Because the traditional weasel formulation I described above is part of what's wrong with politics and politicians today, part of why so many people have to little time for the lot of them.  Deflecting questions about your ambition is part of an increasingly silly game that politicians play with journalists. The game is to try to avoid saying something that is screamingly obviously true, without ever explicitly denying it.  Why do they this? Well, because a lot of politicians are frightened of what would happen if it was reported that yes, they would in fact like a better, bigger job. They worry that colleagues would take umbrage. And they worry that voters would think less of them, suddenly losing faith in their noble motives and coming to see them as oily self-serving careerists.  You can probably spot the flaws in the thinking there, but let me set them out anyway.  Voters already know that politicians are ambitious people who would like bigger and more important political jobs. That's at least partly why they're in politics in the first place. They also don't necessarily think that ambition is a bad thing: no one automatically thinks worse of friends or colleagues who want a bigger job; some people even admire those who aspire to climb the ladder. Why would they see political ambition as some unique sin? Why insult voters' intelligence by trying to imply that you are some sort of latter-day saint devoid of any personal ambition or vanity, who was simply drawn reluctantly into the limelight by your burning civic duty to make the world a better place, like Cincinnatus from the plough?  The same, incidentally, applies to politicians pretending to like each other and agree about everything. People who work in companies or invest in them don't care if the chief executive and the finance director are best chums who see eye-to-eye on everything. They care about the overall performance of the business. New Labour would have had much easier time if Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had just come clean and said: "Yup, we don't like each other any more. But you know what? We're still doing our jobs" instead of doing stupid, unconvincing photoshoots with icecreams while knifing each other in private.  Really, being honest with people isn't a problem to avoid. But what is a problem, what is likely to offend and repel voters, is pointless, cynical and obvious spin, clever-clever attempts to dance around admitting something that is clearly true.  So well done, Esther McVey, for giving a straight answer to a straight question. For not being a weasel.  And other politicians should take note of what happened after she did so: not much. A few stories were written. The gates of hell did not open and unleash fiery hounds of torment on Miss McVey. The world continued to turn. Life continued much unchanged. And perhaps, just perhaps, a tiny few people might just have come to think a tiny bit more highly of politicians, or one of them, anyway.  Being honest about her ambitions won't make Miss McVey prime minister. But it should win her some praise.
As Esther McVey, a Conservative minister, says she'd like to be PM, James   Kirkup wishes for more plain-speaking politicians