Time the Tories learnt from Mrs Thatcher's stage managers?

During the party conference season, I commented on the peculiar backdrop behind platform speakers at last year's Conservative Party conference, and pointed out that Mrs Thatcher, under the guidance of Harvey Thomas, had revolutionised the staging of conferences.

A major innovation was to make sure that the main camera angle hid everyone but the speaker from view, so that television viewers couldn't see anyone looking bored with, or disapproving of, what she was saying - a detail that was eventually latched on to and copied by Labour Party conference organisers:

For some strange reason, today's Tories seem to think that it's a good idea to have their leader speaking with his back to his shadow cabinet colleagues, as he did at today's Spring Forum in Brighton.

But, however much they may have been briefed to look attentive and nod in the right places, it's not just that it looks odd (and arguably completely unnatural) to see someone making a speech with his back to so many members of the audience, it's also a risky and distracting strategy.

Unless, of course, I'm the only viewer who can't help keeping an eye on how the audience is reacting and is continually on the lookout for yawns and/or heads shaking in disagreement. The inevitable result is that you don't listen as closely to what he's saying as you otherwise would (which could possibly be the reason they do it) - while the possible ever-present risk is that someone's inappropriate reaction might prompt the beginnings of a negative news story.

P.S. Just noticed a delayed burst of applause 36 seconds into this clip - shadow cabinet members behind him had been nodding their heads, but didn't get their hands apart to join in until after the audience in front of him has started clapping. Not a negative news story, perhaps, but is anything gained by exposing such hesitant stuff to a wider audience?

P.P.S. (1 March): Since posting this, I've announced details of a St Dave's Day (prize) competition HERE.

How to prepare a televised speech, Part (1): appearance, posture & content

Yesterday's post marking the 30th anniversary of the BBC comedy series Yes Minister seemed to go down quite well with a lot of visitors, especially from the USA where it was apparently never broadcast.

After Jim Hacker's promotion in the Yes Prime Minister series, there was an episode with some essential guidelines for anyone who ever has to help a speaker preparing for a televised speech.

As it's quite a long sequence, I'll be posting it in three parts, of which this is the first two minutes:

Bleak news from the bush: Kenya one year later

At about this time last year, we were in Kenya and spent a couple of days at the Amboseli game park. Our guides were clearly concerned that the amount of snow on the summit of Kilimanjaro had been getting less and less over the last few years, as melting snow plays such a crucial part in supplying the swamps below with enough water to keep the animals alive.

I was therefore astonished to learn from an article in the Daily Telegraph how quickly disaster had struck and how little wildlife we would have seen had we been there in the same week this year as we were there last year -when, almost wherever you looked, there were scores of wildebeests, zebra, elephants and buffalo, not to mention quite a few lions and giraffes.

But, according to the article in The Telegraph:

'it only took last year's deadly drought to apply the coup de grace... When the rains finally did fall in December they came too late to save the game and two thirds of Amboseli's wildlife population died including all but two percent of the park's6,000 wildebeest. The rest perished, along with most of its zebras, 75 per cent of its buffaloes and every elephant under two years old' (my emphases).

I find it shocking and depressing to think that 98% of the wildebeest and so many of the other animals we saw a year ago are now dead - and that, if the photograph above had been taken this February, it would have been a completely blank landscape with no animals in it at all.

Just as shocking and depressing are the effects of all this on the peoples of East Africa. The drought has not only killed off their own domestic livestock and plunged them into a large scale food crisis, but it's also threatening to kill off economic development in countries that rely so heavily on tourism - that in turn depends on there being plenty of animals for tourists to see.

Even more shocking and depressing is the fact that the climate change deniers keep on telling us that global warming is nothing to worry about. But then Nero didn't think that Rome going up in smoke was anything to worry about either.

30th anniversary of 'Yes Minister' - and a top tip for public speakers

Thirty years ago today, the BBC broadcast the first programme in its brilliant Yes Minister (later Yes Prime Minister) comedy series. Not only was it Mrs Thatcher's favourite programme, but one of its authors (Antony Jay) was also one of her speechwriters.

To celebrate the anniversary, here's a clip showing Mr Hacker marking another anniversary - with the wrong speech and an important reminder for all public speakers.

More topically, as today's politicians from Obama to all our current British party leaders keep banging on about change, the environment, conservation, pollution, etc. it's fascinating to see that the Rt. Hon. James Hacker had beaten them all to the post - 30 years ago!

PM apologises!

I could hardly believe my eyes a few minutes ago when I saw the words 'PM apologises' on a BBC website headline - until I saw that they were followed by the words 'to child migrants'.

Am I alone in being irritated by the sight and sound of him apologising so piously for a policy for which he had no responsibility whatsoever (the barmy child migration scheme) when it never occurs to him to apologise for the damage done by policies that definitely were conceived and implemented by him?

As regular readers may already have guessed, I'm referring to the ruthless raid on pension funds that left so many of us with massively reduced life savings, triggered the end of final salary pension schemes and discouraged those younger than us from saving as much as they should be doing - for a more extended rant on which, see Time for Gordon Brown to say sorry to savers.