Never answer a hypothetical question

There’s been much mirth at the Hosking vs Luxon death-spiral interview on whether Luxon would have sacked Andrew Bayly if he hadn't resigned.  

There’s a rule in PR that you never answer a hypothetical question like Hosking posed because it gets you in trouble. This is because you change and add to a story (new headline: Luxon admits Bayly incident sackable offense), and you squeeze your future options (“you said previously that you would sack someone who did something like this”).

The trouble is that refusing to answer, or indirect answers can sound evasive or cute wordplay, which gets interviewers annoyed.

So Luxon should have used what Backland calls the "break out" technique, stopping the interview in its tracks, and giving a fuller natural-language answer. For example, "Your demand for a simplistic answer is not helping our audience. Let's stop, and I'll explain myself more fully than your questions allow: sacking is a symptom of poor management. Our response to the situation demonstrates good management: my high expectations set an environment in which Andrew knew that resignation was the honourable course and he took it. He would never have to be sacked. Now this is explained to your listeners, let's switch to another topic."