Rowan Williams: Emperor, Archbishop or Cambridge academic with no clothes?

Regular readers will know that I've found the communication skills of the Archbishop of Canterbury an occasional source of bewilderment and amusement:

• More gobbledygook from the Archbishop of Canterbury in his Christmas sermon
• What does a 147 word sentence sound like?
• Jargon and gobbledygook comedy sketch

Now he's decided to pack the job in to become master of a Cambridge college, you might think that he'd see his final Easter sermon as a wonderful chance to go out with a bang and/or leave a lasting mark on the Anglican communion.

But it was not to be either of these.

Archbishop Rowan apparently saw it as a golden opportunity to demonstrate his academic credentials to his eagerly awaiting colleagues in Cambridge and to show off his intellectual superiority over the ignorant masses (including any potential converts who might have been trying to make sense of his carefully chosen words for the day).

He may not have matched his record of a 147 word sentence (see above), but he did manage one that went on for 87 words and averaged 45 words per sentence in this early paragraph from the sermon (the full text of which is reproduced below):

"Two new books on the economic crisis, one by the American Michael Sandel, the other by Robert and Edward Skidelsky, both rather surprisingly float the idea that without some input from religious thinking our ludicrous and destructive economic habits are more likely to go unchecked (45 words).

"And, notoriously, Alain de Botton's recent book on how to hold on to the best bits of religion without the embarrassing beliefs that go with it created quite a public stir (31 words).

"If it doesn't exactly amount to a religious revival, it does suggest that a tide may be turning in how serious and liberal-minded commentators think about faith: no longer seen as a brainless and oppressive enemy, it is recognized as a potential ally in challenging a model of human activity and social existence that increasingly feels insane, a model in which unlimited material growth and individual acquisition still seem to trump every other argument about social coherence, international justice and realism in the face of limited resources (87 words).

"We may groan in spirit at the reports of how few young people in our country know the Lord's Prayer, but there is plenty to suggest that younger people, while still statistically deeply unlikely to be churchgoers, don't have the hostility to faith that one might expect, but at least share some of the Sandel/Skidelsky/de Botton sense that there is something here to take seriously – when they have a chance to learn about it (75 words).

"It is about the worst possible moment to downgrade the status and professional excellence of religious education in secondary schools – but that's another sermon..." (25 words).

Leaving aside the fact that the average length of sentence in speeches by effective speakers is 16 words, one has to ask whatever happened to the first step in preparing any speech or presentation (or sermon), namely analyse your audience (Lend Me your Ears, pp. 280-86).

Just who did he think was out there in the congregation at Canterbury cathedral yesterday, let alone among the millions who might have caught a glimpse of him on television?

What was the key message he was trying to get across to such a huge audience on the most important day in the calendar of his church?

Has anyone the faintest idea what he was talking about or what nugget he wanted us to take away from it?

Papal plot revisited?

The more I've seen of Williams in action, the more I'm drawn to two theories about him. One came from a friend of mine, on which I've blogged before:

'... it was no coincidence that Tony Blair was thinking about converting to Roman Catholicism when he elevated Rowan Williams to the top Anglican job, and that his selection of such a hopeless communicator was proof that Blair was serving as a secret agent for the Pope with a view to bringing the Church of England into disrepute.

'At the time, I thought it rather a good joke, but the more I've seen of the Archbishop's communication skills since then, the more I'm beginning to wonder whether there might be more than a grain of truth to the theory.'

Then there's the Oxbridge version of

'The emperor has no clothes'

Having once been a fellow of an Oxford college, I'm depressingly aware that the Cambridge college that's taken the risk of giving him a job will provide a vary safe and comfortable haven for Dr Williams.

He reminds me of certain dons I knew in Oxford who, whether writing or speaking, specialised in inarticulate obscurantism. Whenever I dared to confess to colleagues that I couldn't understand a word they said or wrote, the standard reply was "Nor do I, but he really is terribly bright you know."

How they knew was a mystery to me and will, I suspect, remain a mystery to the fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge who have, for reasons best known to themselves, elected the outgoing Archbishop to be their Master...

Full text as posted on the Archbishop of Canterbury's website:

Easter Sermon

Archbishop Rowan Williams
Canterbury Cathedral
Sunday 8th April 2012

It just might be the case that the high watermark of aggressive polemic against religious faith has been passed. Recent years have seen so many high-profile assaults on the alleged evils of religion that we've almost become used to them; we sigh and pass on, wishing that we could have a bit more of a sensible debate and a bit less hysteria. But there are a few signs that the climate is shifting ever so slightly – not towards a mass return to faith but at least towards a reluctant recognition that religion can't be blamed for everything – indeed that it has made and still makes positive contributions to our common life.

Two new books on the economic crisis, one by the American Michael Sandel, the other by Robert and Edward Skidelsky, both rather surprisingly float the idea that without some input from religious thinking our ludicrous and destructive economic habits are more likely to go unchecked. And, notoriously, Alain de Botton's recent book on how to hold on to the best bits of religion without the embarrassing beliefs that go with it created quite a public stir. If it doesn't exactly amount to a religious revival, it does suggest that a tide may be turning in how serious and liberal-minded commentators think about faith: no longer seen as a brainless and oppressive enemy, it is recognized as a potential ally in challenging a model of human activity and social existence that increasingly feels insane, a model in which unlimited material growth and individual acquisition still seem to trump every other argument about social coherence, international justice and realism in the face of limited resources. We may groan in spirit at the reports of how few young people in our country know the Lord's Prayer, but there is plenty to suggest that younger people, while still statistically deeply unlikely to be churchgoers, don't have the hostility to faith that one might expect, but at least share some of the Sandel/Skidelsky/de Botton sense that there is something here to take seriously – when they have a chance to learn about it. It is about the worst possible moment to downgrade the status and professional excellence of religious education in secondary schools – but that's another sermon...

So we have reason to feel thankful that things appear to be moving on from a pointless stalemate. Yet, granted all this, and given all the appropriate expression of relief Christians may allow themselves, Easter raises an extra question, uncomfortable and unavoidable: perhaps 'religion' is more useful than the passing generation of gurus thought; but is it true? Easter makes a claim not just about a potentially illuminating set of human activities but about an event in history and its relation to the action of God. Very simply, in the words of this morning's reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we are told that 'God raised Jesus to life.'

We are not told that Jesus 'survived death'; we are not told that the story of the empty tomb is a beautiful imaginative creation that offers inspiration to all sorts of people; we are not told that the message of Jesus lives on. We are told that God did something – that is, that this bit of the human record, the things that Peter and John and Mary Magdalene witnessed on Easter morning, is a moment when, to borrow an image from the 20th century Catholic writer Ronald Knox, the wall turns into a window. In this moment we see through to the ultimate energy behind and within all things. When the universe began, prompted by the will and act of God and maintained in being at every moment by the same will and action, God made it to be a universe in which on a particular Sunday morning in AD33 this will and action would come through the fabric of things and open up an unprecedented possibility – for Jesus and for all of us with him: the possibility of a human life together in which the pouring out of God's Holy Spirit makes possible a degree of reconciled love between us that could not have been imagined.

