Thanks, Dave. FYI, the segment is in the programme here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01bffdp/Daily_Politics_26_01_2012/
between 52'30" and 58'33", and will be available until Thursday 2 February, 12.59pm UK time. The studio guests are the commentator Joan Bakewell, famously 'posh', and Barbara Berkery, a voice coach to actors. As Dave says, the segment probably picks up on the film 'The Iron Lady', and it also directly picks up on the fact that apparently Bakewell has been told recently that she may find it more difficult to get work at the BBC in future because she is 'too posh'.
This leads into a discussion of what people like and don't like to hear in their politicians.
- Apparently some Canadian research has recently revealed that people like their leaders to have deep voices - cue a comparison of clips of high-voiced Thatcher before elocution lessons and deep-voiced Thatcher after them - but, after that, the piece talks about the UK only:
- the apparent waxing and waning of fashion in terms of whether people like their politicians to have regional accents or not (though I can't say I've noticed any waxing and waning myself), and
- the regional accents which are acceptable on the national BBC (Joan Bakewell names 'Scottish' and 'Welsh' - missing out mild North-Eastern and Northern Irish, which you also hear - and this triggers a discussion about whether English people can tell the difference between different Scottish accents and different Welsh ones).
A pretty typical 'fluff' piece of the kind that you often get towards the end of news and current-affairs programmes, but it's nice to see the subject aired and discussed intelligently, even if not for long.
Damien
--
Damien Hall
University of Kent (UK)
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, 'Towards a New Linguistic Atlas of France'
English Language and Linguistics, School of European Culture and Languages
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