Monday, April 09, 2007

Is There A Man Less Ordinary?

There's a short piece in today's Scotsman in which, surprise, surprise, Wendy Alexander says that reports linking her with a post defeat leadership bid are untrue (Actually I made the bit up about post defeat!). At the end of the piece the Joker comes up with one of his typically crass sound bites. He said the party would be going "full steam ahead" on the last leg of the campaign. They rain out of his mouth.

"What we're about, by these and other means, is ensuring that Scotland becomes the best small country in the world."

"We know there are decent Scottish families, who work hard for a living, but struggle to make ends meet. I want them to know that Labour is on their side."

"I want Scotland to be the skills capital of Britain"

"Labour's vision is straightforward. To build Scotland, faster and further."

"I want to end poverty, not end Britain"

"Scottish Ministers regularly turn down invitations to discuss our world leading homelessness work"

Whoever it is that either writes his speeches or advises him on what to say manage to make him sound ordinary and crass - then again perhaps it's just him.

3 comments:

Ewen Bruce said...

The first five comments are vacuous, but the last one is just hilarious. Does Joke think that telling the public how many invitations his Ministers turn down is a positive message? I assume what he meant to say was “Our work with the homeless is so innovative that we can’t meet the demand from people who want to talk to us and learn from our success”. This leads me to conclude that Joke doesn’t actually have a speech writer; either that or he can’t read. Assuming it’s the first, I’ll step into the breach for the next few weeks for only a small financial consideration (negotiations start at 110% of whatever Joke is on). If it’s the second, my kids have some spare Janet and John books I can let him borrow.

Richard Havers said...

Ewen, no don't be using words like vacuous around the Joker. He'll assume it's like hoovering up or something!

I have to admit I like watching JM deliver a speech, he's always got a slight grin on his face as though he can't really believe his luck at being where he is.

Janet & John perfect!

Ewen Bruce said...

I know it’s become a bit of a tired old cliché, but its still fun to take all these glib statements and reverse them to see if there was really any value in what was said. So, that would give you…

"What we're about, by these and other means, is ensuring that Scotland becomes the worst small country in the world."

"We know there are awful Scottish families, who scrounge off the state, but have loads of money. I don’t give a monkeys about them."

"I want Scotland to be the skills vacuum of Britain"

"Labour's vision is complicated, To stagnate Scotland as slowly as possible."

"I want to increase poverty, and end Britain"

"Scottish Ministers regularly accept invitations to discuss our world leading homelessness work"

(OK, the last one doesn’t work, but I blame Joke for being unable to form a coherent sentence in the first place)

Just shows how easy it is to say meaningless things that nobody would disagree with. Unfortunately for Joke, it’s more difficult to say things that have real meaning and substance. I guess if he did that though, he’d actually have to commit to achieving something.