It is that reconciled love, and the whole picture of human destiny that goes with it, that attracts those outside the household of faith and even persuades them that the presence of religion in the social order may not be either toxic or irrelevant after all. But for the Christian, the basic fact is that this compelling vision is there only because God raised Jesus. It is not an idea conceived by the spiritual genius of the apostles, those horribly familiar characters with all their blundering and mediocrity, so like us. It is, as the gospel reading insists, a shocking novelty, something done for and to us, not by us. How do we know that it is true? Not by some final knock-down would-be scientific proof, but by the way it works in us through the long story of a whole life and the longer story of the life of the community that believes it. We learn and assimilate its truth by the risk of living it; to those on the edge of it, looking respectfully and wistfully at what it might offer, we can only say, 'you'll learn nothing more by looking; at some point you have to decide whether you want to try to live with it and in it.'

And what's the difference it makes? If God exists and is active, if his will and action truly raised Jesus from the dead, then what we think and do and achieve as human beings is not the only thing that the world's future depends on. We do all we can; we bring our best intelligence and energy to labour for reconciliation and for justice; but the future of reconciliation and justice doesn't depend only on us. To say this doesn't take away one jot of our responsibility or allow us to sit back; as Pascal said, we cannot sleep while Jesus is still in agony, and the continuing sufferings of the world are an image of that agony. But to believe that everything doesn't depend on us delivers us from two potentially deadly temptations. We may be tempted to do something, anything, just because we can't bear it if we aren't making some visible difference; but to act for the sake of acting is futile or worse. Or we may be consumed with anxiety that we haven't done enough, so consumed that we never have time to be ourselves, to give God thanks for his love and grace and beauty. We may present a face to the world that is so frantic with fear that we have left something undone that we make justice and reconciliation deeply unattractive. We never acquire the grace and freedom to give God thanks for the small moments of joy, the little triumphs of sense and kindness.

And these things may be of real importance when we look at what seem to be the most completely intractable problems of our day. At Easter we cannot help but think about the land that Jesus knew and the city outside whose walls he was crucified. These last months have seen a phase of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians yet again stalling, staggering and delivering little or nothing for those who most need signs of hope. Everything seems to be presented as a zero-sum game. And all who love both the Israeli and the Palestinian communities and long for their security will feel more desperate than ever. A visit to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, will convince you why the state of Israel exists and must go on existing. A visit to any border checkpoint will convince you that the daily harassment and humiliation of Palestinians of all ages and backgrounds cannot be a justifiable or even sustainable price to pay for security. Listening to a rabbi talking about what it is like to witness the gathering up of body parts after a terrorist attack is something that can't be forgotten; neither is listening to a Palestinian whose parent or child has been killed in front of their eyes in a mortar bombing.

So how do we respond? By turning up the volume of partisanship, by searching for new diplomatic initiatives, by pretending it isn't as bad as all that after all? If we believe in a God who acts, we have to go beyond this. We have to put immense energy into supporting those on the ground who show that they believe in a God who acts – those who continue, through networks like One Voice and the Bereaved Families Forum, to bring together people from both sides and challenge them to discover empathy and mutual commitment – what Stephen Cherry of Durham in a wonderful book on forgiveness has called 'distasteful empathy', a feeling for the other or the enemy that we'd rather not have to develop. Small moments of recognition and kindness. We have to prod and nag and encourage the religious leadership in the Holy Land on all sides to speak as if they believed in a God who acts, not only a God who endorses their version of reality. We have to pray, to pray for wisdom and strength and endurance for all who are hungry for peace and justice, pray that people will go on looking for a truly shared future. And we Christians in particular have to look for ways of practically supporting our brothers and sisters there through agencies like the Friends of the Holy Land or the Jerusalem and Middle East Church Association – to help them stay in a context where they feel more and more unwelcome, yet where so many of them remain because they want to play a full part in creating this unimaginable shared future – because they believe in a God who acts. These are the priorities that all Christian leaders would want to flag up this Easter in our concern for what many call 'the land of the Holy One'.

One situation among many – but how can it not be on our minds and hearts at this time of the Christian year, this central moment of hope? Such situations can so readily draw us towards despair – including the despair of hyper-activism and unfocused anger. To believe in a God who raises Jesus from the dead is never an alibi, letting us do less than we thought we would have to. But it is a way of allowing in our own thoughts and actions some space for God to emerge as a God who creates a future. Someone once remarked that resurrection was never something you could plan for. But what we can do is to make the space, the silence, for the act of God to come through. When all's said and done about the newly acknowledged social value of religion, we mustn't forget that what we ultimately have to speak about isn't this but God: the God who raised Jesus and, as St Paul repeatedly says, will raise us also with him. Even if every commentator in the country expressed generous appreciation of the Church (and we probably needn't hold our breath...), we'd still be bound to say, 'Thank you – but what matters isn't our usefulness or niceness or whatever: it's God, purposive and active, even – especially – when we are at the end of our resources. It's the moment when the wall becomes a window.'

© Rowan Williams 2012

An orator returns to the House of Commons

Twitter has been alive with tweets expressing mixed feelings about George Galloway's return to the House of Commons via the Bradford West by-election.

But his his Wikipedia entry ends with quotes from three newspapers about his public speaking ability:

The Times finds that he has "the gift of the Glasgow gab, a love of the stage and an inexhaustible fund of self-belief." The Guardian finds him "renowned for his colourful rhetoric and combative debating style" and the Spectator once awarded him Debater of the Year.

His victory speech (above) may have kicked off with a slight over-statement, but is a timely reminder of the shortage of competent orators among our current Members of Parliament.

Love him or hate him, students of rhetoric and oratory should welcome him back and look forward to an improvement in the quality of House of Commons debates, however slight the impact of a single member is likely to be.

Early childhood doubts about becoming a farmer?

Thanks to my late mother's cine camera, I was able to splice together some clips of life on the farm in the early 1950s for my older brother's 70th birthday party last weekend - which I used to tell a story of why he grew up to become a farmer and I didn't.

Scene (1): Harvest, where both of us appear to be working quite hard.

Scene (2): Me on a trolley helping (or pretending to help) him to feed the pigs.

Scene (3): Skating, with one brother falling flat on his face.

Scenes (4-5): Action replays of the above (in case it happened so quickly that you missed it).

Scene (6): Our first combined harvester (in the days when there were no health & safety concerns about children riding on farm machinery).

Scene (7): Another combined harvester and some fatherly coaching on modern farming.

Scene (8): Older brother working hard, while I lean on a fork wondering whether this is the job for me...

Scene (9): Still photo of farming brothers from the nineteenth century. This was used by our grandfather (on the left) to boast to his grandchildren that his worn-out brush demonstrated what a hard worker he was compared with his idle older brother, whose brush was hardly worn. As a younger sibling, however, I've always been unconvinced by this. After all, is it really any surprise that the older brother has bagged the new brush for himself and left the younger one to make do with one that had seen better days?

Kate makes her first speech as Duchess of Cambridge

At the time of posting, more than 300 people have watched this on YouTube, so here's a chance to predict which excerpts (if any) will be replayed on television news programmes this evening.

