Straight talk on Lisbon?

I have just been on a phone-in with Five Live, and heard Greg Clark getting into a fix over Europe. “Are you going to do some straight talking with us tonight?” asked Steven Nolan. Yes, he replied. What will the Tories say if Lisbon is ratified, then? Wriggle wriggle wriggle. “We don’t deal in hypotheticals” Clark said – the worst possible answer in my view. Any question starting in the word “if” is a hypothetical, and politicians answer them all the time. To claim otherwise insults the intelligence of listeners. But what other option did Clark have? I can’t understand why the Cameroons don’t say that there is no point in a post-ratification referendum. Who would they be upsetting? The Eurosceptic British public are intelligent enough to grasp the situation. Nolan asked Clark this about seven times – because it is a metaphor for the Tories not really having much of a clue.