Don ~~ I take into account ···

•his evasive tone ['not getting into the numbers game']

•the time the statement was made ~~ way back before Andrew Norfolk & The Times cracked (in a fashion which altered at a stroke the atmosphere of evasion which had till then for years bedevilled any approach to anything with any trace of a racial element) the young-girls-abused-by-certain-ethnically-coherent-groups-while-everyone-who-could-have-helped-went-into-hysterical-denial scandal, which they demonstrated to have been allowed to happen largely because those who could have tackled it were too scared of the PC antiracist brigade: a different scandal admittedly from the one Mr 'Might' was engaging with, but surely analogous & comparable?

which, taken together, I would urge suggest a strong possiblity [a big 'might'?!] that he was fearfully evading a direct answer as I suggested.

Of course 'might' subsumes 'might not'; SFAIR I never denied this possibility: but I think in this instance the explanation I postulate for the evasive tone of his responses is likelier than the putative get-out you suggest.

I won't put it higher than that. And of course I can't positively demonstrate with any sort of certainty what was going on inside his head any better than anyone else can. But taking all this suggestive evidence, of his uncertainty of tone, and the atmosphere of PC dominant at the time he made the statement, when everyone was watching his back for fear of accusations of non-PC attitudes which could ruin a career [and still can in some places ~ look at the thread ongoing, 'PC Spanish class', about the Spanish teacher in America] into account...

~M~