Vince Cable shows how 'Yah-boo politics' can win victories for the LibDems

I've just been watching last night's Channel 4 broadcast of the Chancellors' Debate, and was fascinated to see that Vince Cable was the only one of the three spokesmen who prompted applause from the audience during his closing statement (see transcript & video clip below).

A victory for 'Yah-boo' politics

It proved something I've always argued, namely that 'Yah-boo' politics works just as well for the LibDems as it does for the other main parties - in spite of the LibDems' long-standing 'holier than thou' claim to be the only party that doesn't lower itself to using 'Yah-boo' tactics.

During Paddy Ashdown's leadership of the party, I often found myself arguing against such an approach, for the simple reason that we knew that 84% of the bursts of applause in political speeches are triggered by two particular types of message (or a combination of the two):

Boasts about our side: 40%
Attacks or insults aimed at opponents: 34%

Combined boast + attack: 10%

(Our Masters' Voices, pp. 34-45).

So, if you're really serious about refraining from 'yah-boo' politics, you're voluntarily reducing your chances of winning applause by more than a third.

Liberal 'Yah-boo' moments from the past

This is not to say, of course, that the LibDems have always (or ever?) been consistent in practising what they preach when it comes to avoiding 'Yah-boo' politics.

After all, Vince Cable's most famous line during his temporary leadership of the party was his 'Yah-boo' remark about Gordon Brown becoming more like Mr Bean than Stalin.

More than 30 years ago, during the 1979 general election, Liberal leader David Steel was also not averse to it, as you can see from this neat example of how to use a puzzle with contrasting solution to say 'yah-b00' to both the other parties at the same time:

[PUZZLE] 'There are two Conservative parties in this election.

[SOLUTION]

[A] 'One is offering the continuation of the policies we've had for the last five years.

[B] 'And the other is offering a return to the policies of forty years ago.'

[APPLAUSE]

Cable's latest 'Yah-boo' moment

In his closing remarks at the end of last night's debate, Vince Cable again showed how to use this 'plague on both your houses' approach to craft a 'Yah-boo' sequence that wins a positive response from the audience.

As with the Steel example from 1979, it showed that a rhetorical advantage for LibDem politicians is that there is always plenty of scope for making simple contrasts between the two main parties - and, in this case, Cable adds to the rhetorical impact of that by listing three dreadful things that each of them is alleged to have done - all of which are offered as the start of a solution to the puzzle with which he opened the sequence.

Then, as he moves towards making a favourable contrast between the LibDem's and both the alternatives, he's interrupted by one of the evening's few bursts of applause:

[PUZZLE] 'The question is who can you trust to do it?

[SOLUTION]

[A1] 'The Labour government led us into this mess

[A2] 'they've done severe damage to pensions and savings

[A3] 'they've wasted a vast amount of money on over-centralised public services.

[B1] 'The Tories presided over two big recessions in office

[B2] 'they wasted most of the North Sea oil revenue

[B3] 'they sold off the family silver on the cheap

'Now they want to have another turn to get their noses in the trough and reward their rich backers.

'I- I - The Liberal Democrats are different..'

[APPLAUSE]

'.. the Liberal Democrats are different.'

How NOT to introduce a speaker

About 20 seconds into this clip from the Liberal Democrats' Spring conference at the weekend, you'll see a fine example of how not to do an introduction.

Clap on the name

As far as the structure of the sequence is concerned, it's a reasonable example of how to use the 'clap on the name' technique to elicit applause (for more on which, see my books):

(1) Identify or hint at the identity of who's being introduced

(2) Say a few words about him/her

(3) Name him/her [Audience applauds]

Be positive and confident about who it is

But it really isn't a very good idea to spend stages (1) and (2) raising questions or doubts about the person you're introducing, or to sound less than 100% sure who it is.

Normally, the 'clap on the name' technique works so that the audience is able to come in before you get to the end of saying the person's name - which has the added advantage of making it sound as though they're all so pleased to see him/her that they can't wait until you've finished to start clapping.

But, in this case there's a delay of a whole second before the applause gets under way - which was almost certainly prompted by the hesitancy shown in leading up to the announcement of his name (and/or possibly even because the audience was still mulling over the controversial implications of the first sentence):

CHAIR: "I'd like to introduce you conference to probably one of the very few MPs in British politics at the moment who is genuinely trusted by the British public (What? - 1: Is he only 'probably' one of them, 2: Are there only 'very few' of them, and 3: Where does that leave all the other LibDem MPs?).

