In his speech at the Labour Party conference earlier today, shadow chancellor Ed Balls had a go at 'surfing applause' (about 2.45 minutes into the above clip), a technique that's seldom mastered by anyone outside the top rank of political orators (for more on which, with examples from Tony Benn and presidents Obama and Sarkozy, see HERE).
Could this, I wonder, have had anything to do with prompting some rather favourable reactions on Twitter, such as this from @ JohnHigginson: 'Talk from the faithful is that Ed Balls, who has always suffered from a stutter, is becoming better at delivering speeches'?
I also can't help wondering whether it was deliberate and, if so, who taught him to do it?
But don't expect our broadcasters to let a wider audience see it on prime-news tonight. After all, that would mean giving Mr Balls far too much airtime and prevent the likes of Nick Robinson, Tom Bradby, Adam Boulton et al. from spending even more time telling us what he was talking about (for more on which, see HERE).
3 comments:
Post a Comment