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Do you really ‘passionately believe’ in anything, Mr Cameron? Repetition makes you less convincing, not more Do you really ‘passionately believe’ in anything, Mr Cameron? Repetition makes you less convincing, not more
(6 days later)
Drowning in a sea of public disaffection – pathetic figures, far from shore – politicians imagine they can be rescued if, like Lord Sugar’s contestants, they boast loudly enough about their swooning commitment to this or that cause. Most of the big ones have said it – “I passionately believe” – but among repeat offenders, David Cameron is almost certainly the worst. “Whether you are a man or a woman, I passionately believe that everyone has a part to play in achieving full equality for women and girls,” he said this week on being asked why, unlike Clegg and Miliband, he refused to wear a T-shirt bearing the slogan, “This is what a feminist looks like”.Drowning in a sea of public disaffection – pathetic figures, far from shore – politicians imagine they can be rescued if, like Lord Sugar’s contestants, they boast loudly enough about their swooning commitment to this or that cause. Most of the big ones have said it – “I passionately believe” – but among repeat offenders, David Cameron is almost certainly the worst. “Whether you are a man or a woman, I passionately believe that everyone has a part to play in achieving full equality for women and girls,” he said this week on being asked why, unlike Clegg and Miliband, he refused to wear a T-shirt bearing the slogan, “This is what a feminist looks like”.
His passion runs in many directions. You might even say it runs away with him. The day after the Scottish referendum, he stood in Downing Street and said, “I am a passionate believer in our United Kingdom – I wanted more than anything for our United Kingdom to stay together” in a speech that otherwise immediately fulfilled Alex Salmond’s predictions of Yes-voter betrayal. Five days later he told the opaquely named ‘the Transparency International Post-2015 High-Level event that the task ahead of it was to replace the Millennium Development Goals. “I passionately believe that the new goals need to be simple, inspiring and relevant,” he said. “Simple means no more than 12 goals.” At present, the UN has listed 17 goals in its campaign to eliminate global corruption and poverty. Cameron would like to cut five of them. In this, I repeat, he passionately believes. His passion runs in many directions. You might even say it runs away with him. The day after the Scottish referendum, he stood in Downing Street and said, “I am a passionate believer in our United Kingdom – I wanted more than anything for our United Kingdom to stay together” in a speech that otherwise immediately fulfilled Alex Salmond’s predictions of No-voter betrayal. Five days later he told the opaquely named ‘the Transparency International Post-2015 High-Level event that the task ahead of it was to replace the Millennium Development Goals. “I passionately believe that the new goals need to be simple, inspiring and relevant,” he said. “Simple means no more than 12 goals.” At present, the UN has listed 17 goals in its campaign to eliminate global corruption and poverty. Cameron would like to cut five of them. In this, I repeat, he passionately believes.
Three years ago he felt the same about renewable energy. “I passionately believe the rapid growth of renewables is vital to our future,” he told the Clean Energy Ministerial summit in April 2012, when fracking was a faraway prospect of which we knew little, and Ukip had still to take against wind turbines. This week, as well as passionately believing that everyone (or everyone else) had a role in the fight for gender equality, he was also ardent for HS2 – in a different formulation that allowed him to separate adverb and verb. He was “passionate” about high-speed rail, which he “profoundly” believed was right. In retrospect, we can see that his merely bog-standard belief in the innocence of his media man, Andy Coulson, was really a sign of doubt rather than faith. Wisely, he refused to passionately believe in him – though as we can see from the renewables example, as from the divorce rate, “passionate” isn’t the same as “permanent”. Three years ago he felt the same about renewable energy. “I passionately believe the rapid growth of renewables is vital to our future,” he told the Clean Energy Ministerial summit in April 2012, when fracking was a faraway prospect of which we knew little, and Ukip had still to take against wind turbines. This week, as well as passionately believing that everyone (or everyone else) had a role in the fight for gender equality, he was also ardent for HS2 – in a different formulation that allowed him to separate adverb and verb. He was “passionate” about high-speed rail, which he “profoundly” believed was right. In retrospect, we can see that his merely bog-standard belief in the innocence of his media man, Andy Coulson, was really a sign of doubt rather than faith. Wisely, he refused to passionately believe in him – though as we can see from the renewables example, as from the divorce rate, “passionate” isn’t the same as “permanent”.
