In fairness to journalists (and MPs): barristers asking questions in cross-examination have two great advantages.
1. (Usually) time. You can build up a set of questions, slowly pinning down detail and getting concessions. (That’s why almost every TV cross-examination is implausible: real x-x takes time before anything is obtained.)
2. (Usually) an impartial judge who can intervene if a witness is refusing to answer or evading a question. (NB that the Speaker rarely does this. He should do it more often.)
Journalists don’t usually have those advantages (@afneil interviews being the exception to (1) that proves the rule). Nor do MPs in select committees or in the House.
That said, any of us whose job involves cross-examination can think of countless examples where MPs and journalists have ignored these really basic rules and so have made their questioning far less effective.
And an interesting sight for the next few years will be an expert in cross-examination with a first-class forensic mind taking the lead at PMQs. So far so good.
