Patriotic??

Andrea Leadsom - leader of the House of Commons - is being criticised for suggesting that BBC interviewers could be "a bit patriotic"  when dealing with interviews on the question of Brexit.  I can see where she's coming from - it seems to be the norm these days for interviewers to be confrontational and badger and talk over their interviewees and consciously take an aggressively opposing stance to them.  But this is a chicken-and-egg situation, isn't it?  Politicians and indeed public figures generally have become really adept at simply avoiding any question they don't want to answer. I remember my first experience of this was Arthur Scargill, who had this strategy of responding to any question he didn't fancy by saying "The real question is..." and then going on to say whatever it was he wanted to say.  So which is the cause, and which the effect?