The origins of this language inflation lie, of course, in marketing. Salesmanship works best when the seller can display, sincerely or otherwise, a wholehearted belief in the product on offer (“Myself, I couldn’t live without one of these top-notch Eezykleen toothbrushes”). Other areas of work used to be exempt from this kind of talk; my father, for example, was devoted to his work but would never have announced a passionate belief in his lathe or lathes generally. And then somehow a selling method began to be seen as a desirable human quality irrespective of one’s work, as a magnet emotion waiting to attach itself – click! – to a cause. Restaurants advertise for passionate waiting staff when what they want are hardworking people who will tolerate low pay and rude customers and smile, smile, smile.The origins of this language inflation lie, of course, in marketing. Salesmanship works best when the seller can display, sincerely or otherwise, a wholehearted belief in the product on offer (“Myself, I couldn’t live without one of these top-notch Eezykleen toothbrushes”). Other areas of work used to be exempt from this kind of talk; my father, for example, was devoted to his work but would never have announced a passionate belief in his lathe or lathes generally. And then somehow a selling method began to be seen as a desirable human quality irrespective of one’s work, as a magnet emotion waiting to attach itself – click! – to a cause. Restaurants advertise for passionate waiting staff when what they want are hardworking people who will tolerate low pay and rude customers and smile, smile, smile.
In mainstream politics, however, advertised passion becomes something sadder than a lie; it’s a plea that the speaker be taken seriously, or at least seen as a sincere fellow doing his best, to an electorate that increasingly understands how little power a modern government has to improve its lot and how, in the end, so many political promises are bound to be empty. In mainstream politics, however, advertised passion becomes something sadder than a lie; it’s a plea that the speaker be taken seriously, or at least seen as a sincere fellow doing his best, to an electorate that increasingly understands how little power a modern government has to improve its lot and how, in the end, so many political promises are bound to be empty.
And yet as a rhetorical device it doesn’t work. Overuse is partly to blame, but the more fundamental problem is something they teach in the first lesson to students of creative writing: show, don’t tell. To write persuasive fiction, let the reader understand a character through her thoughts or behaviour; do not instruct the reader by summarising her personality. Not “Elspeth was a vain woman”, but “Elspeth looked in the mirror for the tenth time that morning and on each occasion fell a little more in love with the mole on her cheek”. Similarly, proclaiming a passionate belief is much less convincing – anyone can do it; we can all be advocates for our own decency – than describing a belief passionately or (better still) working to give it effect. And yet as a rhetorical device it doesn’t work. Overuse is partly to blame, but the more fundamental problem is something they teach in the first lesson to students of creative writing: show, don’t tell. To write persuasive fiction, let the reader understand a character through her thoughts or behaviour; do not instruct the reader by summarising her personality. Not “Elspeth was a vain woman”, but “Elspeth looked in the mirror for the tenth time that morning and on each occasion fell a little more in love with the mole on her cheek”. Similarly, proclaiming a passionate belief is much less convincing – anyone can do it; we can all be advocates for our own decency – than describing a belief passionately or (better still) working to give it effect.
By using the first-person pronoun, the prime minister may want to indicate the strength of his commitment to a “vision”, but often the result is to weaken it. Imagine a peroration by Cameron rather than Churchill to the House of Commons on 4 June 1940. “I passionately believe we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; I passionately believe we shall never surrender.” To which a cynical member of the Home Guard – Private Frazer, say – might have shrugged ironically, “Well, do you really chum? Far be it from the likes of me to let down your [sneer] passionate beliefs.” By using the first-person pronoun, the prime minister may want to indicate the strength of his commitment to a “vision”, but often the result is to weaken it. Imagine a peroration by Cameron rather than Churchill to the House of Commons on 4 June 1940. “I passionately believe we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; I passionately believe we shall never surrender.” To which a cynical member of the Home Guard – Private Frazer, say – might have shrugged ironically, “Well, do you really chum? Far be it from the likes of me to let down your [sneer] passionate beliefs.”
