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Chapter 1: What are the key themes of the episode?
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Hello and welcome to Strong Message here from BBC Radio 4, a guide to the use and abuse of political language. I'm Matt Ford, and before you panic, I haven't travelled down on an Avanti West Coast to stage a coup. Armando is under the weather this week, so I'm stepping into hosting duties.
I have to admit, I'm a little under the weather myself with World Cup fever, which has been slightly tempered by England's performance against Ghana. This week, I'm joined by Ria Lina.
Ria, welcome to the show. Hi. What is this World Cup of which you speak? What are you talking about?
Do you know what? It's some sort of startup sporting tournament. I don't think it's going to catch on.
No, I can't see it working. I mean, you need everyone to agree. You want at least 40, 45 countries to agree. And I can't see that happening in today's political climate.
The phrase we're going to look at this week is a swift transition. Minister Nick Thomas-Simons has called for one, so we're going to look into what he means by that and cast our eye over the language of Starmer's tenure and the rhetorical traits of the potentially incoming Andy Burnham. So this idea of a swift transition.
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Chapter 2: How does the Labour Party use language to convey its message?
And yet to become the leader of a party, leader of a country, There's then a suggestion that sometimes you go, oh, yeah, well, we won't have an election this time. Let's just get on with it. You think, well, I think legitimacy matters as well.
I hear that very much, especially in politics. But as an actor, the idea of being handed a role without having to audition. Yes, please.
That's different. That's based on talent. That's merit.
It isn't always. Sometimes it's based on your social media following, isn't it?
The parallels of politics.
Yeah, that's true. At that point, yeah, maybe it is. The people have spoken.
Okay, let's analyse some of the language from Starmer's speech when he announced that he was going to stand down. He said, I don't know whether to do the voice or not.
Please do the voice because I'm going to ask you to do Andy later. So you might as well do Keir now.
Six years ago, I inherited a Labour Party that was politically, financially and morally bankrupt. Strong words, obviously aimed at Jeremy Corbyn, who said it was a disgraceful comment to make. But doesn't Starmer have to make this point? Because in a way, his most unequivocal achievement is making the Labour Party electable again.
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Chapter 3: What does 'a swift transition' mean in the context of leadership change?
Part of the issue of why you were being asked to leave, whether by your party or whether by the country, is because there was so much discord that you weren't able to unify within your own party. So why kind of do that little dig?
I guess he would say that he's trying to remind people of his key achievement, which is when he took over, people were saying the Labour Party might not even exist in two years' time. It was under investigation by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. We'd never seen the Labour Party get itself into that sort of state.
So he's just trying to remind the Labour Party, I guess, at that point, don't forget what I did for you, was that when I took it over, it's easy now to see, well, we're a party of government and it's easy to get on. When I took over, that wasn't the case. Yeah.
And I would have said that six months or a year ago when he started to really get in trouble, that was the time to remind us of that. But right now it's kind of he's gone up and over the hill. We're almost at a point where we're not sure if the Labour Party is electable again.
So don't remind us that you got us to a point of election as you are leaving because you have then possibly made the Labour Party unelectable again. But but also I found this this kind of made me chuckle when he said that he accepted the answer to all these questions that were being posed.
He accepted the answer that he needs to go with good grace because he gave this speech at 930 on a Monday morning, whereas on the Friday right before the weekend, he was saying, if there's a leadership race, I'm going to run it. So I'm like the good grace that your wife had to take you away for a weekend and go here, give up already like you're done.
And it's interesting seeing that language change over a weekend from I will stand. I guess at that point, you're kind of bluffing. You're trying to make Andy Burnham blink or Wes Streeting or whoever.
I think that if Wes hadn't conceded, then he may well have still hung in there because then there would have been votes up for grab, I think. And that's why I think Wes and Andy said, we don't want to spend the summer exaggerating our small differences. They realised that if they fought each other, that Keir stood a chance of staying in power so that one of them had to concede.
Also, I love the idea that the Labour Party wouldn't want to exaggerate small differences. If it's one thing the Labour Party exists to do to itself, it is exaggerate the small differences in policy between one wing and another.
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Chapter 4: How does Andy Burnham's communication style differ from Keir Starmer's?
We've just heard you do Keir Starmer through, you know, that whole burn nasal kind of thing. How does Andy Burnham differ?
So my Burnham impression isn't one of my best, but he has quite a soft, quite a slight sort of hesitancy, isn't there, Ria? You know, he will ask himself questions a lot, won't he? And I think one of the things we really need to do is improve things, don't we? And I think having conversations like this really helps, doesn't it? And that can sound consensual, can't it?
But it can also sound quite unsure as well. And he will also go from levity to serious very quickly, you know. Nothing I love more than coming on here and talking to you and having a laugh and talking about language. I think it's great. But in all seriousness, if the Houthis don't stop doing what they're doing, we will use lethal force. The pivot is fast, so look out for that.
But he has certainly a more... It's quite a gentle way that he speaks, quite a soft... pleasant voice. I mean, I think you're right. I don't think, linguistically, him and Starmer are quite similar in many ways. And there's a sort of nervousness about them. They don't have that assuredness that, say, Blair had.
