I’m currently preparing for a trip to the University of Michigan next month, where I’ll be running a course for Genome scientists and giving a lecture in the Political Science Department.
So, quite by chance, I’ve spent most of Budget day rummaging through video clips to take with me and came across one of my all time favorites, namely Martin Luther King’s extraordinary use of what, on the face of it, might seem like a rather unpromising source of imagery during the early part of his ‘I have a dream’ speech.
When working with clients in the banking and finance sector, I sometimes find it quite difficult to convince them that they too could be making effective use of imagery to get their business points across.
Yet here we have someone developing an image drawn from banking to get a powerful political message across extremely effectively.
So, if you weren’t too inspired by Mr Darling’s speech earlier today, here’s something completely different: read, watch and enjoy.
MARTIN LUTHER KING:
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check.
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned.
Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.
We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
Budget speech boredom and television news tedium
It’s now thirty years since I first started recording political speeches during the 1979 general election – but I still don’t have a single budget speech in my collection.
They tend to be so long, boring and full of statistical detail and exaggerated claims about the wonderful things in store for us that there’s seldom much of interest to a speech anorak like me.
I did once manage to listen to the whole of a Gordon Brown budget speech, but the only reason I didn’t turn it off was that I was redecorating a room and didn’t want to mess up the radio with emulsion paint.
But we now have to suffer something that’s no less tedious than the budget speech itself, namely the way television news programmes report it to us.
If there’s one thing we can be sure of today, it is that scores of television news techies will have spent countless hours cooking up yet more awful slideshows to enable the likes of Messrs. Peston, Pym and Robinson to confuse us even more about what the Chancellor’s proposals really mean.
What news of the House of Lords scandal?
At the end of January, the media was full of stories along the lines of 'Four Lords - Snape, Taylor, Truscott and Moonie - have been accused of entering into negotiations, involving fees of up to £120,000, with a newspaper's reporters', together with various calls for further investigation by the police and parliamentary authorities.
Since then, I haven't heard anything more about it, and a quick search on Google reveals that there's hardly been a mention of it in any of the media since the end of January.
If the MSM has lost interest, I'd have thought it fertile territory for political bloggers to get their teeth into.
And, given my views on the House of Lords (HERE), I'd quite like to know what's going on.
Since then, I haven't heard anything more about it, and a quick search on Google reveals that there's hardly been a mention of it in any of the media since the end of January.
If the MSM has lost interest, I'd have thought it fertile territory for political bloggers to get their teeth into.
And, given my views on the House of Lords (HERE), I'd quite like to know what's going on.
When the young Paddy Ashdown surprised himself by the power of his own rhetoric
Last night I went to an enjoyable and nostalgic event hosted by Total Politics magazine, at which Paddy Ashdown was in conversation with Iain Dale about his autobiography A Fortunate Life (April, 2009).
Hearing him in ‘elder statesman’ mode reminded me of the earliest clip from an Ashdown speech in my collection -which may well have been the first time any of his speeches had ever appeared on television (see below).
It’s from the debate on cruise missiles at the Liberal Party Assembly in 1981, two years before he became an M.P.
If the then prospective parliamentary candidate for Yeovil possessed a suit, he certainly wasn’t wearing it that day, preferring to appear in a sweater and open necked shirt – though the podium unfortunately prevents us from seeing whether or not he was also wearing sandals.
This was Ashdown in post-military mode, barking out his lines to the troops at high speed and with a serious shortage of pauses. I’ve often used it as an example of how an inexperienced speaker can sometimes be surprised by the power of his own rhetoric. The audience (predictably) applauds after the third item in a three-part list, at which point he breaks off, looking vaguely surprised by what's just happened.
POSTSCRIPT: 7 YEARS LATER
Paddy subsequently changed his position on cruise missiles, for which he was rewarded with the nickname ‘Paddy Backdown’.
This continued to haunt him during the Ashdown v. Beith campaign for the leadership of the new party formed by the Liberal-SDP merger in 1988. According to his opponents, this change of heart was evidence of inconsistency and indecisiveness, therefore making him unsuitable for leadership.