Comments (so far) by YouTube viewers include:

"The Duchess's First Speech Was Well Done. The Broken Up Speech Was Actually Done For The Children. Children Need To Be Able To Hear A Few Words At A Time To Understand A Speech. Well Done!!!!"

"Extremely annoying how she reads the script every 2 seconds, that was most likely written by her PR team."

"clear, professional, and sincere speech. job well done for being her first."

"speak up!"

"well done god save the queen."

But what do you think - and which will be the soundbite(s) for tonght?

Clapping Clegg's condemnation of economically rational behaviour?

A line in a speech sometime makes me sit up and think twice about it and/or whether the politician really meant what he said - like this from Nick Clegg's speech to the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference over the weekend:

"Let me tell you, there are few things that make me angrier as the unemployed struggle to find work, as ordinary families struggle to make ends meet, as young people struggle to get on the housing ladder: the sight of the wealthiest scheming to keep their tax bill down to the bare minimum is frankly disgraceful" (about 50 seconds in):

The line in bold got me wondering whether it was fair comment or a rather too easy way to get some much needed applause - to which my answers are "no" and "yes".

If "scheming" means consulting accountants and if the advice they give you is legal, what exactly is it that's "frankly disgraceful" about anyone keeping "their tax bill down to the bare minimum"?

Or is Mr Clegg suggesting that we should all be volunteering to pay more tax than we should?

Of course we can sympathise with people struggling to find work, to make ends meet or to get on the housing ladder. But is this an adequate reason, excuse or justification for condemning the wealthy for their economically rational (and perfectly legal) behaviour?

Is this a new version of 'liberal economics' - or am I missing something?

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: First English translation of Putin's victory speech

At the end of my previous blog post, I complained that the Western media - including newspapers like The Times, which used to boast that it was a 'newspaper of record' - hadn't bothered to publish an English translation of Vladimir Putin's victory speech (HERE).

So I gave up searching Google and turned to Twitter in pursuit of the elusive text, where a Russian speech guru's perceptively dry tweet seemed to explain all: "You see, the real problem with Putin's victory speech is that nobody cares enough to even transcribe it let alone translate it."

Luckily for readers of this blog, the winner of my Putin Christmas speechwriting competition, who also happens to be my brother (@dsa99uk) - perhaps the only person in the UK with degrees in Agricultural Economics and Russian - has come up trumps with the following translation (and David Atkinson's speech for Putin can be seen HERE).

As far as I know it is the first English translation of the speech that's been published so far, and you can watch and read it here:

Vladimir Putin:
Dear friends!

I particularly want to thank all the citizens of Russia who took part today in the election for President of the Russian Federation.

Special thanks, of course, to those who have gathered here today in Moscow, to all those who supported us in every corner of our vast and boundless country.

Thanks to everyone who said "yes" for a Great Russia.

I once asked you: "Will we win?"

We did win!

We won in an open and fair contest! [Crowd cheers]

Thank you friends, thank you!

We won in an open and fair contest.

But it was not only the election for President of Russia.

It was a very important test for us all, for all our people, it was a test of political maturity, of independence, and of self confidence.

We have shown indeed, that no one can enslave us.

No one and nothing can enslave us.

We have shown that our people are truly able to easily distinguish between the desire for progress and renewed political provocation that has only one objective - to destroy Russian sovereignty and usurp power

The Russian people have now shown that in our country such choices and scenarios will not pass.

THEY SHALL NOT PASS. [Putin shouts]

We won today, thanks to the overwhelming support of the overwhelming majority of our voters, we won a clear victory.

We will work honestly and hard.

We will achieve success.

And we call on all to unite around the interests of our people and our homeland.

I promised you that we would win.

We did. We won. Glory to Russia.

(Translated by David Atkinson).

Scripted & unscripted presidential victory speeches: Putin v. Obama

If you've been following the debate about scripted versus unscripted speeches (HERE), Putin's victory speech gives us a chance to review two comparable examples.

Those of us who don't speak Russian, of course, have to make allowances for any loss of impact arising from our having to rely on the simultaneous translation.

According to those who believe that speeches read from a written script sound (and/or look) 'less authentic' than those that don't, Putin is presumably the clear winner over Obama when it comes to delivering an effective presidential victory speech.

But that, predictably, is the exact opposite of the impression I got from these two specimens.

I also know that I don't feel in the least bit motivated to do a line-by-line analysis of Putin's speech along the lines of the one I did of Obama's back in 2008 (HERE).

Nor am I at all surprised that no national newspaper (or any other media outlet) has approached me for a technical comment on Putin's speech - and would be more than a little surprised if any of them bothered to do so.

P.S. Why hasn't the media published a text of Putin's speech?

Having spent quite a while on Google looking for things like "text of Putin's victory speech", I was surprised to discover that - unusually for what one would have thought was an important enough speech to merit full translation - none of our major media outlets has bothered to publish a verbatim copy of the text.

Needless to say, I think this is a great pity, as some of us are still old-fashioned enough to want to make our own assessments of politicians by hearing the actual words that come out of their own mouths, rather than having to depend on media-selected quotations or commentaries.

And, in this particular case, the few remarks that were translated did seem to be interesting and important enough to deserve full translation.

Ed Miliband talks during his own speeches set to music in Labour's latest PPB

These days, you can watch party political broadcasts before they've even been broadcast, as with this one from the Labour Party that's scheduled to appear on television tonight.

It has at least two irritating features that I've blogged about before. One is ghastly background musak - for more on which, see Is the sound of music on TV getting more and worse?

The other is that we no longer have to put up with television reporters telling us what politicians are saying during speeches in the background but can now listen to a party leader doing the voiceover to films of his own silent speeches in the foreground - for more on which, see Politicians and broadcasters in the UK: collaboration or capitulation?

Ed Miliband seems pleased enough with this effort to have tweeted a link that invited us to have a preview last night.

It leaves me wondering why - and short of long words....

News broadcast of a speech read out in full for 3 minutes: too much & too inauthentic?

Something very unusual happened today.

Presenter Eddie Mair told us on BBC Radio 4's early evening news programme PM that they were going to play the whole of Charlotte Church's statement after she and her family had settled their case for phone-hacking damages against News International's now defunct News of the World (above).

It lasted about three minutes - far longer than most clips from political speeches replayed on radio and television news broadcasts these days.

Regular readers will know that the British broadcasters' reluctance to play extended excerpts from political speeches and their preference for having their reporters tell us what speakers are saying is something I've been complaining about for quite a while (see, for example, Politicians and broadcaster in the UK" collaboration or capitulation?).

They'll also know that I don't believe that reading a written-speech aloud always means that the speaker is doomed to come across as 'inauthentic' (see To read or not to read? That is the question for speechwriters - or is it?).

Charlotte Church may not be a politician, but this unusually long clip gives us a chance to check on both these issues at the same time.

Was it too long for listeners and did she sound inauthentic?

I first heard the clip on the car radio, so you'll have to close your eyes or look away to experience it in more or less the same way as I did (though without the added bonus of the beautiful Somerset countryside).

Having done so, see what you think.

For what it's worth, I thought she made rather a good job of it - even though I could tell that she was reading from a text).

Nor did my attentiveness to what she was saying lapse for a moment - even though we're all supposed to have such short attention spans that we're incapable of listening to a speech for anything like as long as three minutes.

