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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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.

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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.

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What a phenomenally bad speech by Michael Martin.

He hadn’t done his homework. He looked and sounded like a man out of his depth. And he had the chutzpah to insult his audience with a, “Look - it’s not me, it’s you” argument.

I find it incredible that someone under such vicious fire should respond with such a weak defence.

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Maxims have a strong ring of authority built in. When they are used in speeches they tend to be accepted without challenge, no matter how wrong or fallacious their reasoning. The fact that they are maxims means they must be true.

Today, everyone is repeating the old Heseltine maxim that “he who wields the knife never wears the crown“. But doesn’t history prove that’s rubbish? Wasn’t it Brown who finished off Blair in the coup of September 2006? Wasn’t it Menzies Campbell who assassinated Kennedy? And wasn’t it Margaret Thatcher who stuck a dagger in Ted Heath’s back?

Perhaps a more suitable maxim for wannabe assassins might be “The killer takes it all…“

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Dan Hannan’s speech to the European Parliament has now been watched by 1.7 million people and counting: by far the most successful British political speech ever to have been shown on YouTube.

So why did this get 1.7 million views when most Ministerial speeches struggle to get 170 views?

I think it comes down to four things.

• It was counter-cultural and therefore in keeping with the web’s ethos, which is inherently anarchic, supporting the little guy against the big guy. What could be more counter cultural than a total nobody (or at least he was until last week) slamming the sitting Prime Minister to his face?
• It was a short. Just three minutes, so perfect YouTube length. Web users rarely spend more than a couple of minutes on a video clip. People want instant gratification on the web.
• It was signposted from hundreds of different sites, particularly US sites, with rave reviews, guaranteeing traffic.
• It was a damn good speech, stuffed to the brim with rhetorical tricks.

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Obama’s election has sparked a new enthusiasm for social media. All across Whitehall, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are being declared the panacea  to political disillusionment.  The argument is that as Generation X watches YouTube, all politicians have to do is put their videos on YouTube and Generation X will see them.

But many are only getting a couple of dozen views. From the look of these glitzy productions, this can’t represent value.

Nor can it be claimed that they are a sincere effort at promoting engagement? In most cases the “comments” option has been disabled.

The most viewed political speech is Brown’s 2008 party conference speech, with 30,000 views. But 900,000 people have tuned in to watch Guido’s footage of Brown picking his nose.

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