CRAIG BROWN: Want to win, Rishi? Just roll up your shirtsleeves
Metaphors: When appearing on Radio 4’s Today programme, be sure to mention two or more of the following: icebergs, green shoots, opening doors, bubbles, dodging bullets, no stones unturned, tunnels, tsunamis, turning pages, sunlit uplands, driving a coach and horses, frameworks, mountains, witch-hunts.
New ideas: Always ‘bold’.
NHS: Always ‘our’ NHS.
No instant solution: Once you have finished saying, ‘There is no instant solution’, be sure to provide one.
Off!, I’m: ‘As a child growing up in fill in place of birth, I never dreamed I would have the opportunity to sit in the House of Commons, let alone around the Cabinet table. But after nearly 30 years serving the wonderful people of fill in constituency, after careful consideration I have today decided that the time has come to make way for a younger…’
Rishi Sunak gestures during a question and answer session during a Conservative Party general election campaign event in Devon on Wednesday
On the doorstep: A magical place, where every candidate hears what he or she wants to hear, with no word of contradiction. ‘That’s not what I’m hearing on the doorstep, Nick. What people are telling me on the doorstep is that they long for a bit more sewage in their rivers, that their doctor’s door is always open, and there’s never been a time when they felt so happy. At least, that’s what I’m hearing on the doorstep, Nick.’
People: Always ‘ordinary’, ‘decent’ and ‘hard-working’.
Perfectly clear about this, Let’s be: Phrase to insert before saying something incoherent. ‘Let’s be perfectly clear about this. It’s not what we thought it was when we first thought that it wasn’t what it is now. It’s as simple as that.’
Plans: See Pledges.
Pledges: See Points.
Points: See Plans.
Problems: These are always best ‘tackled head-on’.
Keir Starmer speaks during a Labour general election campaign event at Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage on Tuesday
Profile, Constituency: Reporters delivering Constituency Profiles to camera should work from this template: ‘This is a constituency of strong contrasts: rural and urban, rich and poor, young and old, industrial and agricultural, modern and traditional. At one end you have the ancient town of X, and at the other the factories and industrial estates of Y.’
Really confident: A good phrase to use when you’re not – eg, Rishi Sunak last Friday: ‘I’m really confident that over the next few weeks we’re going to have a really good conversation as a country about the future we want.’
Shirtsleeves: Ever since the days of Tony Blair, it has been mandatory for party leaders to remove their jackets and roll up their sleeves before addressing supporters. No one knows why.
Six-point plan: All candidates should offer this prospectus:
1. Our plan is to increase all our plans to a full six points by 2025.
2. As part of our war on waste, we will initiate bold new measures to ensure that the second point comes immediately after the first and before the third.
3. The third point will be central to our overall plan.
Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Wes Streeting speaks during a Labour general election campaign event on Wednesday
4. Other parties neglect their fourth point. Unlike them, we pledge to allocate a sixth of our resources to our fourth point, in real terms.
5. We are absolutely determined that this vital fifth point will remain free at the point of delivery.
6. As a party, we are committed to ensuring that we will increase the number of the points in real terms from day one.
Slogans: Pick any three from the following: Time For Change, Vote For Change, Loose Change, Time For Common Sense, Common Sense For A Time, Rebuilding Britain, Britain Deserves Better, Britain Deserves Butter, Forward Together, Backward Together, All Together Now, Knees Bend, Arms Stretched, Ra Ra Ra, A Better Future, A Better Past, A Better Now, A Better Then, New Dawn, New Mavis, New Hope, Yes We Can, No We Can’t, OK We Might.
Tough: Choices are always ‘tough’. Except for those that are ‘absolutely clear’.
White coat and silly net hat: Wearing them lends gravitas to any politician who tries to look interested as an expert says something unintelligible in a laboratory.
Who dares swims: Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey adopted this slogan after his dip in Windermere.