So I'm still wondering why it is that our broadcasters no longer allow us to listen to excerpts from speeches by politicians that last as long as this...

P.S. Fellow anoraks won't be surprised to know that the sound bite singled out for the headlines was a simple contrast: "They're not sorry, they're just sorry they got caught" (e.g. http://t.co/PjUzYQYQ) - which reminded me of my sons' Sinclair Spectrum computer chess game, which used to say after you'd played an obvious move: "I expected that!"

Are all animals right or left handed?

Now for something completely different - a video sequel to Basil's Book Launch plus a question for zoologists, ethologists or anyone else who might know about such important matters.

However noisy and irritating Basil's impatience may be when demanding (yet again) to be fed, he is utterly consistent in one notable thing: never have we seen him using his right paw to rattle the dish.

So the obvious question is whether or not this is 'normal' and, more generally, are all cats and other animals right or left-handed/pawed?

P.S. Apparently most cats are left-handed

Thanks to Lisa Brathwaite (@LisaBraithwaite) for tweeting news from a vet in California suggesting that Basil is not, as we'd suspected, unusual in preferring his left paw.

She writes: "Our mobile vet told us the other day that most cats are left-handed. We have one who pats us for attention; always left paw" (7th March, 2012).

Further inspection reveals that Basil also uses his his left back paw for scratching himself during a rest from rattling his dish:

To read or not to read? That is the question for speechwriters - or is it?

Yesterday's conference of the UK Speechwriters' Guild was another stimulating treat, for which founder Bran Jenner deserves the thanks of all of us who were lucky enough to attend.

As with the last one (HERE), he'd pulled yet more rabbits out of the hat, including speakers from Russia and the Netherlands, rounding it off with a memorable double act starring Graham Davies and Phil Collins (even if it was an extended plug for a forthcoming book that might eventually compete with mine!).

But, had there been more time, an interesting argument might have developed between some of us who were there and some of the speakers.

Authenticity?

For me, the most worrying buzzword of the day was 'authenticity'. Although several speakers had it high on their agendas, I doubt if I'm alone in remaining unclear about what exactly it's supposed to mean - other than different things to different people.

It was certainly curious (and vaguely challenging) for an audience of speechwriters to be told that it's not a good idea to write speeches at all. Nor was it particularly encouraging for people who make a living by writing speeches to be told that it's not a good idea to let your clients read scripts either - whether from pieces of paper or a teleprompter.

So what were they on about?

As far as I could tell, the prophets of doom were giving voice to some rather misconceived and misleading concerns about some well-known facts about the experience of public speakers and audiences.

1. The language of the written word often sounds stilted and conceals the personality of the speaker in a cloak of formality when read aloud - i.e. they don't come across as themselves (sincere, passionate, etc.).
2. Reading from a script can sometimes (though by no means always) result in an unacceptable loss of eye contact and rapport with your audience.
3. The answer to these problems is not to use a script or notes.

To which my reactions are:

1. True (but easy to remedy).
2. True (but easy to remedy).
3. False.

There's obviously no point in my trying to substantiate these by reproducing the sections from Lend Me Your Ears that deal with these issues (Chapters 1-3: 'The Language of Public Speaking' - on how the languages of everyday conversation, the written word and the publicly spoken word differ).

But a few famous examples (and thousands of not so famous ones that I've seen over the years) might help to reassure any colleagues whose confidence might have been dented by yesterday's claims that writing a speech will inevitably lead you (and your unfortunate clients) down the road to inauthenticity.

Freedom from scripts?

I don't deny, of course, that there are a few business and political speakers (e.g. Tom Peters, Steve Jobs, Tony Benn and David Cameron) who have impressed a lot of audiences with their apparent ability to speak without referring to notes or scripts. Nor do I deny that this might be a worthwhile objective for speakers to aim for.

But for most people, it's safer to regard it as a longer term goal, not least because it depends on their having enough time to work on the techniques for doing it effectively - which most don't have.

Exceptions that prove the rule?

Although Steve Jobs may have excelled at ex-temporising when speaking at Apple product launches (e.g. HERE), he was quite open about reading out his brilliant Stanford Commencement Address (HERE) - which would hardly have attracted more than 15 million YouTube viewers had he dismally failed to be authentic and/or 'come across as himself'.

The point is that, if you get the language of public speaking right, it works. Some extreme cases from my own experience even suggest that, if you get the script right, your client has to be virtualy dyslexic to fail

And if the timing of looking up and down from a script is roughly equivalent to the way gaze works in everyday conversation (where eye-contact is spasmodic rather than continuous), audiences hardly even notice it.

Nor, in the hundreds of courses I have run, would the vast majority of delegates have found that they feel more comfortable and easier to 'come across as themselves' when using notes than when they were pretending not to have any (while trying to ad-lib from headings on PowerPoint slides).

And, if being seen to use notes were such a terrible sin, how, in later life, would former UK prime minister Harold Macmillan have captivated so many of his audiences at after dinner speeches by pretending to use notes on cards that were in fact completely blank (and when he was, in any case, almost blind)?

Writers: keep on writing

As Martin Shovel (@MartinShovel) pointed out in one of the discussions, if speechwriting were such a waste of time, how had Barack Obama and his team of writers got away with it?

And how were so many of those at yesterday's conference managing to make a reasonable living by pursuing such a pointless exercise as writing speeches?

The answer is as simple as it is obvious: it isn't pointless.

Nor should anyone seriously believe that the problem of authenticity is an insurmountable one for writers or speakers. It might be so if the world were populated by brilliant actors, all of whom were equipped with the technical skills to act out parts that were different from themselves.

Fortunately for all of us (and I don't just mean professional speechwriters), that isn't the case either.

P.S. Since posting this, one of the speakers at the conference, Alexei Kapterev (to whom, many thanks), has taken the trouble to write a reply HERE. He was not, however, the only speaker who seemed to have doubts about writing and reading out speeches - so maybe we can look forward to a continuing debate on the subject...

P.P.S. Also just posted is a chance to judge for yourself whether or not you think that a speech read out for 3 minutes on TV news came across as 'inauthentic' (HERE).

Great speakers aren't always great singers: the case of President Obama

News that President Obama has taken to singing in public reminds me that it can be a seriously damaging pastime for political leaders - as James Callaghan found out in the aftermath of his rendition of Marie Lloyd's Waiting at the Church before the 1979 general election (HERE)

My impression from the above is that the president would be well-advised to concentrate on his public speaking and to avoid any more temptations to sing in public.

It may show what a jolly good sport he is to join in the fun. But even as dubious a character as President-to-be Putin can do that - and, on this evidence, has a rather better singing voice (or has spent more time rehearsing) than President Obama:

Or maybe Putin's just miming...?

A new Manhattan in the sand?

Feudal though the government of countries like Dubai may be (for more on which HERE), you can't help but gasp at how much can be done so quickly with access to plenty of capital and a huge reservoir of ex-pat cheap labour.

When I was last in the UAE about ten years ago, Dubai Marina (viewed above through an iPhone from my hotel room) didn't exist and was still part of the desert.

