Why is Sir Keir Starmer's Public Speaking style criticised?
It seems to be open season on Sir Keir Starmer’s Public Speaking style.
Is he too flat, uninspiring, workman-like?
Well: it is nothing new.
Whenever things are not going well the tendency is to start to analyse the way the message is being delivered.
‘It is not working; the communication must be wrong.’
We have already been here many times before with England Football managers.
When the team is not winning, it must be because that particular manager appears too uninvolved:
he lacks passion and seems too passive which means
he cannot motivate the team which is why the team is losing.
However, when the team is winning, that same manager becomes the cool analytical genius, the puppet master wielding a profound and subtle influence on his players and the commentators are saying that it is his detached style that allows the players to be free to express themselves
Nevertheless, after a run of poor results, the selectors decide to choose a new manager; one that is more passionate and expressive - because that lack was surely the root of the problem.
The fans are happy again until another run of poor results and now the new manager is condemned for being all froth and enthusiasm, tactically unaware and lacking the cool detached perspective necessary for the team to succeed.
I hope the message is clear.
When we have reason to doubt the message, we look more closely at the messenger.
Style only comes under the microscope whenever the results are unsatisfactory or the plan seems unachievable.
If Sir Keir Starmer could point to a country on the up, with a health system meeting its targets supported by a vibrant economy, I don’t think we would spend much time analysing his speaking style.
A major reason for holding Winston Churchill up as the great orator stems from the fact that Britain was ultimately successful in World War 2. If the allies had been quickly crushed and subjugated, which looked quite likely in the early days of the war, his ‘fight them on the beaches’ would have been consigned to the category of ‘naive fantasy with no substance’.
However, one cannot deny that Sir Keir Starmer’s natural delivery style is not dynamic and analysts have gone as far as totting up how many words he speaks per minute as a possible indication of the cause of the problem.
Consider this: maybe his measured style was precisely why he was elected.
Following on from Political Leaders who talked a great talk, promised the impossible and as It seems, were not totally truthful, having a leader that was less rhetorical, less flamboyant, more analytical, and a more dependable 'lawyer type' seemed like a solid option.
The only true test of the effectiveness of a speaker is when, after they rally the crowd with a cry of ‘Follow me!’,
they turn around and see there is someone following.
The German spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle is a good example of an effective understated delivery style.
He does not want to be flamboyant – after all his message is about spirituality and calm.
However if he were Prime Minister, there would certainly be complaints about his method of delivery.
A delivery style only comes under the microscope when the Style is out of synch with the Content.
A suitable Delivery Style will always improve engagement and animate an audience.
Some tips for keeping the audience with you when your natural style of expression is undemonstrative.
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A positive believable message
The key word here is ‘believable’ and it falls to the skill and conviction of the speaker to make their message feel believable.
Churchill’s greatest achievement was to rally his country in its ‘darkest hour’ and to make ‘fighting on the beaches’ seem like a positive believable option.
The greater the gap between what is being said and what seems possible, the more the credibility (Ethos) of the speaker comes into play.
This is why Putin’s delivery can be less passionate than Zielensky’s.
At the beginning of the Ukraine conflict, Putin only needed to explain that Russia’s ‘special military operation’ was a routine housekeeping exercise to keep the world in order.
The message was:
‘No need to worry or get excited; this is straightforward; I am in control.’
Zeliensky in contrast needed to rally his people and stiffen their resolve to fight against the odds, to resist a massive unjust aggressor.
His message was:
‘If we all hold together and give everything we have, we can succeed.’
He was demanding – in the words of T.S Eliot -
‘A condition of complete simplicity
Costing not less than everything.’
If I am a Ukrainian citizen, faced with a seemingly overwhelming task, I will feed off the passion and belief of the speaker to carry the message.
If I am a Russian citizen, as the task is made to seem more routine I do not need a passionate rhetorician,
I just need a competent functionary to explain the situation.
Putin’s role is more like a night watchman or security guard reassuring his charges:
‘Don’t worry, I have this covered.’
- and no one needs to be rhetorically inspired by a security guard.
What Sir Keir Starmer may have discovered is that the same functional, dispassionate Delivery Style that suited an analysis of the cause of the hurricane - and got him elected - is no longer sufficient now that he is in the middle of the hurricane.
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Tell the Truth
Putting aside all political posturing, I believe Sir Keir Starmer has been doing this to the best of his ability and
we particularly appreciate this unvarnished honesty when we suspect that some of his predecessors have been a little free with the truth.
Someone telling us everything is fine - and will continue to be fine – when it is not - is not believable.
