The question

Which trait in yourself do you like least?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

The Guardian's The Q&A has retained this Proust-derived prompt from at least 2007 through 2026, and ABC independently put it to the Obamas in 2011.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Others on this question

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When I ruin someone else’s story because I think mine is better, so butt in before they’ve finished theirs.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 August 2026 source ↗
Vick Hope British television and radio presenter
I can’t say no. I am a people-pleaser, and it means that I burn myself out because I take on too much.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 August 2022 source ↗

More from Keir Starmer

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Question If you could revise one chapter of your past, what would you change? Failure & regret
My mum died in her early 70s, and for the last six or seven years of her life she couldn’t move, didn’t speak. By the time our children were born, she was too ill to communicate. I haven’t many regrets in life, but I do regret that they never got to know her, even though she was still alive for a few years. They couldn’t see her warmth, her spirit, her courage.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 August 2023 source ↗
Question How close have you come to dying? Death & what remains
Before I was DPP, I did a lot of work trying to get rid of the death penalty in various countries, and one was Malawi. We’d been in court in Zomba and had to get a plane in Lilongwe, about 200 miles away. We got a local taxi: the guy changed his wheels for the journey because the car wasn’t roadworthy and then hurtled at speed, mostly on the wrong side of the road. I’ve never been so terrified.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 August 2023 source ↗

More on identity & self

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Ed Koch, Malala Yousafzai, Zack Polanski, Rory Stewart, Barack Obama, Jon Sopel

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