Blogspot - maxatkinson.blogspot.com - Max Atkinson's Blog
General Information:
Latest News:
The party leaders' "drink tonight" test revisited 21 Aug 2013 | 12:54 am
With the party conference season almost upon us, I've been asking people which one of the current party leaders would they select to go out for a drink with tonight (see also Wisdom of Forethought & A...
Should we worry that only 27% of England's cricket team went to state secondary schools? 13 Aug 2013 | 08:31 pm
On returning from holiday (and after quite a while of silence), I'm finally getting back to blogging - thanks to being bothered by a burning question about the composition of the England cricket team ...
Latest press release by Ed Balls disguised as a speech to Thomson Reuters 3 Jun 2013 | 06:01 pm
While top Tories like David Cameron and George Osborne have recently read our their press releases at Morrisons' distribution warehouses, today opposition shadow chancellor Ed Balls read out his lates...
More nails in the coffin of political speech-making in Britain? 13 May 2013 | 02:12 pm
Above are the video clips I'll be showing at the UK Speechwriters' Guild Conference on Thursday. Below are some notes on what I'll be saying about them. In earlier blogs, I've suggested that a major ...
Cameron's impressive success in 2010 9 May 2013 | 11:05 pm
Preparing for a presentation on our political leaders' curious preference for making speeches in peculiar places, I stumbled across this from David Cameron speaking in front of a window at the end of ...
Cameron's visit to Morrisons puts him neck and neck with Osborne in daft speech venue contest 1 May 2013 | 07:27 pm
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, yesterday's speech by the Prime Minister at the Morrisons distribution centre in Bridgewater (above) could be seen as a bid to keep up (or down) with Ch...
On the death of Margaret Thatcher: notes on the evolution of charismatic woman 15 Apr 2013 | 05:52 pm
When I wrote 'Our Masters' Voices' (1984), Margaret Thatcher was prime minister and looked well set to win at least one more term of office (and actually won two more). The following is a somewhat rev...
Spring competition: where, when and to whom should our politicians read their 'press releases'? 3 Apr 2013 | 12:34 am
Regular readers of this blog know that I've been getting exasperated by the growing obsession of leading British politicians with making important speeches at strange times and at peculiar venues. Da...
Boris Johnson's Sunday morning meeting with Eddie Mair 25 Mar 2013 | 06:56 pm
--> On several occasions, I've asked whether interviews are ever capable of delivering good news for politicians and wondered why our political leaders appear content with the deal that appears to ha...
Did the cardinals have a hidden agenda in electing another old man to the to the papacy? 14 Mar 2013 | 10:52 pm
Now that Benedict XVI has shown the world that a pope can retire when he feels a bit past it, the cardinals must have felt liberated to hand the top job to another old man. And how very polite commen...