There is a TV advert for the Open University which shows students studying alongside the jobs – and it shows us that it is hard, it is a struggle, how at times they want to give up, but they persist and get there in the end – because the message is:
‘In the end - it will be worth it.’
The advertisers realise that to tell us achieving an Open University degree is easy would not be believable.
So for a message of unvarnished honesty, Sir Keir’s delivery style is perfectly suited.
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Show your passion
Horace told us 'You cannot tell an emotion, you can only show an emotion'.
And the important point here is that you cannot show something that is not genuinely felt.
Sometimes our job as an audience might be to meet the speaker halfway.
Many political commentators have found it necessary to point out when Sir Keir seems genuinely annoyed,
as I presume they feel it is not always that obvious!
The proverbial halftime roasting from the football manager when the team is underperforming will only be seen to have had its effect when the team goes out in the second half and performs better.
f the ranting and raging has no effect, it becomes meaningless noise.
The former Manchester United manager, Sir Alec Ferguson was apparently terrifying when in full flow but his success record suggests it was effective.
While Sir Alec can make the room tremble, Sir Keir probably falls more into the category of the parent that says:
‘I am not angry, I am just very disappointed.’
The tea cups may not rattle in the same way, but delivered with conviction there can be a very powerful message.
There is no point in Sir Keir attempting to be something that is not genuine to him;
if raising the voice is not natural to him, it will not feel sincere if he does.
Even so, he could employ tweaks to his delivery to make his ‘very disappointed’ come across more forcefully.
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Clarity of message
As a former Public Prosecutor analytical, dispassionate clarity is already a natural strength of Sir Keir.
The tub-thumping speaker will say:
‘Listen to me. Trust me. Believe me.’
(and you will often find that there is usually a lot of ‘me, me, me,’ involved in that style delivery - Ethos, Ethos, Ethos)
The lawyer says:
‘This is not about me. You cannot argue with the facts, facts, facts.’ – Logos, Logos, Logos)
So the strength of Sir Keir’s language (reasonable, logical, restrained) is excellent for explaining,
but is not so effective for inspiring (superlative, emotive, exaggerated) and we only need to look across the Atlantic for an example of a President that uses all of that – often wrapped up in a seemingly illogical bombastic style - but while the content might not stand up to close analysis his style turns out to be ideal for sending the troops over the barricades.
Therefore…
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Choice of Vocabulary
We do not need to go to the extreme of describing our opponents as ‘worst ever’, but we can experiment with more superlative and evocative vocabulary:
turning ‘bad’ into ‘disastrous’
turning ‘error’ into ‘catastrophe’
turning ‘possible’ into ‘best’
However, referring back to #3 ‘Show your Passion’, the words still need to sit comfortably with the speaker.
(This is why you will often see a very close understanding between a speaker and their speech-writer.
The speech writer needs to be able to imagine their particular speaker delivering those words.)
If the vocabulary is not natural to the speaker, the effect will be awkward.
Needless to say, if we are writing our own speeches we can experiment with what sort of vocabulary best conveys our feelings.
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Change of pace
How many words a speaker is speaking per minute is probably a 'red herring' and only becomes relevant if they all come out at the same speed.
A key element to engagement is contrast: changing pace, pitch, power and pausing to create impact.
A fast-paced speaker may benefit from slowing down at key moments:
a measured delivery will gain attention by building up to a climax or key message.
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Thematic words
Every speech will have a theme or a message, which means that the structural elements of the speech will be created out of the keywords or phrases that hold the meaning and purpose of the presentation.
Once the speaker becomes aware of what those keywords are, not only will it give them a greater grasp of the structure of their speech, these words will act as structural support to the delivery: the speaker can build towards them, emphasise them, and relax the tension away from them. No longer will we be obsessed with 140 words a minute, we will be focussing on waves of meaning and the major and minor climaxes in the delivery: accelerating, slowing down, and moving to a climax.
In the end, speaking is all about engagement and engagement is created by contrast.
Even the most passionate speaker will lose their hold on their audience if their delivery is pitched at an unchanging overcharged level of excitement.
There is nothing wrong with Sir Keir Starmer’s pace and style of delivery.
Conviction does not need to be loud and flamboyant, it can also be quiet and intense.
The key is in embedding words that allow the speaker to emphasise, stress, and gesticulate naturally so that their passion is expressed through a style that is congruent with their personality.
And of course, if the economy starts to improve and there are tangible signs that the decline is being reversed, I don’t think anyone will be bothered anymore about Sir Keir’s style of delivery.
