Sarah and the Minister

Sarah Montague: So Minister, can you answer my rational question rationally?

Minister: Sarah, you can be absolutely assured my first priority here will be to project my sincerity and a large amount of emotional hyperbole as opposed to the slightest trace of rationality. The reason for this is that I am painfully aware that I speak against a backdrop framed in terms of my being a suspected murderer. I fully appreciate that my job is on the line and that, by the end of the day, my reputation could be in tatters and I could be sent to Devil’s Island. And the one thing you can be completely sure I’m not going to mention, Sarah, is that the reason we can’t account for everyone residing in Grenfell Tower is that some of them had questionable residency status and many flats were illegally sublet. I fully realise that, were I to mention such inconvenient facts, I’d be pilloried for my heartlessness – so, Sarah, that’s the one thing you won’t persuade me to do. Instead I’ll continue to express my sorrow that this terribly sad and tragic – did I mention that it was, indeed, very sad indeed, for no one in their right mind likes to think about fellow human beings being burnt alive do they? - event occurred in the first place and remind listeners just how heartbroken my,….er, heart is. That’s because, as I’d like to remind everyone, I do, in fact, have a heart.
And, d’you know what Sarah? – the reason I do this is because I understand that the best way out of my unenviable predicament is the universal appeal to emotion, because that's what really counts here! Tired old notions of clear-eyed common sense and calmness must be dispensed with at all costs,…..er, going forward. (Will that do Sarah?)