I suppose it’s of the nature of the Open University that they’re a bit short on decent lecture theatres for speeches like the one David Cameron gave there earlier today. But I did think they could have done a bit better than to position his lectern in front of a distracting and rather unattractive bookshelf – distracting, because anoraks like me start trying to see which books are waiting there to be picked up and read.
The need to check on furniture and fittings before you make a speech is something I’ve commented on before after Prince William had to hover at the bottom of some stairs trying to hold his script in one hand and a microphone in the other.
The OU did a bit better than that, but if I'd been Mr Cameron or one of his aides, I’d have done my best to arrange for a rather more suitable backdrop than a few bookshelves.
One other thing he should be doing something about is that he’s still spending far too much time looking towards one side of the audience before looking in the other direction. On this occasion, it wasn’t quite as marked as it was in the video that can be seen HERE, but his gaze was quite often fixed in one direction for 11-19 seconds (i.e. too long) before being redirected towards the other half of the audience.
Given that his delivery is much better than the average currently prevailing among British politicians, it’s a pity he doesn’t do something about such a simple error that’s so easy to correct.
Showing posts with label David Cameron. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Cameron. Show all posts
David Cameron's attack on the Budget used some well-crafted rhetoric
Having used the neat alliterative phrase ‘decade of debt’ early in his reply to Mr Darling’s Budget speech on Wednesday, David Cameron returned to it in the second part of a contrast as he began to wind up his reply.
He then followed it up with another contrast between the last Labour government and this one, a repetitively constructed three-part list and a question – technically* pretty faultless, and hardly surprising that he was rewarded with a good deal of positive media coverage.
CAMERON:
[A] The last Labour government gave us the Winter of Discontent.
[B] This Labour Government has given us the Decade of Debt.
[A] The last Labour Government left the dead unburied.
[B] This one leaves the debts unpaid.
[1] They sit there, running out of money,
[2] running out of moral authority,
[3] running out of time.
[Q] And you have to ask yourself what on earth is the point of another fourteen months of this Government of the living dead?
(* More on these rhetorical techniques and how to use them can be found in my books Lend Me Your Ears and Speech-making and Presentation Made Easy).
He then followed it up with another contrast between the last Labour government and this one, a repetitively constructed three-part list and a question – technically* pretty faultless, and hardly surprising that he was rewarded with a good deal of positive media coverage.
CAMERON:
[A] The last Labour government gave us the Winter of Discontent.
[B] This Labour Government has given us the Decade of Debt.
[A] The last Labour Government left the dead unburied.
[B] This one leaves the debts unpaid.
[1] They sit there, running out of money,
[2] running out of moral authority,
[3] running out of time.
[Q] And you have to ask yourself what on earth is the point of another fourteen months of this Government of the living dead?
(* More on these rhetorical techniques and how to use them can be found in my books Lend Me Your Ears and Speech-making and Presentation Made Easy).
Gordon Brown seems to agree that Labour is ‘savage’ and ‘inhuman’
Unless nodding your head has come to mean something other than expressing agreement with the person you’re listening to, there was an extraordinary sequence in David Cameron’s reply to the Budget speech on Wednesday in which the Gordon Brown was to be seen to nodding quite cheerfully on being told his government is ‘savage’ and ‘inhuman’:
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