Prescott stays?

An interesting, and long interview of Prescott on Today this morning.
I assume he's spent the last 2 days avoiding all broadcast interviews so that he could prepare for this one. And it sounded like it: none of the usual Prescottese that you get when he speaks off the cuff in parliament. But there were whole sentences, with beginnings, middles and ends. That also made some sense!
But why, at the end, did he just not come out and say "no, I have not had any other affairs". Instead he went round the houses, and most of the way to Hull and back, to avoid answering that direct question.