But dig out out a canal, let in sea-water from the Persian Gulf and you can create a 21st century version of Manhattan, complete with its own 3 miles of waterfront.

In 2009, construction work temporarily stalled in the wake of the world financial crisis, but now seems to be have revived again.

The buildings will no doubt survive longer than the 30 years I predicted for Dubai's political status quo (HERE). But whether or not the Arab spring will speed up the process of change remains to be seen...

Gaping models and open-mouthed actors: which came first?

Today's Daily Telegraph magazine (above and below) reminded me of earlier posts on open-mouthed acting (HERE & HERE).

What on earth is going on?

Do they have adenoidal problems that make it difficult for them to breathe through their noses?

Are they about to say something or are they just gaping into thin air?

Surely it's time for a body-language explain it all for us....

How long-winded is Arabic and how much do its native speakers gesticulate?

In previous posts, I've suggested that the long-winded nature of Latin-based languages like Italian and French are more long-winded than Nordic and Germanic ones and that this may have an impact on how much speakers of such languages use gestures when speaking (HERE & HERE).

I don't read a word of Arabic, nor do I know what an 'IDF Room' is. But I was intrigued enough by this notice on a wall in my hotel in Dubai to get my camera out:

On the face of it, it looks like a serious competitor to one from an Italian notice posted last year (HERE):

But, whereas three syllables of English were enough to translate nine syllables of Italian, I have no idea how many beats are depicted in the Arabic writing above (or whether the English version 'cheats' by using an acronym that defies translation).

Nor do I know whether native speakers of Arabic are reputed to gesticulate more vigorously than native speakers of English.

So today's question is to ask whether anyone can shed any light on these intriguing questions?

UK Business Communicator of the year, 2012: Gillian Tett

Brian Jenner of the UK Speechwriters' Guild recently announced that the title of UK Business Communicator of 2012 has been awarded to Gillian Tett of the Financial Times.

For me, as a former sociologist, it is particularly pleasing to see someone with a PhD in social anthropology, another allegedly 'useless' subject, making a mark with much wider audiences than those in academia.

The full citation is reproduced below between the two clips of her in action.

Citation

The world economy is choked with thorns. Few commentators seem to be able to tell us how or why it’s happened. The financial journalist, Gillian Tett, has emerged with a simple and compelling story explaining what went wrong.

The UK Speechwriters’ Guild has awarded Gillian Tett, US managing editor of the Financial Times, and author of Fool’s Gold, the prize of UK Business Communicator 2012. This is for three reasons.

The first is that she is an excellent public speaker. Her voice suggests that she’s not a natural, but her delivery is measured and clear.

The second reason is that her content is excellent. The key story she tells again and again is how she attended a conference of bankers at the European Securitisation Forum in the Acropolis Centre in Nice in 2005 to find out what was going in the credit world.

Despite being an experienced financial journalist, she had no idea what the speakers were talking about.

‘Finance was presented as an abstract mathematical game that took place in cyberspace replete with concepts such as ‘Gaussian copula’, ‘delta hedging’ and ‘first-to-default basket’.’

The bankers’ PowerPoint presentations did not inform or entertain. They had more in common with the Tajik wedding rituals she had studied at university. These rituals were about asserting identity and status within a social group. The bankers spoke a language totally unintelligible to anyone outside the clan.

Tett became determined to unpick the world of collateralised debt obligations. As a journalist with a background in social anthropology, she was able to find similes to describe what was going on. She presents her findings with a wry but appropriate sense of humour.

There is no mystery to how her speeches work.

Tett makes simple analogies everyone can understand (comparing derivatives to sausages). She uses anecdotes involving human beings acting at specific times in specific places. She self-deprecatingly refers to herself as a ‘hippy’ in a world of mathematics and astrophysics geeks. Despite being in a world overflowing with acronyms, she uses words that are familiar to everyone.

The third reason that Gillian Tett has won the award is that she has highlighted a problem that preoccupies the UK Speechwriters’ Guild.

Tett has warned of the ‘silo curse’. Groups of people get together in finance, medicine, engineering, the military and Government bureaucracy. They innovate at an extraordinary pace but they learn to speak a language that nobody else understands.

If everyone outside these organisations becomes convinced that their activities are dull, boring and technical, they will avoid scrutiny with potentially catastrophic results for the rest of society.

To counter this Gillian Tett has identified the ‘urgent need for a large cadre of ‘cultural translators’’, who can explain what is happening in the silos to everyone else. ‘We need people who can join up the dots and present the big picture.’ The UK Speechwriters’ Guild is such a cadre.

Brian Jenner
Chairman of the Judges, UK Speechwriters’ Guild
February 2012

The
Winner
2012
The
world
economy
is
choked
with
thorns.
Few
commentators
seem
to
be
able
to
tell
us
how
or
why
it’s
happened.
The
financial
journalist,
Gillian
Tett,
has
emerged
with
a
simple
and
compelling
story
explaining
what
went
wrong.
The
UK
Speechwriters’
Guild
has
awarded
Gillian
Tett,
US
managing
editor
of
the
Financial
Times
and
author
of
Fool’s
Gold,
the
prize
of
UK
Business
Communicator
2012.
This
is
for
three
reasons.
The
first
is
that
she
is
an
excellent
public
speaker.
Her
voice
suggests
that
she’s
not
a
natural,
but
her
delivery
is
measured
and
clear.
The
second
reason
is
that
her
content
is
excellent.
The
key
story
she
tells
again
and
again
is
how
she
attended
a
conference
of
bankers
at
the
European
Securitisation
Forum
in
the
Acropolis
Centre
in
Nice
in
2005
to
find
out
what
was
going
in
the
credit
world.
She
had
no
idea
what
the
speakers
were
talking
about.

Is the sound of music on TV getting more and worse?

Many outstanding movies have been greatly enhanced by outstanding music. Famous film scores by composers like John Willams, Enno Morrikone and John Barry have deservedly won a much wider audiences among listeners around the world.

And, as I've noted before, even political speeches can occasionally be enhanced by suitable background music (e.g. HERE).

But what do we hear from our television screens these days? Is there more music than there used to be? Is it louder, less appropriate and more poorly chosen than it used to be?

Birdsong

The recent BBC drama serialisation of Birdsong has already prompted me to complain (again) about 'the open-mouthed school of acting' (HERE). But just as irritating (to me at least) were the repetitive few bars of plinky-plonk piano music in the background (which you can sampleHERE for a few more days).

Music in factual and documentary films?

It got me wondering whether I'm alone in finding background music an annoying and unnecessary distraction to whatever it is we're trying to watch?

Nor is not just to be heard in dramas, as it now seems to be infecting more and more BBC factual programmes.

Countryfile

For example, viewers of Countryfile on BBC1 have to put up with it week after week, as in the following examples from a discussion of proposed badger-culling. :

Frozen Planet

And, as if viewers of the Frozen Planet might otherwise have objected to David Attenborough's commentary on the brilliant film footage, the producers apparently thought it necessary to impose the continual distraction of irrelevant and more or less continuous backgound music - as in this sequence on polar bear mating behaviour:

Or do the makers of these programmes really believe that irrelevant music adds significantly to our enjoyment and appreciation of the films?

If so, I'd very much like to know why and to see what evidence (if any) they have to support their case...

P.S. Aurorora borealis au musak

I'm very grateful to Keenan Malilk (@kenanmalik) for posting a link to this video on Twitter earlier today, along with a comment - "..annoying music but astounding video all the same" - that suggests I may not be alone in my dislike of pointless musical backgrounds to otherwise impressive film-footage:

Speaking of the moon: Gingrich v. Kennedy

Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has told us that, by the end of his second term (about 2 minutes into the above), there would be Americans living on the moon. With enough of them there, they'd even be able to become a state of the USA.

And why not?

After all, in 1961, President Kennedy had made the first of two famous speeches about American plans to send a man to the moon. The first was to Congress (below), followed up a year later by his "We choose to go to the moon" speech at Rice University (HERE).

So if Kennedy could get away with such an ambitious goal, why not Gingrich?

Er, at least 3 reasons:

1. Kennedy had already been president for more than a year when he went public with his proposal.

2. Before that, he'd already had time to consult with the relevant experts and no doubt had a pretty good idea that a man on the moon within a decade was entirely possible.

3. Kennedy never made any colonial claims on the moon. Nor, though he may have left a US flag there, did Neil Armstrong - or anyone else.

Obama's State of the Union speech: (2) Enhanced by PowerPoint?

When I first started watching the version of President Obama's State of the Union speech posted on YouTube by the White House, I wondered what the blue rectangle on the right hand side was for.

But all quickly became clear: it was for PowerPoint style slides and they, presumably, were what transformed it into an 'enhanced version'.

So we got to see a picture and the wordds MORE THAN 1 MILLION AMERICAN TROOPS SERVED IN IRAQ BETWEEN 2003-2011

Then a wanted poster for Osama bin Laden with a big red cross through it.

Then more pictures of US troops followed numbers of how many of them had fought in various wars.

And so on and on and on, through pictures, bar charts, graphs, diagrams lists of bullet points, on the US economy, education, etc., etc., etc.

Enhancement or distraction?

Watching this, I was left gasping, wondering who on earth in team Obama believes that his speeches are actually enhanced by such distractions, unless it was the same person who thought that background musak 'enhanced' the film of his speechwriters preparing the speech (see previous post).

Does it mean we can now expect President Obama to take a slide projector along with him during the forthcoming presidential campaign?

I think not - for the obvious reason that he's a good enough communicator to know that the words in his speeches and the way he delivers them are enough on their own to get his messages across.

What's more, I very much hope that this White House model of an 'enhanced presentation' doesn't give other lesser speakers (e.g. most British politicians) the idea that this is the way to improve their own speeches 'going forward'.

See for yourself

If you haven't seen it yet, it's well worth watching all the way through - and coming to your own conclusion as to whether the visual aids enhance or distract from what he said.

Obama's State of the Union speech: (1) Behind the scenes with the speechwriters

Few British political speechwriters though there may be, anyone who writes any kind of speech is likely to be interested not only in this film but also by the fact that it had nearly 400,000 views on YouTube within 24 hours of being posted there.

A cunning part of team Obama's communication strategy perhaps, but there's something very refreshing about a top politician openly admitting that he gets help with his speeches and being willing to give a public platform to those who help him.

So far, I've only watched it once and found the most annoying part was the awful background musak - but the producers of the film maybe know something that I don't about how distracting noises can enhance the impact of such propaganda...

The State of the Union address itself seemed to go down pretty well. But the video posted by the White House had another major distraction - on which more shortly in Part (2).

Birdsong: open-mouthed acting by a male of the species

Last night, Mary Ann Sieghart (@MASieghart) tweeted 'Does this actor in #Birdsong have any look other than a long meaningful one?

I knew exactly what she was referring to, as last night's hero (Eddie Redmayne) had already reminded me of a question I'd asked back in 2009: Is there an open-mouthed school of acting?

'...I don’t know if it’s just me (and the small, unrepresentative sample of people I’ve consulted so far), but it does seem that film and television actresses are spending more and more time with their mouths open – both when there’s no dialogue and when they’re listening to one of the other actors saying something – than used to be the case. Nor are those of us who’ve noticed it particularly impressed by it' (more HERE).

Men too?

Whereas I'd been prompted then by the likes of Keira Kinightley, Eddie Redmayne has now shown that men can do it too - and his open mouth is featured in 17% of the short BBC trailer posted on YouTube (above - or full version HERE).

I was intrigued to discover from the comments that I wasn't alone in having noticed the trend, and some interesting discussion emerged. If you've any more thoughts, here's a reminder of the five main questions I posed then:

'For one thing, once you’ve spotted someone doing it early on in a film, it becomes a big distraction - because you go on noticing the same actor doing it again and again. For another, it can be quite confusing trying to work out just what emotions and feelings all these open mouths are supposed to be conveying

'So here are five questions on which I'd welcome feedback:

1. Has anyone else noticed it?
2. Is it a recent trend?
3. Am I alone in finding it irritating/distracting?
4. Is open-mouthed acting being taught in drama schools?
5. If so, why?'

And another thing: an inappropriate continuity error

In the background to the pastoral scenes in early 20th century France, the only birdsong to be heard was the cooing of a dove that didn't arrive there until the 1940s (HERE).

The distinctive repetitive cooing of the collared dove has been an irritating distraction in large numbers of televised dramas set in periods long before this annoying bird had arrived and settled in the UK.

Presumably producers of television drama and nature programmes never bother to communicate with each other about such things.

Needless to say, I think it's high time that they did.

Is it wise for Ed Miliband to play snakes and ladders with Jon Snow?

I'm grateful to Neill Harvey-Smith (@nhs999) for drawing my attention to this fascinating video clip via Twitter, where he tweeted "From the Ed Miliband treasure trove, media training lesson #24: don't do this."

The board had already been set up for the game by Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls with his Fabian Society speech and related interviews over the weekend (HERE) and now, three days later, his leader lands on this whopping snake - posted on YouTube very soon after the end of the Channel 4 News on which it appeared (as for what I mean by 'snakes and ladders', see HERE).

It vividly demonstrates the risks faced by an inexperienced interviewee when trying to hold his own against an old hand like Jon Snow and I suspect that Mr Miliband and the Labour Party must be very glad that Channel 4 News doesn't reach a mass audience.

I also think that a more technical analysis of Mr Milband's performance may well reveal some of the reasons why he's so far failed have a more positive impact on the wider public.

Watch this space...

Continued (18 January)

Jon Snow turned out to be one of several top political journalists who had been queuing up to take it in turns to interview Ed Miliband yesterday - all, judging from the background on the BBC, ITN, Sky News and Channel 4 News, in the same room.

ITN was able to edit out Tom Bradby's questions from the version posted on YouTube (below) - which would hardly have been possible with the frequency of Jon Snow's interruptions on Channel 4 News (above).

In the absence of any such things to irritate or distract Mr Miliband, he was able to produce a performance that came across as a good deal more articulate, coherent and assured than in his joust with Jon Snow.

YouTube scorecard so far:

Channel 4 News version: 3,201 viewers (22 Jan)

ITN version: 167 viewers (22 Jan)

The 'John Lewis economy': What to make of today's speech by Nick Clegg?

