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Originally Posted by Acrylic-bob
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.
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It might also be worth bearing in mind that an Oxford education, whilst looking rather impressive on a CV, is of little use in dealing with matters pertaining to Accrington. Digesting vast chunks of Chaucer whilst idling through the Cloisters won't be of much assistance when you're trying to work out things such as tax relief for working men's clubs.
Common sense and a firm understanding of the people you represent is of far more value on the doorstep than any official qualification.