In the News
| Published date | 01 December 2010 |
| Date | 01 December 2010 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-9066.2010.00033.x |
| Subject Matter | In the News |
Look Who’s Talking
From press conferences and official state-
ments to parliamentary debates and tele-
vised addresses, British politicians certainly
talk a lot. Yet there has been little systematic
research into the place, form or function of
speech within British political life.
Britishpoliticalspeech.org, a new website
devoted to British political rhetoric, hopes
to change all that. The website will make
available an ever-expanding collection of
British political speeches and provide a focal
point for political researchers, speech writ-
ers and politicians themselves.
Among the famous political speeches in-
cluded in the collection are Martin Luther
King’s legendary ‘I have a dream’ address,
Margaret Thatcher’s denunciation of a sin-
gle European currency and Robin Cook’s
powerful anti-war resignation speech.
The site is part of a research project en-
titled ‘How the Leader Speaks’ led by Alan
Finlayson and Judi Atkins, at Swansea
University, which hopes to improve our
understanding, appreciation and practice
of political argument.
‘Rhetoric has a bad name. It’s often
thought to refer to speech that, if it isn’t
wholly untrue, is at least misleading or per-
haps simply vacuous. It’s true that a lot of
political speech is full of clichés and other
stock phrases – but not all political speech is
like this, and none of it has to be,’ Finlayson
said.
‘Sometimes a speech, and a turn of phrase
it employs, can express a whole situation in
such a memorable and effective way that
it actually contributes to historical change.
This was the case with the famous speech
by Harold Macmillan, in 1960, when he told
the South African Parliament that African
peoples had a right to self-government and
that “the winds of change” were blowing
across the continent.’
The political rhetoric project is funded by
the Leverhulme Trust. As part of plans for
expansion of the site, users are invited to
donate texts or recordings of any political
speeches they have.
Innovating Politics
You don’t have to be a politician or a sen-
ior civil servant to have a useful sugges-
tion for how politics can be improved, but
historically it has helped … until now. A
new event, being piloted across the UK, has
sought to bring innovators face to face with
politicians to identify specific political needs
and the obstacles to their fulfilment.
Billed as the UK’s first innovation un-
conference programme, Political Innovation
aims to address a political audience in a
unique way – by inviting ‘innovators’ to
submit their ideas to the website.
Every innovator that submits a suitable
idea will have the opportunity to pitch to a
panel of politicians and senior civil servants
during an event in December at London’s
Institute of Government. They will be able
to ask for introductions, connections, en-
dorsements, publicity – and perhaps even
help in changing legislation in order to sup-
port their idea.
‘The founding premise behind the Po-
litical Innovation event is that many of
the problems that we seek to solve are
not managerial or bureaucratic problems
but political ones. It’s for anyone who
has asked themselves “why do we still do
politics like this?”’, said Paul Evans from
In the News
Press Association Images
74 Political Insight
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