NOW THAT Sir Keir Starmer has been exonerated regarding alleged lockdown rule breaking in 2020 and voice coaching with Leonie Mellinger, TCW has been handed a tape recording of their first session. We print it in its entirety.
SKS: Leonie, welcome. I do appreciate you coming here at such short notice. It is such an inconvenience with all these restrictions and various tiers that people are grouped in. Fortunately, most of my contacts are in Tier Two, or two tier, as I tend to refer to them.
LM: More than happy to be here and offer whatever help I can. Can I start by asking what you perceive to be your problem?
SKS: Well, if I am to be totally frank, many people who see or hear me talk have quite wrongly the impression that in some way I am boring, monotonous, tedious, lacklustre, humdrum, uninspiring, dreary, irksome, dull, disagreeable and vacuous. Whilst obviously these opinions are wide of the mark, I would quite like to address them and put over a more positive image.
LM: Can I ask whether you have any role models in mind who you would like to emulate. They can be alive or dead – just freewheel and shout some names out.
SKS: Well, if I could have the gravitas and delivery of Winston Churchill combined with the accent of Sacha Distel, that would undoubtedly be a good start.
At this point the audio recording malfunctions and all that can be heard is one person laughing uncontrollably. The tape starts again, twenty seconds later.
LM: Well, today is what we call a taster session, and to achieve lasting results would require many, many sessions and patient practise in between. There is no quick fix as such, unfortunately.
SKS: No, I appreciate that. Can you tell me how you operate?
LM: Absolutely. You may be familiar with the standard socio-economic demographics such as ABC1, C2, D & E’s. Well, we use a similar letter-based matrix to group people together into categories.
SKS: Can you give me some easy to grasp examples?
LM: Sure. So before coming here, I conducted some online and telephone interviews which allowed me to broadly categorise individuals in government. By applying filters, we can drill down with astonishing precision or, if it is required, we can be more general.
So, if I was looking within the DAD – deranged and dangerous – category, it would for instance come up with one result: Ed Miliband. Yet, using a wider net such as the TAD – talentless and delusional – it would offer up several colleagues’ names. You would naturally expect to see Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner, David Lammy, Yvette Cooper and many others here.
SKS: Dare I ask where I came in this research?
LM: You can indeed. You were comprehensively pigeonholed under PMIPD.
SKS: Prime Minister in Parliamentary Democracy?
LM: No, sadly not. It stands for Procurement Manager in Paperclip Department.
SKS: How best can you help today?
LM: Well, to loosen up, I would suggest a tongue twister. Can you repeat this: The toolmaker’s tool tells tall tales.
Sir Keir repeats this quickly and easily.
LM: Fantastic, how about you try this one? Ridiculous Rachel Reeves requires rapid removal
Sir Keir struggles with this seemingly simple task. Strangely, he repeats ‘she is doing a wonderful job and has my full support’.
LM: No worries, many people have trouble to start with. Let me give you another test to help you liberate your inner vocal hero. I will give you some random boys’ names and I want you to recite them as quickly as you can. Are you ready for that?
SKS: Raring to go!
LM: OK, here goes. Wee Willy, John, Theo, Shorty – over to you.
SKS: Wee Willy, John, Theo, Shorty. We will, John, Theo, Shorty. We Will, John, Thee U, Shorty. We will join the EU shortly.
LM: By George, I think he’s got it.
SKS: Wow, that’s amazing. I feel wonderful. Thank you so much.
