Repetition, Repetition, Repetition (with Natalie Haynes)

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Hello and welcome to Strong Message here from BBC Radio 4, a guide to the use and abuse of political language.

It's Amanda Yunuchi yet again, and this week I'm joined by writer, comedian, classicist, and host of Radio 4's Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics.

The clues in the title.

Please welcome Natalie Classics.

Haynes.

Hello.

Hi.

Good.

I've got you laughing right from the start.

That's excellent.

That's my work here is done.

Yeah, that's it.

Over to you for the next 50 minutes if you're listening to Radio 4 and 30 minutes if you're listening to the adult version that we put.

It's not an adult.

No, I know.

It's just a longer.

You made promises I'm not sure we're going to keep.

Yes.

Welcome.

Thanks.

It's lovely to be here.

Now you and your propaganda zone.

I know.

This is the first time we've been.

I don't know if any of the pictures are going up on any of the media that people have these days, we're in a new booth here.

We are.

And I turned up before you turned up.

Yeah.

And so I just walked into a room with your giant face staring at me.

Yes.

It looked like you were getting settled in for an interrogation.

Yeah, it did a bit.

Yeah.

At least there aren't loads of lights around me.

No, we're good.

Oh, hang on.

Yeah.

No, we're going to discuss this week a repetition, repetition, repetition.

Just when does repeating the same phrase get annoying or does it actually work?

But before then, I think we just need to mop up the Conservative Party conference.

Okay.

The first thing I noticed about it was Mel Stride,

the shadow chancellor,

was presenting a speech on the main stage, and the strapline by him was responsible radicalism.

Already my kind of alarm bells were ringing because that's that thing they do when two very opposite concepts are yoked together by alliteration that make no sense because they are the opposite of each other.

It's like saying underwhelmingly uncompromising.

You know, it's so.

Which, to be fair, I think he is.

Well, that's the message.

Responsible radical.

Why did they do that?

What's going on there with this?

I remember once David Owen, when he was leader of the STP this month,

you cannot, you won't remember this, or indeed you might not have even been alive for this.

But I remember David Owen in the late 80s, at his first speech as leader of the SDP, talked about toughness and tenderness.

Oh,

sorry.

Actual revulsion has just happened.

I don't want to see.

I'm not a bad Barbara Cartland novel.

I don't like it.

I'm not having a nice time.

Oh, it would make a fortune if you did that as a 17-bar Netflix.

Toughness and tenderness and daily.

I'm having a nice time.

Sorry.

God,

I've never had one that's got giddy.

When I say one, not my dead.

But the podcast gets so giddy so soon.

Well, you know, that's what Melstride does to everyone

with this responsible radicalism it's just alliterative word salad again isn't it yes it's like i've got two words they start with the same letter will this do yeah it feels like it was the defining kind of meme and vibe of the conservative conference will this do will this do there's only 120 of us will this do is essentially that possibly if we just bunch them all together yeah um yes and but it does sound clever if you alliterate them it sounds like you've done something that no other person has been able to achieve which is find some some common purpose between those two let's face it very opposite words yes which i always thought with like carrot and stick approach which is well you go for the carrot or the stick if you do both they'll cancel each other out yes so you get nowhere yeah but that seems to be the kind of the working the default of any political policy that might be complicated or might caught unpopularity but if you feel in your bones that you can make it popular you come up with another word word to describe it that starts with the same letter, and that is the opposite of it.

Basically, you know, I want my tea both sugared and unsugared, and I think that's achievable.

Yeah, I think that's something you should be really aiming for in this parliamentary session.

I think it sort of stems back from it's only fairly recent, the last five or six years, this idea that if you say what you think should happen,

you'll then be torn down for it because it will be unpopular with a large-shaped constituency, possibly your constituency.

And then so you end up with this constant fear cloaked by abstract nouns.

And I'm not sure that's really giving the authenticity they believe in.

Because of course people just look at it and go, that's just meaningless.

That's meaningless.

That's absolutely meaningless.

And so you feel as a person being governed that nobody is ever telling you the truth.

Yeah.

