. The most pitiful of which was, for me at least, when Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell called Sir Winston Churchill a “villain”. The minor debacle started when McDonnell was asked at a Politico website event, for a one-word answer on whether Churchill was a hero or villain. McDonnell paused and replied: “Tonypandy – villain”. Showing, in true modern-politican fashion that he could neither follow the simple instruction or come up with a sensible answer.

The moment the question is posed, I can imagine the panicked turmoil in McDonnell’s head. He’s just been set an impossible question and now has a contradiction to solve. One that, if he understood this kind of thing, looks something like this:

In the coin-toss of political fates, sadly for McDonnell, he decided to go down the tasty sound-bite route. And as a consequence found himself on the main news for 24 hours, the focus of a question on Question Time and the easy target of every newspaper column writer for the next three days. So, I guess, on some level his choice was a good one.

If the aim was also to increase national left/right polarisation, he can tick that box too. Well done, asshole.

What depresses me most in all of this, however, is nothing to do with McDonnell at all. He’s just the poor schmuck who couldn’t think his way out of a contradiction if you wallpapered him in TRIZ posters.

What depresses me first is that we now have a ‘media’ that is so far down the slippery slope of their clickbait-hunt that insisting politicians must answer their questions with one word answers is now considered valid journalism. We all like a soundbite. But I think we all realise there’s a time and place for them. Churchill himself was a master of the art. Content and timing-wise.

What depresses me second is that we have politicians that feel obliged to comply with the dumb questioning.

Everyone is caught on yet another either/or pendulum swing. The correct answer to which can never be left or right. The only way is the third way.

McDonnell could’ve shifted the pendulum in any number of creative ways. No TRIZ required. Just an ounce or two of creativity.

He could have played the hack journalist’s game and answered ‘both’. That would’ve been newsworthy too. And somewhere closer to a genuine truth. Less imaginative, but he could also have answered, ‘neither’. At least that would have prevented him having to spend the next 24 hours defending himself. Or how about, ’99.9% hero’. People would’ve understood that too. No-one, least of all Churchill, is or ever has been perfect, but some try harder than others to overcome the manifestly inherent human weaknesses.

He could also have completely ignored the ridiculous ‘one-word’ part of the question and gone off on a 45-minute diatribe. Not great from a news perspective either, but at least it would make future interviewers think harder about the stupidity of the questions they pose.

A little more brave, but if I’d been in his position, I like to think I’d have opted for, would have been to call the journalist out by saying something along the lines that this kind of either/or questioning is dumb and that I wasn’t going to play the game. ‘I’ll give you the properly considered, 10,000 word essay answer if you like, but stop looking for elevator-pitch nonsense’. One way of saying this, which I might also have been tempted to explore, would be a polite, smiling, ‘stop being a prat. Grow-up.’ That would have been newsworthy too for all the right reasons. Except the journalist, probably would’ve covered it up at that point. Hopefully in the shameful realisation that they’d just been caught in their own tawdry little trap.

Two wrong answers, or a thousand and one third-way right ones. Guaranteed with  all of our politicians right now, we know we’re going to get one of the two wrong answers.