UK prime minister Liz Truss has had a tumultuous week, with a badly launched budget in her third week in office. The communications strategy around this, in particular, has been widely condemned as having been inept and badly executed. Therefore her appearance on today’s BBC flag ship political show was widely anticipated. Without looking at the political side of the actual debate, she technically handled the interview well, despite the reporter clearly trying to put her off balance, and looking for a ‘sucker punch’ question. She may not be a Tony Blair, but Liz Truss showed a solid ability to handle a difficult media interview, stood her ground, and used the classic ‘answer-bridge-communicate’ technique to keep to her core messages, and reinforce what she wanted viewers to take away from the interview, this this on the back end of what must have been a very harrowing and difficult week for Truss and her team. If she can perform this like when under so much pressure, maybe she has more of a future than some commentators are making out at the moment. This also shows how good media training, messaging and techniques can help to make or break a reputation, or person’s tenure in office, or that of their government, in times of crisis.
(note: this YouTube link calls it a ‘car crash’ interview, but I disagree with this, and the excerpt is also edited to make it look a lot worse than it deserved)