Because just burbling nonsense at people, because if you say specific things, they will go, how dare you, you know, then this, what about these people what about this interest group then you you end up with this position where nobody ever says anything and they deliberately obfuscate and then all of us feel slightly both betrayed and irritated at all times betrayed and irritated my favorite combination

no imagine they had that in the backdrop any conference betrayed and irritated um so

i'm gonna wear um before we dive into the main the main topic you spotted something at the conservative conference i spotted that proofreading is an undervalued skill.

And I do see they've only got whatever it is now, 120 MPs, and perhaps none of them therefore had time to check their Conservative Party conference chocolate, who knew it was a thing.

But if you're going to stand up and claim that you are extremely pro-Briton in a way that your political rivals aren't, it would help if you could, on your special giveaway bars of chocolate, spell Briton correctly.

Yes.

How did they spell it?

They spelled it Britain.

They went for Britian.

Britian.

Yeah.

Britian.

Oh, Britian.

Britian.

Is that how we're saying it now?

Yeah.

You know, like the painter.

Oh, okay.

Ambassador, you're spoiling me with your Britian.

Exactly.

So, yeah, they went with when Labour negotiates, Britian

loses.

And you go, okay, well,

that's fine for me, I think, because I don't live there.

So great.

I think the press picked up on the misspelling of Britain on the bar of chocolate, but the first thing I thought was...

Who makes political chocolate?

Yes.

What's that doing there?

Because chocolate is meant to be an an indulgence.

It's a luxurious escape from the

drab

reality of politicking and the real world.

It's meant to be seen as an indulgence.

Yeah, well, having grown up, as I did, in Bourneville, home of Cadbris chocolate, I know.

I'm kind of appalled to see chocolate being repurposed in this way.

It's like, this is not a place where you can put your tedious word salad, which you can't even spell correctly.

I think that was also available in the buffet.

Yeah.

Tedious word salad.

See, if Donald Trump was faced with that, he would just bluff it.

He would just go, no, it is Colbritian.

Always has been.

Always has been.

And then everyone around him would just change the signs around him and it would become true.

I think the president has hit upon a genius observation here that if you go back into pre-history, it was Colbrittian.

And that's what we, as conservatives, are trying to bring to the fore: those old-fashioned values of greyer to Britian.

Yes, and misspelling.

And misspelling.

The old-fashioned values of not reading it before you press send.

Okay, why did you want to...

You specifically requested that we discuss the whole concept of repetition, repeated words, phrases or words that politicians incessantly say again and again.

Because I think in order to get a message across to people who simply aren't interested, you say the same thing over and over and over again is political wisdom, and that is fine.

But at the same time that you are doing that, what you're also doing is alienating people who are sufficiently politically engaged to, for example, look at a newspaper and listen to a radio program and maybe catch the six o'clock news.

Because you just get the same two or three words over and over again.

But isn't that that second category that you laid out?

Isn't that kind of a small category?

Yes, I suppose we're just the liberal metropolitan elite and therefore

it's intrinsically irritating.

So we're at liberal metropolitan elite HQ.

Yes, we really are.

I was trying to think of some repeated phrases that were effective.

Like, I mean, Tony Blair saying education, education, education had a kind of purpose behind it.

He was deliberately saying, I am going to say this word three times in a phrase.

That's how important I value that as a subject.

And also, I suppose there was a sort of connection to the idea of having the three R's of reading, writing.

And, you know, it was like, this makes perfect sense because now you're kind of playing back to it.

So you've gone for a tricolon, which is obviously everyone's favorite rhetorical device.

I mean, I think generally his speechwriting often kind of favoured those sorts of Ciceronian tactics.

Oh, yes.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, go on.

Yeah, I've thrown that in.

So Cicero's a big fan of repetition, too, and phrases of his that we still use today or still see use today, like oh, tempora, oh mores, oh time, oh, morals, or customs.

I think it appears three, four maybe times in his extant writings, most famously at the beginning of the Incatalinum, when he's so appalled by Catiline, that he's like, oh, how can this be?

And Cicero loves using repetition.

In fact, at the beginning of the Encatalinum, he does that exact thing.

He's like,

you know, this man is doing all these terrible things and he lives.

And then, so that we wit in Latin.

And then he immediately poses it as a question.

We wit, he lives.

Oh, yeah, he's thriving.

And so it's like, yeah, there, the repetition works incredibly well.

It's sort of developing his argument.

It's making him angrier.

