Penitent pen for hire

OPINION: Too late, old boy," said a character in an Evelyn Waugh novel, "too late, the saddest words in the English language", writes Joe Bennett this week.

I can think of sadder ones: "I voted for Winston," for example, or "My friends on Facebook," but "too late" is certainly up there. The phrase suggests that the speaker inhabits the City of Regret, whose citizens all look over their shoulders and sigh.

But is it ever too late? I hope not, because I've just read how much political speechwriters earn.

For knocking out a few hundred words for President This or Prime Minister That to deliver from behind a bulletproof teleprompter, they charge anything up to US$25,000.

So even if he does only one job a week, a top writer can bring in enough moolah in a couple of months to spend the rest of the year walking the dog on tropical beaches, sucking cocktails through straws and reading Evelyn Waugh.

Envy is an ugly emotion, I know, almost on par with regret, but the cure for both is the same. It is simply to get off one's chuff and act. So I have decided that at the age of 52 it is not too late for me. I'm going to become a political speechwriter. I shall climb down from the penniless Attic of Integrity into the dollar-drenched Swamp of Oratory. I want those cocktails.

There are only two requirements.

One is to ditch all moral scruples. For the purpose of a political speech is not to tell the truth. It is to promote the speaker. It's to convince the mob to believe. It's a form of religious persuasion.

The second requirement is mastery of a few simple tricks of rhetoric. These are designed to slide through the emotional back door, to bypass or anaesthetise the faculty of reason, to dupe and deceive. The techniques are all as old as language itself, but they work.

So, in the hope of persuading a politico or two to take me on, I've spent half an hour this morning knocking up 25 grand's worth of persuasive oratory for the use of a contemporary politico, complete with an explanation of its mechanics. Try this for size, my masters. The speech begins with a literary reference to suggest the speaker's erudition.

"To quote from King Lear, `I stand before you a poor, infirm, weak and despised old man'. My friends, I have done wrong." (Note the bald monosyllabic admission of guilt. The speech looks like a grovel. But to the alert technician it is already apparent that the opposite effect will be aimed for. Apparent humility is a potent device.)

"Seduced by the system, seduced by the actions of those around me, seduced above all by the thrill of ministerial office and the chance to do good on behalf of you, the hard-pressed taxpayers of this country, (swept along by the triple construction and waiting for the thumping main clause of the periodic sentence, the audience does not pause to analyse the flimsiness of the excuses, nor yet the baldness of the flattery) I did what I have condemned others for doing. I fell." (Observe the sonorous swell of the long sentence followed by the emphatic simplicity of the short one. Also the suggestion of an accident in the verb "fell'. The crime is something that happened to him rather than something that he consciously chose to do.)

"I used the system to my advantage. I took the perk that was legally mine but that was paid for with money that was originally yours. Yes, I was lonely. Yes, I wanted my woman to be with me. I feared for our relationship during my long absences overseas working on your behalf. But these are no excuses." (Oh yes they are. And they work. The audience begins to feel some sympathy for the man who claims not to deserve any. Marc Anthony played a similar trick in his "friends, Romans and countrymen" number. All these devices, I tell you, are as old as old goes.)

"By exploiting the system I forfeited any right to your trust." (It takes a big brave man to acknowledge fault. We like big brave men.) "I have let you down. I have no hope of regaining that trust." (He has every hope. All politicos know that memories are short.) "Though I shall labour on your behalf from this day forth with redoubled intensity" (in other words, it has never crossed my mind to resign). "I shall be dressed forever in the hair shirt of self-knowledge" (a fancy metaphor never goes amiss). "Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry" (that I was caught). "Thank you for listening."

Is there a dry eye in the room? More importantly, is there a politico out there reading this? If so, here I am, pen for hire, waiting by the phone and polishing my cocktail glass.

» Joe Bennett is an English-born travel writer and columnist who lives in New Zealand with dogs. His columns are syndicated in newspapers throughout New Zealand.

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