Crikey. There must be some new writers in Number Ten. Brown just punched out a couple of corkers in PMQs.
‘The more he talks, the less he says.’
‘The Tories inheritance tax policy was dreamed up on the playing fields of Eton.’
This is better than the usual, isn’t it?
I was baffled by Nick Clegg’s comment that he had to ‘do his homework’ on the mansion tax. When his relative youth and inexperience must surely be the biggest barrier to his winning public acceptance, it seems extraordinary he uses a metaphor which pitches him as schoolboy. Normally politicians use metaphors which place their opponents as schoolchildren (’he needs to do his homework’) or younger still (’he’s throwing his toys out of the pram’).
No pressure – giving a speech to forty of Britain’s leading speechwriters, but last night Professor Jonathan Charteris-Black did just that when he addressed Bespoke’s Speechwriters Networking Evening in Westminster.
Jonathan is Professor of Linguistics at UWE and author of ‘Politicians and Rhetoric’. He is to the speechwriting community what Noam Chomsky is to the anti-globalisation movement. His specialist subject is metaphors. When I first read his book, ‘Politicians and Rhetoric’, four years ago, it was a revelation. Before then, I’d always thought of metaphors as devices to dramatise, illuminate or solidify situations or issues. Jonathan’s research took me far further. He exposed the persuasive power of metaphor: the way that a carefully selected metaphor could frame an issue, prime an audience and even elevate a speaker into a mythological figure. Jonathan showed how Churchill created a myth of Britain as heroic warrior, Thatcher activated the myth of Boadicea and Blair developed a conviction rhetoric which pitched him as a dynamic agent in a mythological struggle between good and evil.
Reading the book made me think far more consciously about metaphors. Suddenly, I realised how so many government metaphors actually undermine the message, rather than support it. In education, driving metaphors are common: people talk about ‘accelerating’ reforms, the ‘engine’ of the education system, ‘route-maps’ for the future – all of which suggests a Government in the driving seat and head-teachers as passengers – which is not at all the message the policy would suggest. Wouldn’t a freedom/slavery metaphor be better (after all, that’s the one teachers use habitually, e.g. opening doors and unlocking potential, for two cliched examples…) Health is even worse, with military metaphors often being used to talk about saving lives – e.g. ‘weapons in our arsenal’ and getting cash to the ‘frontline’… The army image is not at all appropriate for a workforce that is constantly being told it is empowered (isn’t the army the ultimate command and control structure?) Wouldn’t a family or nurturing metaphor be more appropriate?
Jonathan came out with more treats last night. He unpicked eight of the greatest metaphors since World War II, including the Iron Curtain, the Cold War, the Wind of Change, the Rivers of Blood, Tebbit’s Swamp, Bush’s Angel, the Axis of Evil and the Smoking Gun. He analysed each in great detail, looking at what the metaphor revealed and concealed about the speaker’s intent. In each case, it was staggering to find how devastatingly powerful the metaphor had been at an unconscious level, having bypassed our rational scrutiny. It was like finding out that the BBC had been putting subliminal advertising into EastEnders for the last twenty years. For instance, by using a nature metaphor to describe African nationalism (‘the wind of change’), Macmillan suggested an inevitability to the process, making listeners feel impotent. The same when Powell spoke of ‘rivers of blood.’
Jonathan also talked about how metaphors can be used to push forward each of Aristotle’s Big Three appeals – ethos, pathos and logos. I’d never really thought about metaphors in this way before. He said that light/darkness metaphors were very effective ways of establishing ethos, signifying to an audience at an unconscious level which were the people who had good and wicked intentions. This made me think instantly of screenwriting - don’t movie directors use exactly the same kind of lighting tricks to show us who are the good guys and bad guys (hence the darkness of the Bada Bing and the lightness of the family home in the Sopranos)?
It was a terrific talk, with a very lively Q and A session and everyone talking about how inspired and energised they felt afterwards. Thanks so much to Jonathan for his illuminating talk. Thanks so much to everyone for coming. And thanks to everyone who dug in their pockets and helped raise £108 for the NSPCC. A good night’s work all around.
When Rocky is in training for his fight with Apollo Creed in the first movie, he sticks a photo of Creed in the corner of his mirror, so he remembers what he’s up against.
I’ve just tried the speechwriters equivalent - pasting a photo of the audience I’m writing for in the corner of my screen. Whenever I weigh up a new line of argument I look the audience in the eye(s) to see how it might play.
I’ve not had feedback on the speech yet, but it seems to me like a great reality check, and a brilliant way of ensuring audience focus.
Every now and then, I take my baby daughter to Rhyme Time at the local library. Her face fills with joy when she hears songs like ‘Humpty Dumpty’ and ‘Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! We’re going to the moon!’
Rhymes are magical. They make us feel that all is well with the world. And it is that illusion of simplicity that also makes them powerful rhetorical weapons.
Researchers at Lafayette College have proved that people are far more likely to believe a sentence which rhymes than one that doesn’t, even if the underlying proposition is false.
Rhymes can make fallacies appear to be facts. This has been proved many times in the past: in speeches (’if the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit’), ad slogans (’a Mars a day helps you work, rest and play’) and even classroom sayings (’i before e except after c’).