Regular readers will know that I worry about how little from political speeches are shown on prime-time television news programmes these days - as compared with interviews (examined in more detail HERE).

In the discussion after my UK Speechwriters' Guild Christmas lecture last month, someone made the interesting point that was it's no longer necessary for TV companies to do this in the internet age, because keen anoraks can watch as many speeches as they like online.

Another innovation is the close coordination of 'on message' speeches and interviews, as was demonstrated rather skillfully over the weekend by Ed Balls (HERE).

But does anyone watch the speeches?

One problem with some of the speeches that appear online is that they are so earnest or uninspiring (or both) that it's difficult to imagine prime-time news programmes - even in the glory days of the past - managing to select suitable quotable quotes for transmission to a wider audience.

One such example was Nick Clegg's speech at the Mansion House earlier today. It seems to have generated two main sound bites:

1. a John Lewis economy
2. The 1980s was the decade of share ownership. I want this to be the decade of employee share ownership.

But what he actually meant by either of these (not to mention the rest of the speech) was a question being widely asked on Twitter during the day.

As I've noted before (HERE), Clegg's communication skills continue to interest me - and this video and transcript look like promising data for closer analysis - comments and suggestions welcome...

Text of this video-clip from the speech:

...we don’t believe our problem is too much capitalism: we think it’s that too few people have capital. We need more individuals to have a real stake in their firms.

More of a John Lewis economy, if you like.

And, what many people don’t realise about employee ownership is that it is a hugely underused tool in unlocking growth.

I don’t value employee ownership because I somehow believe it's it's “nicer” - a more pleasant alternative to the rest of the corporate world. Those are lazy stereotypes. Firms that have engaged employees, who own a chunk of their company, are just as dynamic, just as savvy, as their competitors. In fact, they often perform better: lower absenteeism, lower staff turnover, lower production costs. In general, higher productivity and higher wages. They even weathered the economic downturn better than other companies.

Is employee ownership a panacea? No. Does it guarantee a company will thrive? No of course not. But the evidence and success stories cannot be ignored, and we have to tap this well if we are serious about growth. The 1980s was the decade of share ownership. I want this to be the decade of employee share ownership.

Britons win gold and silver in the transatlantic rowing race: an omen for the Olympics?

BOX NUMBER 8 WINS AND ANDREW BROWN BREAKS A WORLD RECORD from Talisker Whisky on Vimeo.

On 5th December, we watched 17 rowing boats leave the harbour at San Sebastian La Gomera at the start of a transatlantic rowing race and, after getting home, have been following its ups and downs ever since.

Last night (40 days later), first and second places went to British rowers who arrived in Barbados 26 minutes apart - with the next boat more than 100 nautical miles away.

Rowing across the Atlantic may have yet to qualify as an official Olympic sport, but it would be nice to think that their success will be an omen for more medals for our competitors later in the year.

At the time of writing, the bronze medal contenders are only 47 nautical miles from the finish and you can keep up with the race HERE.

A gentleman who is for turning: snakes or ladders weekend for Ed Balls?

Thanks to a speech to the Fabian Society (above) and endless interviews by Ed Balls (e.g. below), this weekend has been alive with the sound of turning in the mainstream media, blogs and on Twitter.

Under a headline 'This is new all right. it just isn't enough', John Rentoul of the Independent on Sunday tells us 'Ed Balls caught up with where the Labour Party should have been 16 month ago. It was an important moment...' (more HERE).

The New Statesman is rather less optimistic, with an article by Owen Jones telling us 'Ed Balls' surrender is a political disaster' (more HERE).

And, perhaps not surprisingly, the unions aren't too pleased by what looks like rather sudden U turn from Mr Balls - see Unions criticise Ed Balls's pay freeze comments on the BBC website HERE.

Snake, ladder or both?

For me, I find myself wondering how the speech and interviews by Mr Balls fit in (or not) with the snakes and ladders theory of political communication, which proposes that interviews work like snakes for politicians (by attracting negative news coverage) and speeches work like ladders (by attracting positive news coverage) - for more on which HERE.

But here we have an example of a politician staying consistently 'on message' - and a highly controversial one at that - both in a speech and related interviews.

There's no doubt that a message has got across (though to how many over a weekend?) and, given how little of the speech was actually to be seen or heard on broadcast news programmes, this probably had more to do with the interviews than his Fabian Society lecture.

However, whether it's had (or will have) a positive or negative otcome for Mr Balls and the Labour Party, only time will tell.

Polish lawyer shoots himself while waiting for Miliband's speech

While I was waiting to hear Ed Milband's speech earlier today, I was seriously distracted by a macabre piece of news footage, in which a Polish lawyer shoots himself during a five minute break that he'd just requested.

And if that wasn't bizarre enough, he missed and, at the time of writing, is still alive (more on which HERE).

So anyone expecting to read about Miliband's 'relaunch' speech will, I'm afraid, have to wait...

Update, 11 January:

Injury 'not life-threatening' - interview from hospital bed HERE.

The 'fluent but insincere and shallow' Kelvin Mackenzie at the Leveson Inquiry

This particular sequence from former editor of The Sun Kelvin MacKenzie's evidence to the Leveson Inquiry is [was - see below] featured on the websites of both the BBC and Sky News today.

Are we supposed, I wonder, to be impressed by his brilliant 'analysis' of the difference between the verbs 'to lob' and 'to chuck'? And is anyone convinced that it aptly illustrates his point that "we thought about something and then put it in"?

I suppose it would be too much to expect him to tell us which 'online dictionery' he consulted to get his definition of the verb 'to lob', but it's an easy enough game for anyone to play.

So, having just looked up the word 'glib' in the Oxford online dictionary, I can report that the definition looks like a fairly accurate description of Mr MacKenzie (and his words):

glib

adjective

(of words or a speaker) fluent but insincere and shallow.

P.S. Since this was first posted earlier today, the clip has been removed from the Sky News website. But you can still watch it on the BBC website HERE and HERE.

In the absence of any explanation of why it was withdrawn, one can't help wondering whether this is a case of one Murdoch-owned media outlet (Sky News) retrospectively altering its news coverage to protect the former editor of another (The Sun) - in which case, it should perhaps be reported to the Leveson Inquiry forthwith.

Michael Gove speech sends students to sleep

Yesterday I was thanking Diane Abbott for adding to my collection of interviewees walking out of interviews (HERE).

Today, my thanks go to former deputy Prime Minister John Prescott (@johnprescott) for re-tweeting this gem posted by Political Scrapbook (@PSbook), where some interesting comments have already begun to appear.

For me, it poses at least three questions:

1. If the first thing to be done when preparing a speech is to analyse the audience (see my books), one has to ask who writes this stuff?
2. As taxpayers, are we getting value for money from the speechwriters at the Department of Education?
3. And, as a former president of the Oxford Union and debating adjudicator, shouldn't Gove be able to do rather better than this when it comes to addressing an audience of school children?

More on our esteemed Secretary of State for Education

• Academies, academies, academies: Michael Gove's 3 Rs?
• Michael Gove: calling all teachers and parents
• Clapping out the conference season

Interview exit strategies (3): Diane Abbott's mobile phone comes to the rescue

Today I have to thank Diane Abbott MP for adding to my small collection of politicians walking out of an interview (for others, see below).

