Westminster sources said ministers have been advised by aides to dodge trivia questions when they're on TV
MINISTERS have been told not to answer maths questions in interviews - because aides are worried they might get it wrong.
Politicians' advisers have warned them they shouldn't try to tackle trivia on live TV.
The unofficial ban is meant to stop ministers humiliating themselves by showing they can't answer questions meant for children.
In previous years, politicians have tripped up by getting the answers to basic factual quizzes wrong.
When Helen Grant became Sports Minister in 2013, she couldn't name the Wimbledon champion or the FA Cup winner.
And in the most famous case, Labour minister Stephen Byers got the answer to "seven times eight" wrong while he was trying to encourage kids to learn their times tables in 1998.
Westminster sources told The Sun ministers are now advised to steer clear of answering any trivia questions at all.
They pointed out that if politicians agree to respond to simple questions, they may end up having to tackle much trickier topics where they're likely to trip up.
One source said: "It's not a formal ban - but we would always advise ministers not to answer questions like that.
"It might be OK when it's just times tables, but it gets trickier when they start having to answer questions about astrophysics!"
The effects of the ban were seen this week when schools minister Nick Gibb appeared on Good Morning Britain.
Host Jeremy Kyle asked him, "What's eight times nine?" - but Mr Gibb said: "I do know the answers to these questions, but I'm not going to do so on live television."
The minister was previously tripped up over grammar, when he got confused between prepositions and conjunctions in a 2016 radio interview.
Last year, Cabinet minister Karen Bradley refused to answer questions about the size of police budgets, telling Good Morning Britain: "This is not a pub quiz."
Ex-Education Secretary Nicky Morgan was another minister to refuse to answer times tables sums, admitting that it would be embarrassing to get one wrong.
David Cameron also ducked out of a maths test on TV, saying: "I do times tables only in the car with my children on the way to school.
"I'm going to stick to that just in case I get one wrong on your excellent television programme."
His right-hand man George Osborne even refused to answer a multiplication quiz when a seven-year-old was interviewing him for Sky News.
Asked by youngster Sam Raddings what seven times eight is, he said: "I've made it a rule in life not to answer."
It's not only Tory ministers who've opted out of answering basic questions - in 2016 Emily Thornberry, the shadow education secretary, refused to say who the French foreign minister was.
She accused Sky News's Dermot Murnaghan of sexism, adding: "It really upsets me that every time I come on here, you do another pub quiz with me."
But occasionally ministers have thrived by showing off their trivia knowledge - when Liz Truss was Environment Secretary, she successfully managed to identify a wide range of British plants based only on photographs of their leaves.
