Quote:
Originally Posted by g jones
Posted with the usual acerbic view Bob and I take onboard the points made. I thought with my blog up your 'qualified support' would have landed earlier.
Jack's endorsement was never solicited and a surprise, nay shock. Politics is more than being a silver tongue with quick wit, a lexical genius passing off as a compassionate representative.
Maiden speeches are dull and nerve racking in equal measures. Few people listen, fewer people read them in Hansard.
Having listened to speech makers who try to embellish a wide dictionary of words, I conclude it serves little purpose and infuriates at worst. There is a lot to be said of plain English and a trip to Bolsover would not exaggerate that point.
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There is indeed a great deal to be said in favour of the employment of plain English, Graham. The nice thing about the complexity of our language is the ability it affords the speaker to make his meaning either absolutley clear or almost impenetrably opaque. It is one of the few languages in which one is able to mask the direst insult in the gaudy raiment of flattery; in short, used well, it is the most powerful tool on earth.
I take your point about the relatively poor audience for a Maiden speech, but any audience, even of one, deserves as much attention and effort from a public speaker as an audience of thousands.
I have been to Bolsover and, apart from the castle, it is an unremarkable place. It's current MP, Mr Skinner, appears to have garnered for himself something of a reputation for calling a spade a spade and there's nowt wrong with that. One could wish that more MP's would take a leaf out of Mr Skinner's Book particularly his scrupulous insistance on being present at every session and his refusal to indulge in the practice known as 'pairing'. I could go on, but you have the opportunity to learn from the horses mouth, as it were, you could do a lot worse than spend an hour or two in Mr Skinner's company. I am also aware that he was educated at Sheffield Uni and also at Oxford, so you will need to have all your wits about you and remember what I said about the language being used to hide things while appearing to disclose them. Plain speaking is seldom as plain as it sounds. Good luck Graham, you will need it.
BTW, my offer of editing assistance was genuine.