The response from some of his supporters, which you won't be able to find in his autobiography, came in the form of a very neat contrast along the lines of:
"It’s a damn sight easier to knock sense into a charismatic person than it is to knock charisma into a sensible person."
Hearing him in ‘elder statesman’ mode reminded me of the earliest clip from an Ashdown speech in my collection -which may well have been the first time any of his speeches had ever appeared on television (see below).
It’s from the debate on cruise missiles at the Liberal Party Assembly in 1981, two years before he became an M.P.
If the then prospective parliamentary candidate for Yeovil possessed a suit, he certainly wasn’t wearing it that day, preferring to appear in a sweater and open necked shirt – though the podium unfortunately prevents us from seeing whether or not he was also wearing sandals.
This was Ashdown in post-military mode, barking out his lines to the troops at high speed and with a serious shortage of pauses. I’ve often used it as an example of how an inexperienced speaker can sometimes be surprised by the power of his own rhetoric. The audience (predictably) applauds after the third item in a three-part list, at which point he breaks off, looking vaguely surprised by what's just happened.
POSTSCRIPT: 7 YEARS LATER
Paddy subsequently changed his position on cruise missiles, for which he was rewarded with the nickname ‘Paddy Backdown’.
This continued to haunt him during the Ashdown v. Beith campaign for the leadership of the new party formed by the Liberal-SDP merger in 1988. According to his opponents, this change of heart was evidence of inconsistency and indecisiveness, therefore making him unsuitable for leadership.
The response from some of his supporters, which you won't be able to find in his autobiography, came in the form of a very neat contrast along the lines of:
"It’s a damn sight easier to knock sense into a charismatic person than it is to knock charisma into a sensible person."
Obama’s rhetoric identifies with Martin Luther King but appeals to a wider audience
The oratory of Martin Luther King was clearly derived from the style of preaching he had grown up with in the Southern Baptist Church. That same tradition was also reflected in the way crowds responded to his speeches like congregations, punctuating them at regular intervals with chants like “Holy, holy, holy”, “Amen”, etc.
This was very evident in the last speech he ever made on the night before he was assassinated (see transcript and video below):
MLK: I just want to do God’s will.
CROWD: Yeah-
MLK: And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain.
CROWD: Go ahead-
MLK: And I’ve looked over,
CROWD: Yeah -
MLK: and I’ve seen the promised land.
CROWD: Holy, Holy, Holy.
CROWD: Amen.
MLK: I may not get there with you.
CROWD: Yeah – holy.
MLK: but I want you to know tonight
CROWD: Yeah -
MLK: that we as a people
CROWD: Yeah -
MLK: will get to the promised land.
CROWD: Yeah [APPLAUSE] Holy, holy.
MLK: So I’m happy tonight, I’m not worried about anything, I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord [CHEERS + APPLAUSE].
Moving though his use of biblical imagery and references to ‘God’ and ‘the Lord’ may have been, a question that never occurred to me when I first wrote about Martin Luther King’s oratory twenty five years ago (Our Masters’ Voices pp. 105-111) was how such language must have sounded to American Muslims, Jews, Hindus and non-believers, all of whom who were explicity included in the nation’s ‘patchwork heritage’ referred to in President Obama’s inaugural address.
Nor was his inaugural speech the first time that Obama’s rhetoric had broadened and extended his appeal to a much wider constituency than King’s fellow Southern Baptists and/or committed Christians. The following sequence from his victory speech in Chicago last November (for detailed analysis of rhetoric, see HERE) included clearly recognisable echoes with its mountain-climbing imagery and the claim that “we as a people will get there”:
OBAMA: The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term, but America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you - we as a people will get there.
CROWD: Yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can …
“We as a people will get there” may have sounded a good deal less dramatic than “We as a people will get to the promised land”, but it has the great benefit of being much more inclusive than was implied by the religious connotations of "the promised land" - while at the same time clearly identifying Mr Obama with well-known words of the person whose dream he was implicitly claiming to have fulfilled by winning the election.
The crowd also responded with a ‘secularised’ version of the kind of chanting that brought such life to Martin Luther King’s speeches, replacing words like 'holy' and 'amen' with repetitive refrain of the non-religious “Yes we can”, but still echoing or harking back to the close speaker-audience interaction of the Southern-Baptist tradition of worship.
As an outside observer of Barack Obama’s oratory and rhetoric, I have been fascinated by the way he managed, by stripping out religion from well-known words of Martin Luther King, to broaden his appeal to a much wider audience, while leaving the identification with his distinguished African-American predecessor clearly on view.
The questions I’d be fascinated to hear answered by him and his team of insiders is whether this was a deliberately contrived strategy and, if so, whose idea was it and when it was first conceived?
This was very evident in the last speech he ever made on the night before he was assassinated (see transcript and video below):
MLK: I just want to do God’s will.
CROWD: Yeah-
MLK: And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain.
CROWD: Go ahead-
MLK: And I’ve looked over,
CROWD: Yeah -
MLK: and I’ve seen the promised land.
CROWD: Holy, Holy, Holy.
CROWD: Amen.
MLK: I may not get there with you.
CROWD: Yeah – holy.
MLK: but I want you to know tonight
CROWD: Yeah -
MLK: that we as a people
CROWD: Yeah -
MLK: will get to the promised land.
CROWD: Yeah [APPLAUSE] Holy, holy.
MLK: So I’m happy tonight, I’m not worried about anything, I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord [CHEERS + APPLAUSE].
Moving though his use of biblical imagery and references to ‘God’ and ‘the Lord’ may have been, a question that never occurred to me when I first wrote about Martin Luther King’s oratory twenty five years ago (Our Masters’ Voices pp. 105-111) was how such language must have sounded to American Muslims, Jews, Hindus and non-believers, all of whom who were explicity included in the nation’s ‘patchwork heritage’ referred to in President Obama’s inaugural address.
Nor was his inaugural speech the first time that Obama’s rhetoric had broadened and extended his appeal to a much wider constituency than King’s fellow Southern Baptists and/or committed Christians. The following sequence from his victory speech in Chicago last November (for detailed analysis of rhetoric, see HERE) included clearly recognisable echoes with its mountain-climbing imagery and the claim that “we as a people will get there”:
OBAMA: The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term, but America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you - we as a people will get there.
CROWD: Yes we can, yes we can, yes we can, yes we can …
“We as a people will get there” may have sounded a good deal less dramatic than “We as a people will get to the promised land”, but it has the great benefit of being much more inclusive than was implied by the religious connotations of "the promised land" - while at the same time clearly identifying Mr Obama with well-known words of the person whose dream he was implicitly claiming to have fulfilled by winning the election.
The crowd also responded with a ‘secularised’ version of the kind of chanting that brought such life to Martin Luther King’s speeches, replacing words like 'holy' and 'amen' with repetitive refrain of the non-religious “Yes we can”, but still echoing or harking back to the close speaker-audience interaction of the Southern-Baptist tradition of worship.
As an outside observer of Barack Obama’s oratory and rhetoric, I have been fascinated by the way he managed, by stripping out religion from well-known words of Martin Luther King, to broaden his appeal to a much wider audience, while leaving the identification with his distinguished African-American predecessor clearly on view.
The questions I’d be fascinated to hear answered by him and his team of insiders is whether this was a deliberately contrived strategy and, if so, whose idea was it and when it was first conceived?
A day when LibDems cheered at being told they all read a broadsheet newspaper
Today’s news from Iain Dale that another blog had reported that Nick Clegg was booed at the Welsh LibDem Conference for saying “we’re all broadsheet readers here” reminded me of a time when the SDP Conference in Buxton applauded ecstatically on being told by Ann Brennan that she’d never seen so many Guardian readers in her life – from which she drew a rather ominous electoral prediction (that was also applauded) - see below (or HERE for the full speech).
