Presenting Mr Clegg

Observations of a conference presentation  :)

Given that I do presentation skills training for a living, I know I should watch the conferences of our political parties with more enthusiasm and I know I should offer well thought out and carefully crafted critiques – but it’s been a busy couple of weeks and I’ve been tired and they’re usually boring…

So I’m going to force myself… starting with Nick Clegg’s address to the LibDemm faithful in Birmingham.  I’m not going to make a rounded critique here, partially because no one reads a rounded critique online and partially because I’m still too tired! :)    (Hey, it’s been a big week!) What you’ll get is a set of isolated observations made as I sit on my sofa watching the speech on youtube!

1. The opening round of applause. Don’t get relaxed Mr Clegg – it was pretty obviously formulaic.  Take a look at how quickly it stopped when you thanked people for it: a genuinely warm and enthusiastic ovation wouldn’t have been turned off like a tap. And if it wasn’t genuine, might it even have been orchestrated?  If it was, fire your Stage Manager for orchestrating it badly!
2. Opening comments – boring and contrived. To make the list of things that have gone wrong anything other than padding, they needed to be delivered with passion.  This was too carefully delivered, too coached, too ‘nice’ to be anything other than ‘the reason I don’t comment on party conference speeches’. It justifies my avoiding this kind of stuff… A waste of time, frankly.  Unless Clegg finds a way of redeeming it later… and this is the set-up for punch-line of some kind… this is the kind delivery you might get away with in the middle of a speech but not at the beginning…
3. 2:30 onwards “That is the liberal spirit and that is something we will never loose”. Really?  You couldn’t have said this with a bit more spirit?  Those are potentially powerful words, people-changing words, but delivered as though it was a shopping list.  “Carrots, got them, chicken fillets, got them, liberal spirit, got it, frozen peas, got them.

A bit of passion follows that – thank heavens… otherwise I was about to give up and make a cup of tea.

Just out of curiosity, Mr Clegg, why were you using a lectern?  I’m beginning to get the impression that you’d be a lot better as a speechmaker if you were a little less ‘proper’ and went with your informal nature a little bit more.  The auto-cue is telling you what to say, so you’re obviously only using it as a prop – and like many presenters, the prop isn’t what you need… raw courage is what you need!

Can you imagine the coverage you’d have got if you’d appeared out there as a ‘naked’ presenter?

No, I can’t do it any more…. I’m bored!

But then again I’m not… because by about seven minutes in he’d warmed up. Clegg’s voice had variety – because he had begun to dare to let it go a little.  What’s more, he had a good theme going “Not the easy thing, but the right thing” – there were Clap Traps a plenty (thanks to his script-writers) and he managed to use some of them – thanks to the fact that his audience were desperate/programmed to respond to them.

(What’s a Clap Trap? A flair and cadance the finishes with a strong down at the end of a paragraph, encouraging applause from the audience. Look at 8:40 to 9:08 – and one he almost missed just before 10:00).

I can’t fault Clegg’s guts, either, as he tackles the unpopular topic of student loans around the 12 minute mark…..

…. but…

….but….

…..but it’s a well crafted, nicely delivered piece of political safety-work. And I’ll bet if I’d written this (so-called) review of any of the other parties I’d be saying more or less the same things.

It’s good, but it’s not special.  Good but not great. Safe but not life-changing.

And isn’t that the problem with political presentations?  For fear of screwing up, nothing exciting happens. For fear of appearing in a gaff-slot on YouTube nothing can be left to chance.  For fear of hitting the news headlines for the wrong reasons, nothing is included that could hit the headlines for the right reasons.

But do you know what? I’d be happy, really, really happy if there was just a bit more honesty and reality in political speeches.

Tell me, please tell me, that I’m not the only one….!