"Its - the - shadow - Treasury - uh - shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer rather (What?Doesn't she know who their most famous MP is or what his job title is?), Vince Cable."

Clips showing Michael Parkinson and Barack Obama using the same technique rather more effectively than this can be seen HERE.

There's no such thing as a boring subject

One of the more memorable lines from the late David Ellis-Jones, with whom I used to teach presentation and communication skills at the Henley Management College, was "There's no such thing as a boring subject; there are only boring speakers."

People often didn't believe him and often don't believe me when I repeat the line. Anyone with similar doubts should have a look at this recent posting from Chris Witt to see what an interesting topic 'bacteria' can be.

One of the least promising subjects I ever heard a presenter talking about was the history of changes in UK retirement pensions. The speaker was Steve Bee of Scottish Life, whom I saw holding an audience of 800+ riveted and entertained by the topic.

He also taught me something new. Although I'd been advocating the use of 'chalk and talk' (i.e. writing and/or drawing stuff up on a blackboard or flip chart as you go along) for years, I also used to enter the caveat that people in big audiences may not be able to see what you're doing.

But Steve Bee used a visualiser, a technologically slicker version of the old blank rolls of acetate on overhead projectors. His only visual aid was a blank sheet of paper, on which he gradually drew an ever more complicated diagram that was not only critical to his general argument, but was also clearly visible on the screen above him - and made me realise that 'chalk and talk' can be as effective with a huge audience as it can be with a small one.

On the subject of 'boring subjects', one of the interesting things on the British political scene in the recent past has been the rising esteem for the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, Vince Cable, whose star has risen on the back of his ability to sound as though he's talking more sense about complicated economic and financial topics than most of his competitors.

However boring and incomprehensible such subjects may seem at first sight - or when coming out of the mouths of Gordon Brown or Alistair Darling - Cable talks about them with clarity and authority.

And it's probably no coincidence that, unlike most of his political opponents, he's one of the ever-decreasing number of MPs who actually had a proper job outside politics before becoming a full-time politician.

As chief economist at Shell, making economics intelligible to colleagues who weren't trained as economists must have been a routine part of Vince Cable's everyday working life - that has now, in his 'new' life, become his strongest 'political' asset.http://www.pensionsguru.guru/

‘From Stalin to Mr Bean’: putting two parts of a contrast in the most effective order

In case anyone thinks that the last posting was intended as a criticism of Vince Cable’s rhetorical skill, I haven't forgotten that his most famous line came when, as acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, he produced a devastating contrast at Question Time in the House of Commons (see below).

If he had said that Mr Brown ‘had become more like Mr Bean than Stalin’, the contrast between a bumbling fool and an autocratic dictator would still have been there and would no doubt have raised a laugh or two.

But on that occasion, he got the order of the two parts of the contrast the right way round, and not only had a tremendous impact there and then, but also did his own longer term reputation no harm at all.

The line also inspired a purely visual representation of his point on you YouTube that can be seen HERE.

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How to improve impact by sequence, repetition and a rhetorical technique

In Vince Cable’s speech at the spring conference of the Liberal Democrats in Harrogate a couple of days ago, there was a sequence that would have been more effective had he (or his speechwriter) reversed the order in which he mentioned the two points, used repetition and packaged it as a contrast.

The line went as follows:

"Public companies should publish full pay package of all their highly paid employees [applause starts] as well as the directors."

You can see the sequence by looking here (1 minute, 25 seconds into the video), and will notice that the audience started applauding immediately after he said ‘employees’ and before he got to the key phrase ‘as well as the directors.'

As the current situation is that pay packages of directors already have to be published and Cable’s new/controversial point was that this should also apply to all highly paid employees, this would have worked better if the 'news' had come second rather than first.

It was also crying out to be turned into as a more explicit contrast between directors and other highly paid employees, with key words repeated, along the lines of the following:

"Public companies should not just publish the full pay package of their directors.
"They should publish the full pay package of all their highly paid employees."

Rhythmically and for adding emphasis, it would arguably have been improved further by making the second part of the contrast slightly longer, as in:

"They should publish the full pay package of each and every single one of their highly paid employees."

Either way, the applause would still have come immediately after the word ‘employees’, but it would have sounded more emphatic and there would have been no risk of the key point being drowned out by the applause.