Nor is Mr Clegg the first LibDem leader to be booed by the party. It also happened to Paddy Ashdown at a spring conference, where he started a joke with the line "As I was driving to Nottingham..." only to be greeted by boos and hisses. The mistake, we realised in retrospect, was that we hadn't taken into account the large number of train spotters in the party, who would applaud anything that praised railways or criticised motoring.
And what was really annoying was that the joke would have worked just as well if he'd started with "When I was on the train to Nottingham.."
Nor is Mr Clegg the first LibDem leader to be booed by the party. It also happened to Paddy Ashdown at a spring conference, where he started a joke with the line "As I was driving to Nottingham..." only to be greeted by boos and hisses. The mistake, we realised in retrospect, was that we hadn't taken into account the large number of train spotters in the party, who would applaud anything that praised railways or criticised motoring.
And what was really annoying was that the joke would have worked just as well if he'd started with "When I was on the train to Nottingham.."
Time for Gordon Brown to say "sorry" to savers
After today's belated “sorry" for emailgate, Gordon Brown went on to say that he had been “horrified, shocked and very angry indeed” about it – words that exactly sum up how I’ve been feeling about his onslaught on savers ever since he became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1997.
This blog normally concentrates on, and with occasional exceptions like today, will continue to concentrate on making observations about speaking and communication, rather than expressing political opinions. But I’ve been “horrified, shocked and very angry indeed” about Mr Brown’s attack on savers for twelve years for the very simple reason that it occurred at a time when I was devising a strategy for my own savings and retirement.
Having decided some years before 1997 that I wanted to avoid having to sink my life’s savings into an iniquitous annuity that would allow some life insurance company to pay a pitiful rate of interest – and then pocket the lot if I happened to die the next day – I had already started to invest as heavily as I could in PEPs, on the grounds that it seemed preferable to pay the tax first and enjoy tax-free benefits later than to get tax relief on today’s pension contributions in exchange for the dubious benefits of an annuity tomorrow (not to mention to have the freedom to bequeath anything I hadn’t spent to people more dear to me than an insurance company).
Then, and people seem to have forgotten this, one of Brown’s first plans when he became Chancellor was to introduce retrospective legislation that would eliminate the tax advantages that had induced millions of us to invest in PEPs. I remember writing to him (and every other relevant politician I could think of) pointing out how unfair this was, and urging that there should be no change in the terms of reference that had made people like me opt for this particular form of savings in the first place.
Thankfully, Brown dropped that plan, but didn’t drop the even more cunning plan of abolishing one of the main incentives to put savings into pension policies, namely the tax relief on dividends earned within a pension fund that used to make them build up more quickly than would otherwise have been the case.
The first ten years of this infamous raid on pension funds bagged in excess of £100 billion from millions of thrifty savers who had been naïve enough to think it might be a good idea save for their retirement.
Even without the post-credit crunch shrinkage of interest now payable on annuities, Brown’s raid had already guaranteed us a much lower pension than we’d been led to believe we’d get when we first signed up for it. It also fired the starting gun for more and more companies to close down their final salary pension schemes.
Two other things about Mr Brown’s position on savings and pensions also leave me “horrified, shocked and very angry indeed.”
One is that he suddenly and belatedly started to sound surprised and worried that the country is now facing a major pensions crisis.
The other is that, whenever interviewers dare to raise the subject with him, he never admits that he had anything to do with it, and becomes even more evasive than the 'default' extreme evasiveness he typically displays in response to any question anyone ever puts to him.
Saying “sorry” for emailgate may or may not work as an effective piece of damage limitation in the aftermath of the recent misconduct of his inner circle.
But the “sorry” millions of us are still waiting for is for the damage he, and not his henchmen, did to our savings.
Unfortunately for us, it’s far too late to limit the damage he’s already done.
Unfortunately for him, none of us will have forgotten about it when we go into the ballot box.
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