Good riddance to rhetoric

Autumn is here, and so the political classes celebrate the return of Any Questions and Question Time. (The Dimbleby is the only species that hibernates during the summer.) This year, though, listen out for the one thing missing from both programmes: rhetoric. Over recent series politicians and pundits have shrugged off the oratory. Instead they talk normally, like normal people in a normal setting. And thank God for that.

In the bad old days, discussion programmes were full of panellists giving it the full Winston. Contributions started ‘I’m very glad to have the opportunity of addressing this vital, and, if I might say so, crucial issue,’ then meander, via countless ‘moreover’s and ‘furthermore’s, to a conclusion that should have been reached in a third of the time and with a fifth of the adjectives. The same old tricks got turned again and again. The list, each item repeating a word or phrase (‘when will this government act on crime?’ ‘When will this government act on immigration?’) Reading out a quote the audience was meant to think came from one side only to reveal it came from the other (‘your words, Minister, your words in the House last year.’)