Nadine Dorries' Masterclass in Deception
How to tell you're being deceived
British politics continues to throw up examples of deceptive language. Nadine Dorries has served up an interview that is cringingly bad to watch, but gives a masterclass on the language to watch for when you think someone is deceiving you.
Let’s have a look
Have you spoken to the Prime Minister recently … in the last 24 hours?
Why?
When someone answers a question with a question, it’s never a good sign. People who are being honest, truthful and upfront will answer questions in the most straightforward way possible.
When someone answers a question with a question, it indicates they are worried about the true answer and want to buy some time to think about what they are going to say.
There’s one situation when a question to a question isn’t an indicator of deception. It’s when someone asks for the question to be clarified for them to give a truthful and helpful answer. But watch that they aren’t trying to narrow the question down with this tactic.
Nadine doesn’t do that, though. She doubles down and expands on her question.
Why are you asking me that question?
Avoiding the answer
I’d like to know
Um…eh…eh…on… We’ve communicated.
The next indicator of deception is the stutter and stammer. This suggests that the subject is causing stress and causing the person to choose their words carefully.
In this, we hear “um…eh…eh…on” she is going to say “on” something in reply to “have you spoken”. We can guess that she may have been going to say “on the phone” or “on email” or similar. We don’t know though as she stops that line and says, “we’ve communicated”.
This is the next indicator or deception. The question was “have you spoken” and the answer was “we’ve communicated”. Which suggests they haven’t spoken. If they had, she would have said so, without any stress, deflection, or deviation.
I’m really confused, is that a difficult question? I’m just asking have you spoken to the Prime Minister in the last 24 hours?
We have communicated.
Once again she has the chance to say she has spoken to the Prime Minister and she doesn’t take it. There are no stammers now as she has the line she wants to use; “we have communicated”, sorted in her head.
Ok, what has he communicated to you?
That’s…that’s… I’m not going to tell you the extent of my communications with the prime minister… I mean… I’ve answered your question, I’ve communicated, what’s your next question?
This answer is packed with deceptive indicators.
There are two false starts before she settles on some words she’s happy with.
Again, she doesn’t answer the question asked. Not just that she won’t say what has been communicated to her. She says she won’t “tell you the extent of the communication”. The question wasn’t about the extent of the communication, but Nadine’s head is on the previous question about the quantity of communication.
She says, “I’ve answered your question”, she hasn’t answered this one, and tries to move on.
From we to I
Not before dropping another deceptive indicator. She says, “I’ve communicated” not “we’ve communicated”. When someone changes pronouns, it can reveal a lot. It could be here that she is classing a one-way message, for example she has sent an email, as communication. It would explain her nervousness around the question and her answers.
What’s his mood?
I’d say his mood was … um… very… very… eh positive….extremely positive…I mean onwards is one of his favourite expressions… I think he’s very positive.
It’s a subtle one, but she changes the tense from the question. She’s asked “what’s his mood?”, that is, “what IS his mood?” She replies with “I’d say his mood WAS”. She could be going to the past tense because she’s referring to the communication in the past. She could be referring to another time in the past when his mood was positive. What she does not do is tell us what the current mood of the Prime Minister is.
Again she has to search for the appropriate words as indicated by the stumbles. She settles on a very generic word, “positive”. If the Prime Minister’s mood is positive, in fact, she says, “very positive” and “exceptionally positive”, why would it take so many stumbles to say that?
The answer appears to be that she is making this up. She has no idea of the Prime Minister’s mood, she is guessing at it as she says in her own words, “I think he’s very positive”.
She doesn’t say “he is very positive” merely “I think he’s very positive”.
Conclusion
I must thank Nadine Dorries for giving such great examples to explain what to watch out for when you feel someone is trying to deceive you.
From studying the words she uses, it appears she has not had a two-way conversation with the Prime Minister and has no idea what his mood is.
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