Editor’s note: This composite leader’s conference speech was written last Thursday, well before Andrew Rawnsley published a similar piece.
Today we gather in a generic city with a bit of regeneration.
It is good to get out of the Westminster bubble.
It’s hard being outside the bubble.
Some people outside the bubble don’t like us.
But, then, not everyone inside the bubble likes us either.
What counts is that I have a photogenic wife. I have children and parents just like hard-working decent families, who do the right thing, have children and parents.
I would like to congratulate everyone who has babies [check against delivery]. It’s the British way to have babies who will one day be the parents of the future.
My party has made mistakes, we have lost good colleagues on the way, but it’s time to move on and smell the coffee.
Decent people set the alarm and get up in the morning and have a nice cup of coffee. They are not bad people who don’t get up in the morning.
Too many people don’t get up in the morning and don’t wear something nice from Boden on the school run.
Bad people don’t open the curtains till the middle of the morning, they watch Jeremy Kyle and have a cup of tea with full fat milk.
That’s not the British way.
We won’t catch up with the emerging BRIC economies that way.
We want Britain to be a nation of strivers, not skivers.
The Olympics showed Britain at its best.
Yes, the Games Makers were clueless when you asked them for directions.
Yes, the mascots were a bit weird.
Yes, it was a bummer that the mayor got all that publicity.
But we all felt these things – TOGETHER – the nation as one.
Mo Farah is a good bloke – not really foreign at all.
Mo Farah helped us reinvent the Olympics.
The Olympics helped us reinvent Britain.
We are on a journey to reinvent our party.
The journey starts now. Let’s get to it.
* Ruth Bright has been a councillor in Southwark and Parliamentary Candidate for Hampshire East
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12 Comments
very funny, and so true!
The flag behind us demonstrates our committment to your happiness
Yes, the economy is in bad shape, but it’s not our fault
We ae doing everything humanly possible, and more, to fix it
Austerity will continue for the next five years
Let me repeat that : austerity will continue for the next ten years
It’s mainly the fault of the banks/Euro/americans/communists/fascists/left/right [select desired options]
We will NOT squeeze the middle.
We cannot tax the poor, or the rich
Isn’t the British weather just great/awful [detale as applicable]
We support research into weather, climate change, the low carbon economy, and global warming
Unions/millionaires [delete as applicable] do not dictate our policies
Let me remind you of the flag behind me
We support patriots
and it is unpatriotic not to vote for us
I know Boris is funnier, more likeable and prettier than me but hey……
But hey……
But hey…….
Dear LDV – thanks for the kind Editor’s intro. The worrying thing was that Andrew Rawnsley’s piece was still quite funny and he used the three leaders’ actual words.
Excellent parody, Ruth!
And it begs the question: Why do party leaders habitually trot out this sort of b*ll*cks – and how do they manage to keep a straight face while they’re doing it?
I thought irony was a particularly British trait but it’s obviously in short supply among all three party leaders’ advisers and speechwriters.
I used to watch conferences, particularly the honest one ( bomb the train Tracks in South Africa?). Now I catch snatches of that which makes me despair. Before our latest conference I was still a member, now Im a Lib with no party.
Something for Glee club to work on.
Nick Clegg’s speachwriters. Do. Like. Short. Sentences.
Interesting to compare and contrast with Jo Grimonds “The sound of Gunfire”; http://www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/speech-archive.htm?speech=36
To be honest the speech looks rather odd today with the references to Athenians. However Grimond had great charisma and the final paragraph is well worth reading many times. No one could write a speech like that today.
Geoff I am reminded of the Dead Kennedys’ song ‘Short Songs’.
(Let’s see if the LDV thought police censor that!).
With. No. Verbs. Like. Tony. Blair’s.
Missing out verbs allows you to flash a series of aspirations or values in front of people without saying how you’re going to achieve them.
I particularly liked “the journey starts here”: as with Blairite to post-Blairite local government jargon (often originating at the centre) like “the modernisation agenda” and “the transformation agenda” it means you can demand adherence to something that sounds definite without in any way defining it.
Brilliant Ruth! I love it – and yes, Glee Club beckons 😉
Thanks for all your comments. The greatest send-up of a leader’s speech (or press conference, actually) was the Not the Nine O’Clock News President Reagan sketch where his aide feeds him the line “democracy, freedom, cupcakes and crumbly candy bars”. You can see it on YouTube.
@Ruth – You might also enjoy Peter Sellers’s 1958 satire of vacuous political speeches: