I was fascinated to read today’s Independent, “Number 10 at war over claims that Brown’s speeches are ‘flat’ “. The paper reports on a story from PR Week quoting a “senior source” as saying: “It has been acknowledged that the Government’s messages are too cluttered and that Gordon needs to show a bit more personality, rather than the stilted language that he tends to use when he makes these speeches.”
I was struck by a conversation I had with a work colleague during our lunch break on Thursday. On the radio was live coverage of Gordon Brown & French President Nicolas Sarkozy from the Emirates Stadium.
On hearing Brown I remarked on how flat and dull his speeches are, that he appeared to be trying to do a bad impression of Tony Blair and that it just sounded like one long massive sentence, full of comas, making it impossible to actually take in what he was saying.
Imagine our surprise when Sarkozy start his speech in French and the female interpretor started to speak. She spoke fluently and delivered a very slick speech. She may have had his speech before had. If not the delivery was outstanding. You could not get a more marked contrast. Listening to the two speeches only underlined how bad Brown’s effort was.
I remarked to my colleague, “Perhaps Brown should use an interpretor too!” He is so wooden, even his speeches are infested by Death Watch beetle.
How right you are. I do not think Gord will ever turn into a Bling President. Now Carla – she really does have voter appeal just like Sarah if she would only come out from Gord’s shadow. Dave is so irritatingly smug and young school Tory. So what about Nick – I think the jury is still out but I had expected him to make more of an impact earlier.
On balance I am satisfied with what Nick has achieved so far in his first 100 days. He has learnt a lot during this time so I now expect much more from him in the next 100 days. The media seem well disposed toward him. Even when he has made the odd cock-up they have been relatively kind. The feeling I get is that they would like him to succeed. Our poll ratings have stabilised despite Tory Trolls playing up the problems.
If Nick steps up the effort both Brown & Cameron are vulnerable. The Labour vote is very soft so he should make big in roads into them. Cameron has peaked – nothing he is doing makes him any more ground – he is now relying on Labour slipping to increase the gap in the polls to a point where he can win.
We have some good policies. It is time we upped the drum beat.
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