It's making us angrier as we hear him.

But he's using that to press on a point.

But in a in in the context being that you know his audience aren't then going to go home and see another cicero say it again on the telly or hear cicero on the news on the radio say it again although i feel like some senators probably felt that way about cicero

literally here he goes again yes yes yeah ever present telling us how new he is and clever me i was thinking of phrases that for example kiostamo was often uh ridiculed for repeatedly saying his father was a tool maker.

Yes.

And I think the problem there was he wouldn't disperse that phrase across lots of different media.

He would use it on different programs on the one o'clock news saying it or the six o'clock news, the debate saying it.

So there was every likelihood that quite a lot of people would hear him say that five or six times and start seeing through it.

And actually, it would have been better if he'd focused on the I bought my mum a donkey sanctuary vibe because British people give more money to donkeys than basically any other channel.

We love donkeys.

I know, I don't know why you can have kept that.

I know, but I think exactly the same thing.

He bought his mum a donkey sanctuary.

It's like the most most humane thing about him.

And British people love donkeys.

Yeah, but cut to like the general election campaign in two or three years' time when for the 15th time I bought my mum a donkey censure.

Yeah, wheels out donkey.

But certain words that do kind of punch through,

whether or not the argument behind them is one you agree with or whether it stacks up.

But for example, I've heard the word Boris Wave used a lot in the immigration debate, which refers to to when under boris johnson post-brexit he relaxed the uh visa entry rules internationally and there was actually a huge influx of people coming here uh legally um and that's known as the boris wave and it gives it gives farage something to criticize it gives labor something to criticize it even i suppose if kami badmock wants to distance herself it gives her something it's something that happens one person's responsibility and he's gone yeah so yeah there's no downside to using it so no wonder they all use it everybody feels like they can gain something by saying it was his fault.

And so, yeah, I would be trying to attach it to the Conservative Party as a whole.

I wouldn't be.

I mean, I can see the temptation because obviously for a long time, Margaret Thatcher was the entire, you know, face and voice and name of the Conservative Party.

But I don't think when somebody's stepped down or been defenestrated, I don't think it's so successful as it is.

Well, it is that thing that they're trying to, because there's a new leader, everything has changed.

Yeah.

And that's a very hard.

if it was a presidential system you could imagine that.

But it's a party that's meant to be this coalition of different opinions and so on.

So I have to say a new leader means that anything that we said and believed 12 months ago, it's now gone, has been deleted and we can start afresh.

One word that I picked up on that's been repeatedly used over the last few days and I've got to mention him is Robert Jenrick.

I don't think you've got to mention him.

I've got to mention Robert Jenrick.

I'm not sure you have to mention him.

They fall out from his remarks.

He was recorded, not in public, but at a private dinner, talking about how certain areas of Birmingham he hadn't.

He says the Birmingham girl.

He hadn't seen another white face in whatever it was, 90 minutes walking around a certain area.

He then went on to say, this is not about the skin colour or faith.

And you thought, well, yes, you just said you haven't seen a white face.

What do you mean?

He was arguing, I want to see proper integration.

But what do you mean?

integration of what of of different colors of face what do you mean integration of different people who are british but who have you know different uh colours of face and a very strange position to and i mean the thing that i find most surprising is that it hasn't occurred to robert jenrick that perhaps everyone who sees him coming goes away

and that therefore wherever he goes there aren't very many people left.

It's like, I would suggest that perhaps the good people of Handsworth, you know, just saw that and they were just like, oh, let's not.

Nobody goes out in a morning and thinks, I hope I bump into Robert Jenrick, even people who know him.

Not in a mean way.

That's a kind of a whole new,

that's a whole new interpretation of integration, isn't it?

We have integrated.

We're all avoiding Robert Jenrick.

The people who are there, they're just a tiny, tiny, non-representative sample.

So Robert Jenrik was out and about looking for people who looked a bit like Robert Jenrick.

And oddly, Birmingham wasn't full of them.

I don't know how this has happened.

But there is a little rhetorical point there I wanted to pick up on.

When it says that thing, I didn't see another white face.

This is not about skin colour.

It's another strategy politicians use, which is if they say something controversial and then think they'll be accused of something, they then deny the accusation in advance

to shut that debate down.

