I’ve been busy writing this and that and getting ready for my next trip to Kazakhstan – leaving for the airport in an hour or so. This time it is give TWO courses in Speechwriting and Public Speaking. Kazakh oratory is set to explode!
Check out my longer piece in the Independent this week on the dark art of election speeches. They left out my introductory passage about one of the first election speeches ever featuring in fiction. Boo. Here is the missing, rather beautiful passage:
The speeches of the two candidates afforded a beautiful tribute to the electors of Eatanswill.
Both expressed their opinion that a more independent, a more enlightened, a more public- spirited, a more noble-minded, a more disinterested set of men than those who had promised to vote for him, never existed on earth; each darkly hinted his suspicions that the electors in the opposite interest had certain swinish and besotted infirmities which rendered them unfit for the exercise of the important duties they were called upon to discharge
Back in the 1820s Mr Pickwick had a fine time observing the filigree art of British election speeches and the no less filigree skulduggery of the rival parties as they jostled for advantage. Some 200 years later our politicians are at it again. What should we enlightened and disinterested voters be watching for this time as the candidates emit their siren blandishments?
The published article itself continues:
Looking over various lists of Great British Speeches, you spot something interesting. Almost none has been delivered during an election campaign.
One that sometimes makes the cut is Neil Kinnock’s “I Warn You” speech two days before the 1983 General Election, when it was clear that Labour was going to lose big.
Here is youthful N Kinnock giving that warning:
Labour supporters gush that this unambiguously attention-catching oration was one of the finest ever made in British politics: “If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as Prime Minister on Thursday, I warn you. I warn you that you will have pain – when healing and relief depend upon payment. I warn you that you will have poverty – when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won’t pay in an economy that can’t pay… I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old.”
Well, this scores strongly on thudding rhetoric. But it scores even more strongly on nonsense. British voters have a keen ear for noisy cant. They know that Labour, Conservative and now coalition governments alike do not – and cannot – bring in apocalyptic changes. For the most part they boss us around and tweak things. Frantic Kinnockite warnings that the End is Nigh make no sense, so anyone proclaiming that comes across as losing the plot (and indeed the election).
Another reason why election speeches are rarely memorable is that they have to do several largely incompatible jobs simultaneously and end up being a mish-mash. Galvanise supporters by emphasising the speaker’s positives. Demolish opponents by pouncing on gaffes and emphasising the opponents’ negatives. Woo the undecided by sounding reasonable, competent and principled. Convey information. And create just the right tone.
The tone must work for the occasion and its immediate audience on the day and complement the wider campaign policy themes. Tone is the hardest to get right, but has real power when it works.
The more I mull over public speaking technique, the more I think that Tone is the hardest thing to pin down but the vital thing to get right.
This next election is unusually complicated, as the row over TV debates shows. Our voting system wisely makes it hard for smaller parties to make meaningful breakthroughs, but voters here, as elsewhere in Europe, are clearly restless with the status quo. This means Conservative and Labour alike have to fight a rhetorical war on several fronts, firing heavy shots at each other while keeping enough ammunition in reserve to snipe efficiently at the pesky Ukippers, Greens, SNP and hapless Lib-Dems.
Ukip and the Greens by contrast have a free hand. They have not been in power so can’t be blamed for anything. And because they are unlikely to win many seats even if they get great lumps of votes, they can be as belligerent, funny, populist and even irresponsible as they like. In Scotland, Labour may be washed away by the SNP in the ripples of the independence referendum, a blow to its nationwide majority hopes. The Lib-Dems are in the grim position of being squeezed from all sides, but not having a coherent thematic response.
A messy situation. So, in their speeches, the Conservatives will frame the basic choice in their “target voter space” in the simplest terms: “Every vote for Ukip is a vote for that nutty wrecker Ed Miliband! If you want lots more EU, that’s the way to get it!”
Labour has a trickier task (as anything it says on the economy will be dismissed with derision): “Every vote for the Greens/Ukip/SNP is a vote for posh uncaring Cameron: we are the only credible competent national option who loves the NHS!” It will suit both parties to ignore the Lib-Dems, framing them as irrelevant if not already deceased.
I finish with the best-ever political speech. Short but to the point:
My own favourite election speech? One in a long-lost David Austin “Hom Sap” cartoon in Private Eye. As I recall it, the Roman leader berates the crowd who respond accordingly:
