Brian Jenner is a professional speechwriter and founder of the European Speechwriter Network.
In a recent interview with The Spectator, the public speaking coach to the top Tories said that unlike other professions – law, accountancy, medicine – politics has no training schools or exams. Graham Davies is right, but he forgets that in the past politicians had to serve a demanding apprenticeship.
Davies also regrets that many politicians do not enjoy interviews or giving speeches. And when they have to do them, they think they can wing them with a couple of hours of media training.
Davies is right again, but this was not the case in the past.
Advocacy used to be the most important skill you had to learn as a politician. It was why so many politicians began as barristers.
As a teenager with political ambitions, I was aware of the most common path. You had to get into Oxford and join the Union. My first public speaking lesson was with Michael Gove, who, to my callow self, seemed incredibly impressive.
Another promising young man I saw in action was Boris Johnson. They both relished the terrifying experience of standing up in front of 500 people and being the centre of attention in their early 20s. They took risks, learned how to tell jokes and deal with hostile audiences. They could act in a ‘pretend’ Parliament which was a stage for them to reveal their early potential. They went on to cultivate their writing as well as their speaking talents.
There were other routes into politics like the trades unions. A strong non-conformist religious upbringing, with exposure to preachers, also proved to be a good paideia for an MP.
An insurgent like Margaret Thatcher would not have been allowed to join the Union. But she went to train at the Bar – presumably because she knew a science degree would not be enough, she needed advocacy skills to get to the top.
It’s unthinkable that a young Oxford chemistry graduate would feel the need to go to those lengths to become an MP today. Note how valuable it was for Mrs T, not only to appear at the Bar, but to have to learn to manage a tax brief.
She was actively involved in dealing with business problems for many years – vital specialist experience to inform the ideas and convictions of a future legislator. The kind of experience many politicians just don’t have these days.
David Wiles, a professor of theatre, was shocked by the Brexit vote but rather baffled by the response of his bien-pensant colleagues. He published a book in 2024 about Athenian democracy. He explained how Greek tragic theatre and politics emerged around the same time.
Your typical Greek politician was not a peaceable progressive, he was a wind-up merchant. His job was to identify some grievance or resentment in the population and then make speeches to stir up the people to vote for him. (We’re seeing this phenomenon again when politicians try to create social media storms by highlighting specific issues)
Likewise the Greek tragedian performed his dramas with emotive language and mesmeric gestures. Soaring speech and manufactured conflict were vital to the trade of the politician and the actor.
Leaders were motivators not managers.
The tools of rhetoric were designed to stir up feverish emotions in the audience. That filled the demos with the necessary energy to take up arms or undertake some other collective task. If this sounds suspiciously like ‘populism’, it is. Wiles points out, to the chagrin of our prissy and entitled technocratic elite, that ‘populism’ is democracy.
In the 21st century, we’ve tried to make politics a science. The art of reading history, intuiting public opinion, touring the town squares and making speeches that capture the spirit of the times, is dead. It has been replaced by focus groups, polling, mass-marketing and a Parliament of gurning social workers. But with all three main parties now in danger of extinction, can this way of doing politics carry on?
The PR industry has inculcated the idea of message discipline. Institutions must speak with one voice, internal conflict must be repressed and dissenters must be cast out.
Maverick bishops, unorthodox doctors and eccentric dons – a feature of public discourse in previous eras – are now almost extinct. As a consequence, the Anglican Church, the NHS and the universities and other key institutions have become stagnant, autocratic and untrustworthy.
The groundlings outside Westminster love colourful characters: the withering irreverence of a Mick Lynch, George Galloway or Donald Trump. The dour mainstream politicians loathe them and, in turn, we loathe the dour mainstream politicians. We don’t want the uniparty, we want thumos.
The days when a politician could gradually emerge in to public consciousness through appearances on mainstream news channels are over. You need to be able to grab and hold attention in an anarchic media landscape. The craft of politics requires a high verbal IQ.
The answer to the rise of Farage, Meloni, Le Pen, Orbán and Weidel is the same as David Cameron’s response was to the Tony Blair revolution. The old ways don’t work any longer. You can’t beat them. You have to become like them.
There is a cliché about politicians getting their hands on the levers of power and finding them not connected to anything. But the true power of a politician is language. It’s about using words to change the perception of what is important. It’s about directing attention to where we can make palpable change and unite the country behind a vision.
Leadership is not coercive. It requires trust, emotion and storytelling.
We need a path to the Promised Land, and a narrative to mobilise the country into collective action. Regrettably, you can’t find those words sitting behind a screen, in a bullshit job, in a comfortable air-conditioned office in London.
Poor Keir Starmer is trying to manage an economy that no longer works. He can’t even make the case to his own people to cancel a fuel allowance.
Faced with an immigration crisis, he suggests ID cards. In the midst of a benefits’ crisis, he increases eligibility for family allowance. Sit down in a café with a half-a-dozen non-political people and ponder this. You realise it’s a suicidal path for the Labour Party.
We’re waking up to new realities. We cannot afford a ‘free’ health service. We cannot send 50 per cent of young people to university. We cannot enrich pensioners and impoverish young families. We cannot maintain the illusion of economic prosperity by inflating property prices.
The job of the state is not to alleviate suffering, because it bankrupts the country and does not alleviate suffering. And we cannot give everybody opportunities, if we get incompetents in top jobs. The politicians know this. The British public knows this. See how honesty can be a liberating energy in politics.
We need to be more nationalistic and more socially conservative. We need to reject the self-serving ideas of a delusional and surfeited gerontocracy and let loose the vitality of the younger generation. It’s going to be hard, because we’ve been living a fantasy for so long, but a great leader can make collective pain, sacrifice and suffering meaningful.
I’ve heard many excellent things about the presentation training of Graham Davies, but he carries a huge weight upon his shoulders. If, from the ashes, Conservative MPs are to grow the roses of success, we need bold leadership matched with powerful eloquence.
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