James Barbour from deep Moscow has tagged me in a new Internet game of One’s Three Inspirational Communicators.

The idea originated as (of course) a New Wave PR meme, but is none the worse for that.

So at the risk of being earnestly irrelevant as the world’s financial system totters, here goes.

What makes a great communicator?

Castro/Hitler/Mussolini etc all could hammer out a virulent message with vigour. But being good at spreading poison does not count.

Partly it is about Content – making profound thoughts come over as simple but powerful.

And about Style – how one gets those thoughts across, on the day and to history. Wonderful words not quite matched to the occasion float into oblivion. 

Sometimes for no immediately obvious or expected reason the communicator somehow becomes the message in himself/herself – look how Sarah Palin’s Republican convention speech almost within hours has knocked huge chunks off the bastions of contemporary feminism, with all sorts of implications whatever the election’s final outcome.

Many people achieve fleeting fame, deservedly or otherwise.

Sustaining high levels of communication impact over many years is another matter. Ronald Reagan’s extraordinary TV broadcast when the Challenger Shuttle exploded lives in my memory. His formidable letters show another side of his optimistic wit and open-mindedness. 

My choice? Three people who delivered sustained, comprehensible wisdom, and so helped change the way we look at the world.

1   Lord Denning, the former legendary Master of The Rolls. He created a vast collection of insightful, clear and above all easy to follow legal judgements, delivered in a rich Hampshire accent. Written up in the Law Reports they often feature short, direct sentences.

Here is a neat little example about a hire purchase deal for a car.

Lord Denning’s body of work over many decades was influential and inspiring. In defining his decisions he kept in mind not just the dusty formalities of the law but also his (sometimes quirky) view of the human issues and fallibilities at stake. And a robust sense of a fair outcome.

2   George Orwell. Another master of the short, clear sentence in English. And like Lord Denning (but of course from a very different political worldview) he wrote a huge bloc of impassioned but controlled work whose influence echoes on down the decades. 

One favourite is this blunt essay about what boys were reading back in 1940:

Naturally the politics of the Gem and Magnet are Conservative, but in a completely pre-1914 style, with no Fascist tinge. In reality their basic political assumptions are two: nothing ever changes, and foreigners are funny. In the Gem of 1939 Frenchmen are still Froggies and Italians are still Dagoes. Mossoo, the French master at Greyfriars, is the usual comic-paper Frog, with pointed beard, pegtop trousers, etc. Inky, the Indian boy, though a rajah, and therefore possessing snob-appeal, is also the comic babu of the Punch tradition. (“The rowfulness is not the proper caper, my esteemed Bob,” said Inky. “Let dogs delight in the barkfulness and bitefulness, but the soft answer is the cracked pitcher that goes longest to a bird in the bush, as the English proverb remarks.”)

3   Ayn Rand. A Russian-turned-American who wrote two colossal, complicated, unwieldy but yet brilliant novels (The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged) which together define the core moral and philosophical case against socialist collectivism and in favour of individual freedom. Buy them.

She makes my list because her work has shaped Western (especially US) consciousness in a remarkable way. Plus she wrote so many sharp and timeless insights into politics and human motivation. Thus:

  • We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality
  • So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?
  • The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Sounds familiar?

So, over to your choices Craig Murray, Brian Barder and James Rogers.