Blogging latterly light, or to be precise nil – I have been on diplomatic training expeditions (as trainer) in Brussels and London.

Interesting trying to explain to young diplomats how to set about working out how to respond in policy and media terms to a serious event.

My approach: whatever the job (policy submission, draft letter, draft speech, media speaking notes), before you start identify in a couple of words what the Message emerging from that work needs to be.

Is it all about Concern, Activity, Urgency, Consulting, Persuasion, Anger, Irritation, Condemnation or what?

Because if you have that thought and the accompanying few words in mind to define the argument, your end-product is much more likely to have Focus throughout.

If not, you risk rambling and getting side-tracked – as you do not know where you are going.

And NB that as Frank Luntz argues in his terrific book on communication Words that Work, "it’s not what you say – it’s what people hear".

‘Hearing’ in this context means more than actual hearing. 

Great slabs of long/dense paragraph prose served up on a page say Boring, before the reader even tries to start reading the text.  If you scratch your nose on TV when answering a question about Iran’s nuclear capability, the audience will see and define and remember you as that nose-scratching guy, not someone trying to advance a sophisticated policy argument even with lively words.

Vexing. But realistic.