There is a radio show in the U.K. called, “Strong Message Here”. The show discusses how language is used in politics, and finds humour in the sometimes strange things that politicians say.
The other day I found out why that phrase was chosen as the radio show’s title. It was taken from a speech given by the then leader of the Labour Party in the U.K., Jeremy Corbyn.
At his party’s conference in 2015, he told the nation, “We need to be investing in our schools, investing in our young people, and – strong message here – not cutting student numbers!
He was reading from an autocue. “Strong message here” was in brackets, and was not supposed to be read aloud. It was a stage direction, meaning “Read this next part more powerfully.”
I thought it was funny. And it made me remember another famous political gaffe, from back in 2005.
Jacques Chirac, the then president of France didn’t realise that his microphone was still on when he told the leaders of Germany and Russia his opinion of the British. “The only thing they have done for European agriculture is mad cow disease. After Finland, it is the country with the worst food. One cannot trust people whose food is so bad.”
I’d like to
go to Finland some day. Either I will
find out that Chirac was being unfair, or else at least it will make me feel
better about British cuisine.
Vocabulary:
an autocue –
a device for helping people to make speeches on television or in front of an
audience; it projects words onto a glass screen which can be read without the
speaker having to look down
[eg., He
read his speech from an autocue.]
a gaffe – a
mistake that causes great public embarrassment
[George W.
Bush is famous for his many gaffes.]
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