So if I said, look, I'm going to punch you in the face, but please don't say that's aggressive.

It's not.

I'm not an aggressive person, okay?

I just want to make that absolutely clear.

And all I'm interested is just to hear what you have to say about me punching you in the face.

Okay.

It's not aggressive.

It's that, which is...

You don't get out of it by just saying it's not the thing that you think it is.

If it is.

I mean, again, I refer everyone to Cicero and his.

Oh, him again.

Yeah, I know.

Sorry.

He's so topical.

What do you want?

And his majestic way of using apophasis, that thing of saying the thing that you're not saying.

So again, notoriously, when making his denunciations of Catiline, he says on the subject of the woman Clodia, who is probably lesbia from Catullus's poetry, is involved in this entire story in some seedy way.

And so he's already having a great time casting aspersions on her and, you know, anybody else.

And then he goes for an absolutely majestic, on the subject of the rumors that this man...

killed his wife and child.

I'm not going to mention them.

I'm not going to say anymore.

And you're, did you, sorry, did you just, wait, did you just say twice that you weren't going to say that he might have killed his wife wife and children?

Because it did sound a little bit like you did that.

Oh, no, I've denied that.

Yeah, I've said that.

I've absolutely said I'm not doing that.

That's not, that's no way.

I mean, that's.

I wouldn't dream of mentioning that, which is why I said I wouldn't do it.

I wouldn't mention it.

And you kind of think, well, with enough bravado, you could absolutely get away with that.

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Going back to Robert Joan, I want to get into the word debate that was repeated.

So the fallout from these remarks by Jean-Ric.

Jean-Ric.

Jean-Ric from Britishen,

because when he was asked to defend them, he said it would be wrong to shut down an important debate that we have to have as a country.

And then when the sky journalist who was interviewing him said, okay, so what you've just said in your about the white faces, do you think that might give encouragement to ultra hard right groups who don't want to see black or brown faces in the UK and he went this is an absolutely disgraceful and ridiculous question and accused the reporter of wanting to shut down the debate but what he did there was shut down the debate yes so I don't know what the debate is that he wants just using the word debate seems to be the debate he wants to have it feels very much like you had to teach the controversy yeah about evolution or climate change and you're like i'm not sure there is a controversy i think there's a gigantic

gigantic overwhelming scientific opinion in favor of one thing and then 18 really angry people who feel differently and that isn't a debate that's just a tiny number of raging people shouting a thing that they don't want to be true yeah and that i think when we go back to repetition that's i think where the likes of trump and mega and the alt-right when trump says climate change is a hoax, one of their biggest hoaxes, that repetition of just that line, it's a hulk.

It's not true.

The election was stolen.

Just saying that, that's when repetition is used not defensively because you want to move on to the next question, but quite aggressively.

Yes.

It's about, I think, the more you say it, the more people will start assuming it's equally valid.

Yes, there are two sides to this story.

Yeah.

Yeah, there must be two sides to it because a lot of people are now saying it's a hoax.

No, no it's several people saying a lot of times yeah exactly and i'm not exactly sure what robert jenrick wants the debate to be that people in handsworth should try harder to look like robert jenrick should people in hands well no you're just being flipping and yet again you're shutting down this important debate that we should be having

it's that

in fact kemi badenock was asked whether she agreed with what he said and she kind of said well he was expressing a fact we can question that yes but then she said but this is not where i want the debate to be i don't know where she wants it if not about yeah i don't know where you want the immigration debate to be if it's not about immigration yes i mean it just this raises another question though which is if you don't like the way an argument is going do you then decide that the location of the debate is inappropriate.

It's like, wait, what?

Oh, that's not where I want the debate to be.

Okay, where do you want?

Just let's pause for a moment.

Where do you want it?

And, you you know, why don't you tell us what the parameters are?

And then we can, but of course, we're not ever going to get that.

You asked me that question.

And I'll.

Okay, where do you want the debate to be?

Well, that's the debate we should be having.

Okay, yeah.

This is, yeah.

You can just get in a debate loop.

Yeah.

I suppose.

It's a bit like arguing with...

not a toddler, but somebody who's a bit older than a toddler.

But when they're at that point of going, but why?

About every single thing you say.

A young teenager.

Yeah.

But why?

Well, because that's, but why?