This is the first one in which the interviewee's mobile phone came to the rescue at a particularly awkward point in the questioning - silent though the ring seems to have been.

Could it, I wonder, be a neat ploy that becomes a precedent for many more such 'escapes' in the future?

Classic interview exits:

• 'Here today, gone tomorrow' politician walks out of interview with Robin Day
• Mandelson walks out rather than answer a question about Gordon Brown

Putin speechwriting competition result: nepotism rules, OK...

The 'Prose for Putin Christmas speech writing competition' was launched on 15 December (HERE) and invited contestants to 'write a short speech outlining Mr Putin's message to supporters and/or opponents for 2o12.'

I suppose there was something inevitable about the fact that it would take a fluent Russian speaker to catch the language and mood of Mr Putin with the precision achieved by David Atkinson (@dsa99uk), winner of the first prize.

Nepotism?

The fact that he also happens to be my big brother (and knows where I live) is surely an added bonus, implying as it does that a degree of corruption may have influenced the judge's decision - with the possibility of more corruption to come: as the lucky winner already has signed copies of Lend Me Your Ears (both in English and Russian), he may be disappointed if he thinks he's going to get yet another free copy...

Runner-up

Winner of the second prize, Daniel Sandberg need have no fears about getting his copy of Speech-making and Presentation Made Easy. Nor was his footnote - 'If my English is not always up to scratch, the reason is that I am Norwegian' - in the least bit necessary.

FIRST PRIZE: David Atkinson

People who describe my party as the 'party of thieves and crooks' should go f**k a sheep and use one of their stupid white ribbons as a condom.

For Hillary Clinton, before she gets in too deep, I’ve just two words. She should listen, and stop paying prostitutes to parade round Moscow wearing white ribbons that look like condoms.

The words for Hillary are ‘Monica Lewinsky’.

I have an agreement with Prokhorov, who is standing against me as President, same as I told Khodokovsky, keep out of politics and keep out of f***ing jail.

That Islamist arselicker of a French journalist who asked me about innocent Chechens getting killed should remember what happens to journalists in our modern Russia. If he comes to Moscow we’ll have him circumcised and when he’s under the knife castrate him as well.

And while we are on the subject, if anyone else says I’ve had plastic surgery, I’ll send the boys round and rearrange their faces for them.

I’ve got some words for the citizens of Londongrad, who thought they were clever voting for the Rotten Apple Party. I know how to stuff ballot boxes better than you. You won’t be coming home to Mother Russia while I am in charge, unless you want nailing to the wall of a Chechen shithouse.

As for that corrupt former Lada salesman, who can’t decide whether he lives in SW3 or Tel Aviv - He calls himself an oligarch with only a couple of billion left - Why is he suing Roman in London? I’ll tell you why. It’s because he knows he’d lose in Moscow.

Come on home Boris. There’s a room waiting for you at the Moscow Lubyanka. Then you can join that son of a Boris (Khodorkovsky) in the Novy Gulag.

Just remember Rotten Apple voters of London, I know where you f***ing live.

SECOND PRIZE: Daniel Sandberg

Citizens of Russia,

On the eve of a new year, we like to reflect on events which have passed. And we ask ourselves what is to come. Paradoxically, looking back in time often helps us to see the future in a clearer light. This year, we marked the 20th anniversary of the demise of the Soviet Union. I once called the breakup of the Union the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the last century. I stand by those words. With the end of the Soviet Union came a period of instability which had agonising effects on Russia. It severely hurt our economy, our security, and our international reputation. Yeltsin’s breakneck economic policies enriched a few, but shattered the lives of ordinary citizens who lost their life savings. Many of those who benefited the most now sit in prison or abroad in their multi-million ruble mansions, criticising us who stayed behind to clear the rubble after Yeltsin’s failed attempts to govern our country. Civil wars threatened to unravel Chechnya and former countries of the Soviet Union. Our armed forces were thrown into disarray. Internationally, Russia became an object of ridicule, a drifting ship with a drunk captain at the steering wheel. And so came a unipolar world, a world where one Western country thought it could decide what was right and wrong, and intervened as it liked. A world where other countries seemed to be more concerned about our internal affairs than their own. When I became president – twelve years ago to the day – I decided that I would right these wrongs.

I promised to rebuild our economy. Today, it is as strong as ever. We have been able to protect our economy from the economic crisis. Our neighbours envy us our economic growth. Every day, we replenish our stabilisation fund, so that we will not have to relive the economic disaster of the 1990s.

I promised to restore peace. The transformation of Grozny into a thriving capital speaks for itself. We have helped our friends and partners in South Ossetia and Abkhazia secure their independence. Our fighters and strategic bombers are again flying above and along our territory. Our brave sailors are protecting Russian merchant ships against pirate attacks in the Indian ocean. And our peacekeepers have calmed tensions in many parts of the world.

I promised to restore Russia’s reputation. Over the past years, I have attended countless meetings in the UN, in the OSSE, in the NATO-Russia Council. And I can tell you: nobody ridicules Russia anymore. We are again a respected international player. We again live in a multipolar world. We can again be proud of being Russian.

Fellow citizens,

If the demise of the Soviet Union has taught us one lesson, it is this: uncontrolled change leads to chaos. Of course, the thought of change can be refreshing. Who does not like to see change from time to time? But change brings uncertainty. Uncertainty carries risk. And when risk materialises, the impact can be devastating.

Why do I say this? I have, of course, taken note of the demonstrations in Moscow, St. Petersburg and a few other places. I know that many of you do not identify with the protesters, who only make up a small percentage of our population. But I also know that some of you do. I am your prime minister, and I take you seriously. I have to admit that I struggle to understand the protests. When I listen to the allegations, they describe a reality which I do not recognise. When I read the slogans, I cannot see any solutions being offered. When I watch the demonstrators, I fail to see any leaders. Still, we have noted your grievances. President Medvedev has ordered an investigation into concrete complaints of election fraud. I have proposed that regional governors again be elected by the people. We have announced plans to make it easier to establish political parties and to register as a presidential candidate. And I have decided to renew my political team. Some of you may say that this is not enough. I agree. It is not sufficient. We face serious challenges: A declining population. An economy which needs modernisation. An army which must be further professionalised. These are daunting obstacles, but they can be overcome. What is needed is stability, firmness and – most of all – an experienced leader. That is why I have announced my candidacy for President in March 2012. Where others offer division, I offer you unity. Where others offer promises, if offer you results. Where others offer you uncertainty, I offer you a future.

Fellow citizens,

Twenty years ago, it was not clear which way Russia would take. After a period of aimless change and confusion under Yeltsin, we managed to restore Russia to its former greatness. It has been an honour to serve as your prime minister during the past four years. It will be an even greater honour to serve again as your President. Whether you are a citizen of Kaliningrad or Vladivostok, whether your home is in Murmansk or Irkutsk, I want you to know that I shall work tirelessly for you, for your family, for your future. We are united by the love of our history, our traditions and our culture. Together, we can achieve things our ancestors could only dream of.

I wish you a happy new year.