Uncertainy in the UKUncertainy in the UK
The last time I wrote in this space the No side had just won the Scottish referendum and it looked as though the United Kingdom might survive for at least another generation. That feeling has not lasted long. There can have been few periods in the UK’s history when its future as a state – and as a society – has looked more uncertain, with causes that include Scotland, Ukip and the desperate quality of Westminster’s political leadership. In India in the 1970s they used to talk of the state’s “fissiparous tendencies”, meaning its various urges to break up, and the same foreboding now exists in Britain (foreboding, that is, for supporters of the UK and the EU; hope and expectation elsewhere). A purely personal consequence, though I imagine many people share it, is that whenever I see Cameron’s forefinger angrily prodding the lectern or his face turning pink with sanctimonious and sometimes manufactured fury – I want to live elsewhere. No previous prime minister, not even the obvious one, has had this effect. The last time I wrote in this space the No side had just won the Scottish referendum and it looked as though the United Kingdom might survive for at least another generation. That feeling has not lasted long. There can have been few periods in the UK’s history when its future as a state – and as a society – has looked more uncertain, with causes that include Scotland, Ukip and the desperate quality of Westminster’s political leadership. In India in the 1970s they used to talk of the state’s “fissiparous tendencies”, meaning its various urges to break up, and the same foreboding now exists in Britain (foreboding, that is, for supporters of the UK and the EU; hope and expectation elsewhere). A purely personal consequence, though I imagine many people share it, is that whenever I see Cameron’s forefinger angrily prodding the lectern or his face turning pink with sanctimonious and sometimes manufactured fury – I want to live elsewhere. No previous prime minister, not even the obvious one, has had this effect.
What I did on my holidaysWhat I did on my holidays
What did I enjoy most in these past few weeks of columnar leave? Not for the first time, I owe a perfect evening to the British Film Institute, which at London’s Southbank has been screening a magnificent restoration of the silent 1927 film, The Battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands, to a newly composed score by Simon Dobson. Dobson’s music matches the naval scenes wonderfully, and we were lucky enough to hear it played in the pit by the band of the Royal Marines. The scenes in which workers at Devonport urgently prepare a battle cruiser to pursue Graf Spee’s fleet is worthy of Eisenstein. What did I enjoy most in these past few weeks of columnar leave? Not for the first time, I owe a perfect evening to the British Film Institute, which at London’s Southbank has been screening a magnificent restoration of the silent 1927 film, The Battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands, to a newly composed score by Simon Dobson. Dobson’s music matches the naval scenes wonderfully, and we were lucky enough to hear it played in the pit by the band of the Royal Marines. The scenes in which workers at Devonport urgently prepare a battle cruiser to pursue Graf Spee’s fleet is worthy of Eisenstein.
A little comedy, also of an unexpectedly Soviet kind, is provided when one of the speeding British steamships runs dangerously short of coal and the chapel’s organ is seized and stuffed into the furnace, after some resistance from the more religiously minded crew members. The desperate chucking of unlikely objects into boiler fires to keep steam up was a cinematic trope of the steam age. It happens in Buster Keaton’s The General (1926) and again in Will Hay’s Oh Mr Porter (1937). Is there a PhD here? A little comedy, also of an unexpectedly Soviet kind, is provided when one of the speeding British steamships runs dangerously short of coal and the chapel’s organ is seized and stuffed into the furnace, after some resistance from the more religiously minded crew members. The desperate chucking of unlikely objects into boiler fires to keep steam up was a cinematic trope of the steam age. It happens in Buster Keaton’s The General (1926) and again in Will Hay’s Oh Mr Porter (1937). Is there a PhD here?
• This article was amended on 6 November 2014. An earlier version referred to Alex Salmond’s predictions of Yes-voter, rather than No-Voter, betrayal.