Brown’s first and favourite technique is the alliterative pair. ‘Listen and learn. Challenge and change. Boom and bust.’

Alliterative pairs are designed to suggest causal connections. And it works. But you might need a ‘pile of paracetemol’ afterward…

Second. Brown argues from statistics. 500,000 businesses. 2 million jobs. 10 million lives.

The actual statistics are meaningless. People don’t remember them. Nor are they supposed to. They just assert the speaker’s authority.

Three. Brown uses Dead metaphors straight out of a business manual. ‘Opening doors. Raising ceilings. Strengthening floors.’

They’re pretty uninspiring. He sounds more like a Barartt Homes salesman than Prime Minister.

Fourth, Brown loves the old rhetorical device of contrast. So he talks about ‘opportunity for not just some, but all the people.’ The euro has to be right ‘not just in principle, but in practice.’ On public services he talks about ‘not just investment, but reform.’

Finally, we get the classic long and winding sentences. The endless clauses which go on and on and on and on and on and on. By the end, you feel ‘not just battered, but bruised’ - as Brown might put it.

Cameron’s style is very different.

One. He sets the scene with asyndeton. We get the famous Blairite verbless sentences. ‘Failing schools. Sink Estates. Broken homes.’ ‘Poverty, crime, addiction.’ The brevity isborne from emotion. It suggests he cares so much he’s almost hyperventilating with passion.

Secondly, the rule of three. ‘Family, community, country’ was the refrain in his conference speech – like Marc Antony’s ‘Friends Romans Countrymen.’ But he also talks about ‘character, temperament and judgement.’ ‘Pull together come together work together.’

The rule of three helps breaks down issues and suggests finality, appearing to shut off alternatives.

Third, like Brown, Cameron loves the rhetorical device of contrast. ‘The state is your servant never your master.’ ‘The longer we leave it, the worse it will be.‘ ‘We’ve got to stop treating children like adults and adults like children.’

This is a great way of making your arguments sound logical, when they’re actually not.

Fourth, Cameron explicitly rejects Brown’s metaphors of construction and machinering. Instead, he prefers the metaphor of personalisation. He talks about ‘the heart of the communities’, breathing ‘life into institutions’ and getting the country ‘back on its feet’.

The metaphor of personalisation makes him seem far more compassionate and less mechanical.

Fifth and finally, Cameron often concludes his arguments with a plain simple truth, often expressed in monosyllabic terms, eg ‘Time is short.’ ‘We get it.’ ‘You made it happen.’

It’s designed to show the common touch. And it does. Nice and easy. Just like that!

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I recorded a podcast for The Guardian yesterday, analysing the difference between Brown and Cameron’s rhetorical styles. You can hear it here http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/audio/2010/feb/11/hung-parliament. Scroll forward to 11.45.

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http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2010/02/speech-obama-blair-british

The New Statesman have published a terrific article on ‘The Art of Speechwriting,’ with a few quotes from me. I think that this is one of the most thoughtful and accurate articles on ‘our trade’ in years. Sophie Elmhirst is always a fabulous journalist and she’s certainly done a job here, which is great news for those of us who work as professional speechwriters.

My one regret is that some of the reflections are a bit gloomy, based upon the idea of some mythical golden age of oratory that didn’t actually exist. It makes for a compelling narrative, but it’s not accurate. Oratory, like life, goes through ups and downs according to the times, characters and events. The Thatcher/Kinnock decade was a high-point because these were fiery, confrontational times. The Smith/Major years were a low-point, because the characters were so dull. Brown and Cameron bring us back to a high - they’re both, in their different ways, passionate and angry.

But these are minor grumbles. A great piece. A welcome spotlight into the world of political speechwriting.

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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?

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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’).

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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.

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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’.

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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!

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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…

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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?

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