Until eventually you feel like you kind of have to go, because I said so the end,

right?

I feel a bit like that.

Like, I don't want to have to be the grown-up in the room when people who you know are paid large salaries to do important

civic duty are sitting there going, meh, meh, meh, but why, but why?

It's just like you're not

forced, stop it.

I mean, you, you talk at the start, you were talking about you know, wanting to discuss repetition because you're like many of us feel just like pounded to death by hearing these same phrases again and again and again.

Is that also not part of the aim?

Which is if you just keep sticking to these phrases, people will either start believing it or just get so fed up hearing it, they'll switch off.

Yes, I mean I think that is part of it, isn't it?

There is an attempt to kind of push us out of having any kind of sensible dialogue about all kinds of things that we really do have to think about, not just things which might seem overtly contentious, like immigration.

But I suppose I'm thinking of things which, you know, are much more universally agreed to be problematic, let us say.

Let's go with care for older people.

And every time anyone talks about it, they say, well, this is a really important discussion we've got to have because it's a, you know, there's a time bomb of older people and who's going to look after it.

And then everybody just basically goes, oh my God, it's going to cost billions and billions and runs away.

Don't get me wrong, I'm tempted to do the same.

It does look really difficult.

But I was sort of hoping that that the reason you turned up at work was so you could help with this kind of thing.

Yeah, you did say it's a debate we should be having, and then you left the stage.

Yeah, I'm not supposed to be able to fix this.

I talk about classics for a living, but I was kind of hoping that you could.

It's like a compere coming on and going, Oh, there's a terrific comedian you're about to see next, a really terrific person, you're gonna love her, walking off, and then nobody comes on.

Exactly.

And then he explains, No, that was that was the act.

Yeah, yeah, that's precisely it.

And you kind of think, well, the diversionary tactic of stoking up various you know interested but angry and noisy groups on various subjects I can see why people do it it saves time for sure if you're you know trying to get on with doing whatever it is you'd rather be doing than governing but I guess I don't really know why you would do that about sort of everything it's like well if you hate governing so much maybe get a different job well I think I mean this gets us into the whole question of I'm not sure they do want to govern.

Yeah.

People who, politicians.

I think they're more obsessed now about the narrative that they're constructing in front of us.

They want the narrative to hang together.

The actual icky bit of sitting at a desk and making decisions and moving money around and

reading the things, doing the things.

I think that's the bit they don't like or are not prepared for, haven't had any experience of.

That's the hard bit that I think they would rather not get involved in.

So it's far better on a weekly basis to drum up these headlines by just saying certain words again and again, that they become a kind of reality for us.

Yeah.

Because there's no detail to follow.

You know, we're now accepting that, no, they're not going to go into the fine details.

There isn't any.

Yes.

You know, they're not interested in that.

I mean, that's the worry, isn't it?

Is that it's not that they're not communicating the nuance and the fine detail, it's that they have no grasp of it because it isn't there.

Yeah, yeah, and that people are just sitting in offices basically going, What can I say to get in the papers tomorrow?

Quick question.

Yeah.

Quick question.

Who said this?

The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly.

It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.

I don't know.

Joseph Goebbels.

Oh, that would have been my first guess, except it seemed like it was in such poor taste.

No, no, no.

I only bring him up because this is Steve Bannon, who's...

one of the main figures in the alt-right in America.

He said this, the real opposition is the media, and the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.

Yes.

Basically admitting, just keep pumping out the words, even if it's not true, even if it's, you know, the science isn't there, just say it again and again.

And they will submit or go away.

For example, I dug out a bit of Steve Bannon from a couple of years ago on the stolen election.

And when you read his speech, you realize he just says the word.

There are no issues with the 2020 election.

They stole it.

Let me repeat that.

They stole it.

And they hate when we say this.

They stole it.

And they're on notice.

They're not going to be able to steal again.

Just saying the phrase again and again.

And that's, I think, is where repetition is used for a purpose.

And very effectively.

Unashamedly, I think.

And, you know, I mean, it is a genuine belief in huge parts of the US that the election was stolen.

And the fact that, you know, there have been endless lawsuits and no evidence has ever been found.

Oh, yeah.

Then that's just a conspiracy.

It's like, oh, okay.

What is it?

James Randy used to call this?