Yeah, they don't. I mean, they don't have that public schoolboy feel to them, do they? And I think that that's why, I mean, Andy Brim, of course, King of the North, Man of the People. These are all phrases that we would very much associate with him and with his way of communicating because he comes across as a real person. I think Keir Starmer...
Keir Starmer, people struggle with, first of all, because, of course, he is Sir Keir Starmer, you know, for his service to the country. But it separates him from the humble beginnings that he came from. I don't know if you know this, Matt, but his dad was a toolmaker. No way. Yes. Yeah. And his mom was a nurse. So I know he's just one of us. You should have mentioned it.
We would have bonded with him more. He might still be prime minister if he did. So they do have a lot of similarities. You know, there is that there is that certain humility. There's that lack of bombasticity. But I do think that there is still, you know, within the scale of Labour, there is a difference.
And I think that that Andy is representing and I think Wes probably even recognises that he's a little bit too slick physically. And I think Wes, you know, on the balance of it went, I'm probably closer to Keir Starmer than Andy is. And if we want a hope of being reelectable in up to two and a half years, then maybe Andy is the person that I need to throw my weight behind.
Sort of like in a Gove Boris kind of way 10 years ago. Yeah. How well that went.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of Manchesterism for UK politics?
Burnhamism, that's not going to work. It's like, what did he do? Did he set them all on fire? Like Burnhamism, what is that?
It does sound like some old medieval policy for witches.
Yeah, you know, it involved... We went through Burnhamism and that was bad.
We've moved on, yeah.
It's so true. It's an interesting one for me, especially because he comes from Liverpool. And one of the things we all know about is the Liverpool Manchester identity divide.
So here's a man from Liverpool who's managed to win the hearts of the greater Manchester area with great success, even winning a by-election in Makerfield, which contains Wigan, which is still one of the poorest areas that he never really, he never was able to raise them up out of poverty as he was promising to do.
So he's achieved many great things, and it might be a clever move that he's using Manchesterism as an identity and separating it from himself. So that, A, if it fails, it wasn't me, it was Manchesterism, but B, if it succeeds, there's still room for him to grow into what Burnhamism might then become. So he's leaving himself open to it, whereas Starmer, from the very beginning...
had to do Starmerism, didn't he? I mean, that was it. And Starmerism failed within two and a half years and now that's his legacy.
And actually, interestingly, and this is a crucial difference between them is, Starmer was very resistant to even accept that Starmerism was a thing or that it would... You know, he was one of those politicians that you meet and some of them exist in the Labour Party. So I don't want to be pigeonholed. I don't want to be seen as old Labour or new Labour. I'm classic Labour.
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Chapter 6: How does Keir Starmer's language reflect his leadership challenges?
What do you make of it?
Keir, now that you're free, if you have any other writing needs... You have to do a circuit?
Yeah.
I like to eat, so that's perfect.
Ria, it's a bit of a fan favourite here on Strong Message here. What do you make of the phrase, the tepid bath of managed decline?
I mean, do you know what is the fact that a tepid bath does not change temperature, but decline is a change and tepid isn't. And you go, well, if it's a tepid bath, it's a terrible temperature. And the only way to make it better is to heat it up. But decline is decline. So the only bath that declines is your hot bath as it gets colder. Yeah. That's why that's that never makes sense to me.
And therefore the state must intervene. Turn on the hot tap. Turn on the hot tap of investment to stimulate the tepid bath of managed decline. The radox of international agreement to stimulate the bath for all I care. By using your big toe to stem the trickle down. Or is it just that when it comes out of different people's mouths, it makes us feel different?
Had Tony Blair said, the tepid bath of managed decline, would we have said, oh, actually, that's got a real urgency to it. I can see it now, the tepid bath, and I don't want to get in it.
Or we are in it. Well, do you know, it's interesting. I would have said it's a terrible phrase, but now that you've done it as Tony Blair, I'm like, oh, actually, maybe it is. It's all in the delivery. It's like comedy. It's all in the delivery. I think that Keir Starmer, you know how some people are just tone deaf and they cannot sing no matter what.
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Chapter 7: What strategies are discussed for Labour's future electoral success?
Why would you want to say the same thing as everyone else? Wouldn't you want to stand out and differentiate? And I've never understood why you would want to follow trends in language because then you just become part of the blob. Pick a new form of words. Show that you can express yourself rather than just copy and paste. The honour of my life.
Yeah, but don't you also find sometimes as a comedian that when you're too far out there, nobody comes with you?
Frequently, yeah. Thanks for listening to Strong Message here. It's been the honour of my life to host this show. Armando will be back next week. Make sure you subscribe to Strong Message here on BBC Sounds. And while you're there, why not listen to my show, The Matt Ford Focus Group, which on occasion also features the fantastic Ria Lina. Thanks for having me. Goodbye. Goodbye.
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Chapter 8: How do the hosts analyze the effectiveness of political phrases?
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