Today, the press is reporting another fallacious rhyme: the argument that Cameron still hasn’t ’sealed the deal’ with the electorate. The rhyme makes it sound like a self-evident truth. And it’s been repeated so often it’s accepted as fact.
But what are the facts? That Labour has been scraping support of 23% for the last year. That the Tories are now consistently polling in the mid 40s? That Labour is doing worse now than either the Tories under Major in 97 or Labour under Foot in 83? That, it is now possible to get a whopping 14/1 on Labour winning the election (amazing odds in a two-horse race)?
Some might say Labour was ‘cruising for a bruising’.
My inbox has been buzzing this morning following the Guardian’s revelation that Number 10 paid the Washington-based speechwriting consultancy, West Wing Writers, £4,300 for advising on his speech to Congress.
In case it’s been forgotten, this speech represented one of Mr Brown’s few highs in a truly miserable year; a rare moment of real power.
Instead of being criticised for using expert speechwriters, Number 10 should be lauded for achieving incredible value-for-money.
Look at the phenomenal coverage and influence which this single speech won UK plc (not to mention GB, the man).
Then compare that pound for pound against the hundreds of thousands which can be spent on new websites, strategies or events.
Speeches might not be as sexy as viral marketing campaigns or other mass comms fads but, when it comes to value and impact, they win hands-down.
Speechwriting is a specialist art requiring specialist skills. Maybe the guys at Number 10 would have discovered the great uses of antithesis, anaphora and asyndeton which this speech demonstrates on their own, but maybe not.
Good on Brown for bringing in experts, good on West Wing Writers for winning the business and good on all of them for producing a blinding speech. Let’s see more like this!
I ran a speechwriting course for a FTSE 100 company yesterday. Someone shared a brilliant writing technique from Quentin Tarantino.
Apparently, Tarantino writes all of his films on an old 1987 word processor using just the second finger of his right hand.
By making the process as difficult as possible, he ensures he creates the best dialogue possible.
As he says, ‘You write, write, write with a pen and you always overwrite. But when you have to translate it to just one finger, a really strong editing process takes over. Basically, if you don’t think this is the bomb, you’re not going to spend time typing the final draft with one finger. So you’re constantly correcting and you actually shrink it down.”
So, I’m thinking of getting rid of the IMac. Perhaps this soft, sleek keyboard isn’t such a good idea…
Phenomenal speech by Cameron just now. Highly redolent of Blair in 96.
The most powerful line of the speech for me was ’stop treating children like adults and adults like children.’ A instant classic phrase reversal. Like JFK’s ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’ Or Mandy Rhys-Davies’ ‘He would, wouldn’t he!’
But the most powerful parts of the speech were for me the sections on character (or ethos, as Aristotle put it), particularly when he spoke about his son. This took enormous courage.
A very minor point, but did he really walk off the stage to a song by EMF, also known as Ecstasy Mother Fuckers?
At this time of year, my time is usually filled up with helping FTSE companies prepare their interim statements. This year has been no different, but times are tougher than usual and this has thrown up some interesting linguistic dilemmas.
When I first became a Cabinet speechwriter ten years ago, I was told that I should always write in the active voice and never write in the passive - EVER.
This advice remains prevalent - but it is complete tosh. Yes, the active voice is appropriate when the speaker wants to clearly identify the main protagonist and what they have done… but such clarity is not always helpful, in business or politics.
Take Nixon’s, ‘Mistakes were made’. Or Bush’s, ‘Collateral damage has occurred.’ The expedient use of the passive voice neatly side-stepped the issue of culpability.
Likewise, in the recent interim results. The more abominable the results, the greater the use of the passive voice.
Hence, this morning we heard the following glorious passive statement from Michael Grade at ITV’s: ‘Our financial results for the half year reflect the impact of the unprecedented downturn in television advertising…’ It makes ITV sound helpless. A victim of events. ‘Not our fault, guv!’
Has it worked? Well, the share prices is up 3.5% on trading and still climbing… We should never under-estimate the power of the passive.
I just watched the Prime Minister’s statement to the House of Commons. It wasn’t his finest hour. It reminded me of some of the theories set out in George Lakoff’s amazing 2004 book, “Don’t think of an elephant”.
Lakoff, Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, argued that the right wing’s dominance in US politics came from speaking in terms of visions and values whilst the left spent too much time talking about initiatives and programmes.
Brown’s speech today was stuffed to the brim with the usual mind-blowing investment figures, stretching targets and gargantuan forward work programmes, but was almost completely devoid of over-arching vision or underpinning values.
The problem is that voting is an emotional act: people need to be excited and motivated to vote; they need to be made to care. And initiatives simply don’t touch our emotions, they only get as far as the rational parts of our minds. It would be hard for anyone to get too weepy about market incentives to support carbon capture storage or reviews of the communications infrastructure, worthy and worthwhile as they may be.
Brown’s speech should have been framed within a compelling vision and rooted in deeply held values. It should have reached deep down into people’s hearts, wrenched them out of their current inertia and lifted them to the stars.
Labour will pillory Cameron for his response, describing it as flimsy and lacking substance. It is true that his response comprised little more than high level values statements. But, if Lakoff is right, it is precisely this approach which is needed to win elections.
