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Which is? I don't think there's any difference in meaning at all.
This is the crux of the matter. You're barking up the wrong tree with parliamentary language and imperatives. "Why doesn't she be honest with the British people..." implies to me (in the context) that she'd have to take a specific future action (saying how she plans to retain it). "Why isn't she honest with the British people..." implies that she's been habitually dishonest.
This is why linguists test data on native speakers. You're trying to come up with grammatical reasons why the phrase is wrong, when the experimental data doesn't bear this out.
fizzy.bleach-
This is the crux of the matter. You're barking up the wrong tree with parliamentary language and imperatives. "Why doesn't she be honest with the British people..." implies to me (in the context) that she'd have to take a specific future action (saying how she plans to retain it). "Why isn't she honest with the British people..." implies that she's been habitually dishonest.
Er? '[...] so why isn’t she honest with the British people [in saying / and says (or some other way of replacing the infinitive dependent on 'doesn't')] how she plans to retain it' has exactly that meaning (of an implied future action). Yes, 'why isn't she honest with the British people ...' without the rest of the sentence can be seen to mean something different, so perhaps I shouldn't have left out the rest. 'Why doesn't she be' adds nothing except for a faint trace of the strengthening auxiliary verb but only jars (and is quite unnecessary).
This is why linguists test data on native speakers. You're trying to come up with grammatical reasons why the phrase is wrong, when the experimental data doesn't bear this out.
Well, as above, I think you're wrong in postulating a potential for a different meaning here. I have every sympathy with attempts to introduce nuances of meaning that don't quite fit into 'established' grammar, by the way, as ultimately grammar is the servant of logic and not the other way around. However, here I think it's an attempt to export a construction from its established context in a way that doesn't work.
The question of parliamentary language or not is very interesting. It's obviously only speculation in this case, but there is, of course, a strong tendency in English to express things indirectly (e.g., ironically), partly because people had to tug their forelocks most of the time, but also because the grammatical opportunities are there and easily accessible, e.g. conditionality. By contrast, a lot of German native speakers can't do the German Konjunktiv properly, which is undoubtedly partly why it isn't used as much as equivalent forms of expression in English. I wonder to what extent, if any, parliamentary convention shaped general usage, if at all, or whether it's the other way around.
Oliver Schick
It isn't a true imperative because the suggestive voice of 'why don't you?' doesn't permit a full imperative. It's an attempt to be direct while being indirect. Nonetheless, its justification depends on the second person being addressed.
Be honest!
Do be honest!
Why don't you be honest?
The auxiliary verb is a strengthener, which is a function that becomes confused with the other normal use of 'to do' as soon as you switch to the third person. The copula doesn't take an auxiliary verb except for this strengthening function.
That's certainly a way of looking at it, in view of parallel constructions ('why doesn't she take out the rubbish?') but I don't think it's the crucial issue. I'm sure that some people understand 'to be honest' as very dynamic, but grammatically it is a simple attributive construction.
Arguably, this is precisely the general problem that keeps this thread alive. :)
Which is? I don't think there's any difference in meaning at all.
However (and this may be related to how you think of a difference in meaning) I've also just worked out (I think) where this comes from. It must come out of parliamentary language, in which speakers don't address one another directly; the speaker here was an MP. I could imagine they're quite used to modifying second-person constructions in this way.