Prime minister Gordon Brown today told Personnel Today... well... absolutely nothing. I approached the PM after his keynote speech at the CBI annual conference to ask him about something he'd just said on upskilling the workforce - and he said nothing. Fine, that's no biggy, but it is just the way in which he refused to answer anything that caught me by surprise.
Let me start from the beginning. Speaking to delegates earlier this morning, the PM again urged Britain's businesses to continue investing in skills. He said that right now, amid the rise in unemployment or current economic challenges, the UK could not lose track of up-skilling its workforce as it needed to prepare for rising economies like Asia.
"For Britain that means investing in the new talents and skills required for the technological and creative industries," he said. We've heard it all before - the words broken and record come to mind - but it is interesting that this record is still being played at full volume despite job cuts and companies going bust.
However, when I approached Gordo on the subject shortly after he finished his speech, I got a point-blank rejection for any sort of comment. Instead, strangely, I got one stare into my eyes, a look of bemusement as I said I was a journalist, an awkward second of silence and then he just walked away.
I wanted to ask how he expected companies to make training a key priority right now when many were caught in the middle of unfortunate redundancy planning and had little or no cash-flow? As someone who launched the government's skills pledge last year (I was there to see him do so) I thought he might have a word to say on Train to Gain or the importance of re-training employees in Level 2.
But nothing. Almost as if he hadn't even computed my question he turned his back on me. Then as he was going down the stairs, a few seconds later he looked back in my general direction and said 'sorry'. Well at least he is capable of using that word, it is now clear.
So I sit back down and listen to the next politician talk about the economy: David Cameron. Sure, he had a smoother manner than the PM and a more open stance in talking to the audience (he insisted on chairing his own questions at the end and made a point of taking one question at a time, to answer each immediately, not three at a time as Gordon Brown did). He cracked a few jokes, and generally seemed more relaxed: no real surprises.
But alas, when it came to asking Dave what employers' top priorities should be in terms of people policies, again I was rebutted. Even trying to get near the Conservative leader was hard enough - his advisers told me it was a private area and I shouldn't be in there. Fair enough. But I had to try.
Which begs the question, how come I could get up close to the PM but not to the people's politician, Dave?
