At last: the first sign of passion and audience excitement in an election speech

After much blogging about the absence of proper speeches at proper rallies during the election (see below), I was delighted to see this barnstorming performance from Gordon Brown at Westminster Hall yesterday:


I was also delighted that news of the speech was quick to circulate around Twitter and the blogosphere - and anyone who thinks that proper speeches at proper rallies don't make for good television might like to reflect on the fact that, less than 24 hours later, 37,531 viewers have watched it on YouTube (latest total at 22.00 hrs: 49,186).

But how much of it did BBC Television News let you see?
The BBC 10 0'clock news excelled itself with a seven and a half minute report that seemed to be designed to encapsulate everything I've been complaining about since the election began (see links below).

We were shown 22 seconds from each of the speeches by Brown, Cameron and Clegg - presumably exactly equal shares to conform to the Representation of the People Act.

But the Act doesn't constrain the verbosity of political editor Nick Robinson, who spent 123 seconds telling us what they said, asking each of them how they felt about it and generally pontificating about what was going on.

So viewers had to listen to Robinson speaking for more than half (52%) of this opening sequence, compared with just over a quarter (28%) listening to what three party leaders were saying.

Then to opinion poll news, where we were treated to more than a minute's display of the BBC's obsession with flashy graphics, as a manic Jeremy Vine migrated from a virtual bar-chart to a virtual House of Commons (see also Euro-election coverage: was the BBC's graphical overkill a violation of its charter?).

And, just in case you hadn't seen enough of Nick Robinson, up he pops again at the end of the sequence to bag another 74 seconds of the night's lead political story .


P.S. Since I posted this a few hours ago, John Rentoul, chief political commentator at the Independent on Sunday, has picked up on it and added some interesting comments HERE, based on his past experience of working with Nick Robinson at BBC Television.

Related posts on the election
Earlier posts on UK media coverage (or lack of it) of speeches

Anti-Brown & pro-Cameron bias in Dimbleby's repetition of TV debate questions?

During the third TV debate, there were quite a few complaints on Twitter (and elsewhere on the internet) about the frequency with which David Dimbleby, the BBC's moderator, kept interrupting the discussion to repeat the questions that had prompted it (see below).

I too found it vaguely irritating, not least because I've long had doubts about the way Dimbleby chairs BBC's Question Time compared with the much more incisive and entertaining style of the late Sir Robin Day (for more on which, see HERE).

Distracting?
I also found Dimbleby's repetition of the questions needlessly distracting - if only because it took my mind away from the debate to reflect on why he was doing it, and whether he'd found something in the 76 rules of engagement that the previous moderators had missed.

But I can't see anything in the relevant section (Rules 58-64 below) that encourages moderators to repeat the questions. In fact, you could even argue that such frequent repetition of the questions was actually a breach of rule 60 - as it interfered with, rather than ensured, 'free-flowing debate':

Role of the moderator
58. To moderate the programme
59. To keep the leaders to the agreed time limits
60. To ensure free-flowing debate being fair to all candidates over the course of the programme.
61. To ensure fairness on the direction of the programme editor
62. To seek factual clarification where necessary
63. It is not the moderator’s role to criticise or comment on the leaders’ answers.
64. The candidates accept the authority of the moderator to referee the rules on stage and ensure a free flowing, fair debate conducted within the agreed rules


So why did he do it?
Initially, I could only think of two possible explanations for Dimbleby's repetitive interventions.

One is that he may have thought that the two previous moderators, Alastair Stewart and Adam Boulton, had been too willing to stay in the background and he was now going show the youngsters how they should have done it.

The other is that, having waited for decades to preside over such a debate, he was jolly well going to make the most of it - and, as there was no ban on repeating questions, that was all he could do to get more of his own words in edgeways.

Or did it conceal a bias against Brown and in favour of Cameron?
However, having gone through Dimbleby's repetitions again in preparing this post, I noticed an intriguing difference in the frequency with which he chose to repeat a question before asking one or other of the leaders to speak.

He did it 6 times before selecting Brown, 3 times before selecting Clegg but only once before selecting Cameron.

In conversation, repeating a question that's already been asked usually means that you didn't think that what the other person had said so far was an adequate answer to the question.

If that was at the back of Dimbleby's mind in this (admittedly small) sample of repeated questions, it would imply that he was being more critical of Gordon Brown than of the other two, and that he may have had a bias in favour of David Cameron.

Have a look at the following and see what you think.

And, if you want to check it out more closely, you can watch the video of Dimbleby in action by scrolling down to Dimbleby's repetitions and clicking on the transcript of them at 'Key moments in text and video'.

Dimblebly's question repeats and reminders:
DD: Let me just repeat the question: we all know there are going to be spending cuts after the general election, no matter who wins. Why can't you be honest and tell us? I assume it means tell us about all the cuts you might make. Nick Clegg, you have a chance to respond to what the others said.

