“Now before I start, there are a couple of things I wanted to say. The first is about the people sitting behind me, I’m really proud of the team in the Shadow Cabinet that we have put together.”
These “introducing the band . . .” inserts only ever work in closed session. When we are told that Andrew Lansley knows more about the NHS than anyone in the country I started to believe that he really was just making this speech up as he went along.
“Now we’ve got a maximum of 70 days between now and the general election that we must win. And you know what, this isn’t an election that it would be quite nice to win, because we’ve got some quite good policies, or quite good to win, because some of these people would make quite good ministers.”
This passage and the next one set up the speech. There are two mistakes. It is close to insulting to say that people who do not wish to be rid of the Government are “unpatriotic” and the last line — “we will not let you down” — is too good to be left hanging. It ought to have been developed and might even have become the recurring motif of the speech.
“We’ve got the ambition to make this country great again. And while you do it, I want you to think of the incredible dark depression of another five years of Gordon Brown and say no, no, we’re not going to do that, so come on then, let’s get out there and win it for Britain!”
If anyone, anywhere, ever again uses the phrase “make this country great again” I will probably write something rude about them in the newspaper. Yes, the country is called Great Britain. It’s a geographical term, not an epithet. You might as well say that a week is a long time in politics. Along with the shouty delivery this spoilt the ending.
The speech unspun: clichés are irksome - Times Online