Unsinkable rubber ducks.

So when you try and push it down, you say, you know, but there's no evidence to support this, and you squash the rubber duck, then it just pops straight back up.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's true, I think.

Yes, he's sued.

So Trump has sued a pollster from the 24 election who gave Kamala Harris

a higher figure than she actually in the end got, as if somehow her polling was...

criminal.

And then he sacked the chief statistician when the job figures came out and they were much lower than expected.

So just sacked the statistician saying that they were politically motivated in the numbers that came up with this.

I mean you're the one who made Death of Stalin but isn't this a really Stalinist thing to do to be sacking statisticians?

Yes.

Okay.

It is very much so, yes.

Or labeling your opponents as criminals.

Yeah.

Yes.

Any fact

that is

controversial or contradicts one of your beliefs, what you do is you undermine the fact.

Yes.

You say it's a lie.

You say it's politically motivated from the person who said it.

You just call it fake news.

Yeah.

extremely effective, isn't it?

All right, well, before we go, since you're new here,

I feel like someone from HR.

Let me just show you where you're...

Here's your lanyard.

We normally show our guests, we asked some very quick questions at the end.

Who's the best political communicator that you have come across?

Doesn't have to be present day.

Ever.

Yeah.

Oh, Charles Kennedy.

I remember doing Newsnight review with him about 150 years ago, and he had that gift which, not in a mean way, many politicians don't, which is that he seemed like a normal human person.

Well, you were talking to him.

He had that thing, again, that not all politicians do, of being able to seem incredibly interested in what other people were saying and simultaneously developing his own argument, obviously, in his head as he was going along.

It was like, oh, wow, that's actually really impressive.

That's really interesting.

You brought him up.

Yes.

I knew him at Glasgow University.

I debated, not alongside him, I debated with him.

And he was the star debater at Glasgow University.

I believe it.

He was extraordinary.

Yeah, I believe.

I remember him once after several very, very long, languid speeches from him just getting up and going, right, no notes, nothing, right?

And then just tore apart every point that had been made from the debate system at the Glasgow University debate is very much done like Parliament.

There's a party and one side, opposition, and you have a bill with X number of

policies in it, and you spend, you go through the night debating it.

But it's a valid point, right?

because I think often yeah we see in politicians that Fran Lebowitz truth which is that the opposite of talking isn't listening it's waiting and when somebody like Charles Kennedy comes into the room and makes it really clear that they were both listening and waiting you're like oh oh it just feels like well that's the true meaning of debate and one of the you know one of the things that happened at school debates well I'm going back a bit now when I did them was for five minutes you had to swap sides nice and you had to tell the you had to work for the opposing side.

And that really was a way of you actually trying to get behind the thinking.

It allowed you to see where they're coming from.

And I think you're right.

I think the true meaning of debate is, yes, you can have conflicting views, but it's hearing each other out and being able to respond to each other's point of view.

You know, you can be as argumentative as you like, but you don't have to throw punches.

But if I do throw a punch,

that's not me being aggressive.

I just want to make that absolutely clear.

I mean, I feel like I should tell you I kickbox.

The scale's just changed.

Well no that's just that's just taking things too far isn't it?

That's just

yeah I think there has to be a limit.

I think there has to be a cap on the number of moves people can make when they're being physical.

That's all I'm saying.

And it's not an unreasonable point to be making.

Is it what the silent majority is thinking?

Any political phrase for the dustbin, any word.

I would cheerfully never hear the word decimated misused ever again.

Oh, right.

It makes me almost rigid with fury.

Is this the classicist?

Because it is the classicist.

It means to reduce by 10%.

Yes.

By 10%.

And every time somebody's like, oh, they've decimated our public, it's like, it's much worse than 10%.

What are you talking about?

It's like the thing that you're doing of using what you think is like a longer, cleverer word, than I guess devastate.

Is this where it kind of mutated from?

Is actually making your point smaller, not bigger.

Please stop it.

Please.

Well, on that note, I think, I mean, we all know what we have to do, don't we?

Well, one in ten of you do.

We'll say goodbye.

Thanks for listening to Strong Message here.

I'll be back next week with Stuart Lee.

All of our previous episodes are available in our feed, so make sure you're subscribed on BBC Signs.

Goodbye.

Bye.

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