DD: Over the past few years, the taxman has taken more and more from the average worker's payslip. If you were elected, what would you do about taxes? Gordon Brown.

DD: Just before we go on, let me repeat the question. Over the past few years, the taxman's taken more and more from the average worker's payslip. If you were elected, what would you do about taxes? Gordon Brown, what would you say in reply to David Cameron's attack on you?

DD: Just a reminder of the question: this area, the Birmingham area, used to be full of businesses that made things. So many of them have been shut down or sold off and gone abroad. I want to know how you propose to rebuild the country's manufacturing industries. "We can't just have offices and shops." David Cameron.

DD: Let me just remind viewers and listeners of Radley Russell's question. Are politicians aware they've become removed from the concerns of real people, especially on immigration, and why don't you remember you're there to serve us, not ignore us? Nick Clegg?

DD: Once again, the question. Are politicians aware that they've become removed from the concerns of real people, especially on immigration? Gordon Brown.

DD: Mr Parkin's question was that he finds it galling that some who haven't paid into the system abuse it by living off state benefits. Gordon Brown.

DD: The question was about preventing the abuse of state benefits. Gordon Brown.

DD: Of course, education is a subject, a topic, policy, devolved from England, to Scotland and Wales, Northern Ireland. But I think the question goes wider. What will each leader do to ensure the children Mr Crowhurst teaches has the same opportunities in life from a very deprived area in Birmingham as those from any other school? Gordon Brown.

DD: So the question is about a teacher teaching in a deprived area of Birmingham, how do you ensure, as a leader, they will have the same opportunities in life as those from any other school? Nick Clegg.

BBC website provides a superb resource for students of the TV debates

I'd strongly recommend fellow anoraks and/or anyone interested in taking a detailed look at the third and final TV debate, to visit to one of the most useful resources I've yet seen - posted HERE on the BBC website.

Key moments in text and video not only combines a transcript with the video of the whole debate, but you can click on any part of the transcript and be taken straight to the video sequence to which it relates.

If this kind of technology had been available back in the 1980s when I started work on Our Masters' Voices (for which I had to tape and transcribe all the excerpts myself) I reckon I could have written the book in at least a tenth of the time that it actually took.

This resource would be even better if you could copy segments from the video, but I've yet to work out how to do that. If you know the secret, please let me know.

The Art of the Public Address

Given the BBC's shift away from playing anything much from political speeches on its main news programmes (for more on which see links below), I'm wondering whether it was deliberate irony on the part of Radio 4's schedulers t0 broadcast a light-hearted investigation into The Art of the Public Address by Laurie Taylor - today, with less than a week to go before polling day.

I knew the programme was in the pipeline, as I make a brief appearance in it as a 'straight man' to Arthur Smith's comedy lines. And I confess to being mildly disappointed that my favourite PA announcement didn't survive the editor's cut. It came on the platform of Bath Spa station on a very rainy day, when those of us 'alighting' from the train were told:

"First Great Western apologises for delays to West-bound trains, which are being caused by a herd of goats sheltering in the Severn tunnel."

But I was very pleased to have made a more positive contribution as an amateur talent scout. On my way home after being interviewed by Laurie, I came across Scott, a particularly impressive PA announcer on the platform of a London Tube station, persuaded him to give me his phone number and emailed it to the producer - my debut as a casting consultant, and Scott's debut on BBC Radio 4.

Related posts on UK media coverage (or lack of it) of speeches

Cutaways as the nearest thing to applause in the TV debates

Well, much to my surprise, the audiences at the three TV debates succeeded in conforming to the ban on applause, as specified in rule of engagement No. 40, for four and a half hours.

Signs of agreement
But there were a few isolated sequences that enabled the millions of viewers at home to see someone in the audience showing approval and/or agreement with something said by one of the speakers. And, in the absence of applause, this was the closest we got to seeing any positive reactions to what one or other of the leaders was saying.

At first, I thought that the following clip might lead to the BBC being accused of breaking rule of engagement No. 71: There will be no close-up cutaways of a single individual audience member while the leaders are speaking.

But then I realised that, by restating a general question ("Who would have thought...") into one aimed directly at the woman who had asked the question ("When you lent that money to the banks, did you think...), Nick Clegg had liberated the BBC editors to cut away to the questioner - under rule of enagement No. 72: However if one of the leaders directly addresses an individual audience member, a close-up shot of that individual can be shown e.g. if a leader answers a question by directly addressing the questioner.

This meant they could show the questioner shaking her head and anticipating Mr Clegg's own answer ("No) before he got there. But, whereas such individual displays of agreement with a rhetorical question are more usually the precursor to a collective one (i.e. a burst of applause), as can be clearly seen HERE, this one, thanks to rule 40, did not.

What particularly impressed me was how alert to the rules the BBC live picture editor must have been to see the opportunity provided by rule 72 quickly enough to be able to cut away within a mere four seconds of Clegg starting to speak directly to the questioner. How many of the viewers at home, I wonder, were listening quite as closely as that to the debate?