Am I the only person fed up with hearing what so-and-so will say in his/her speech “tomorrow” or whenever…???
This happens more and more… and drives me mad.
(I’ll get off my soapbox now)
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LOL.
It’s the old three-stage “how to deliver an uninteresting presentation to the uninterested” strategy isn’t it - 1) tell them what you’re going to tell them, 2) tell them it, 3) tell them what you’ve told them.
And don’t forget to remind them that you have been very clear, just in case they thought you weren’t entirely transparent.
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I’m fed up of being no more the wiser after they have made their speech.
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With you on that - Johnson’s speech the other week was very long on rhetoric and very short on detail, as usual.
What gets me is the way that British politicans seem utterly incapable of understanding the situation they are in and cling to the position that we can have whatever deal we choose.
Take the idea that we can do a sector by sector “close alignment” which has been shot through by just about anyone with half a brain (and by the EU already so I can’t see them agreeing now).
Or that the Irish border can be managed with technology - BJ was on R4 this morning claiming it would all be as simple as the congestion charge. Sorry Boris, yes an ANPR camera can tell a vehicle crossed the border but it can’t look inside to see if illegal goods or workers are within - without regulatory alignment the EU may well insist on checks on their side and we can’t do anything about that if they do.
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Exactly Jane, after JC’s speech yesterday all we learnt was that Labour wanted ‘a customs union’ rather than remain in ‘the customs union’. Of course how that could be achieved he couldn’t say.
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We hear a lot about a customs union as opposed to the customs union but this seems so much playing with words. I neeed to look up exactly how the Turkish argreement works but srely if being in a customs union means agreeing standards and a common external tariff then the only way to be in any customs union with the EU is to accept current EU regulations and tariff levels.
The only way it can be “a” customs union is if it has a different scope to “the” current EU customs union - probably a subset. But for a given item the EU can’t agree different anything with the UK.
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That’s a great question, Victoria. What I will say is that only a Conservative government can deliver more and more of what it is that drives people like you, and supports them in their aspiration to get off that soapbox and onto the ladder of opportunity, a ladder that is only made possible by a strong economy, and that’s what I’m absolutely committed to going forward.
Who the hell is Victoria?
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Mr Cole, you have my profound and unreserved apology for misspeaking when I addressed Victoria, and at the same time inadvertently but inexcusably failed to address her by the name “Stella” by which she prefers, quite rightly, to be addressed.
I want also to convey my deep condolences to the members of Victoria’s family, to her friends, colleagues and any others who have been hurt by my misspeaking. They are all our thoughts and prayers at this unspeakably difficult time. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we WILL remember them.
When I’m out of bloody camera shot will somebody please pour me a stiff one? 
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Oh dear… Peter… you have let slip my true identity…
Never mind though… perhaps no-one will notice…
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Having written this kind of story for 30+ years I can assure you that there is a market for them, a big market in fact. If someone is scheduled to make a major speech (or whatever) on Tuesday we would have to write something on Monday so that the Tuesday morning papers would have something to print. In sport, the morning or evening papers would want not only the results and a summary of the play so far but also a look forward to what was expected to happen in the near future. So we would write not only that Serena Williams had once more thrashed her third round opponent but also that she would now meet , in all probability, Caroline Wozniacki who was due to play her third round match the next day.
On a major story we would have to write a “nightlead”, or several of them, intended for the next day’s morning papers, and then a rehash, in the form of a “daylead”, aimed at the evening papers, or, in the case of countries down under, their morning papers. (Complicated innit).
The financial and stock markets also demand advance reports saying what someone is expected to say or do, or what’s likely to happen to the price of bananas in the aftermath of a volcanic eruption in St Vincent which ruined the banana crop (true, I was there and had to write that and other stories) to give them a basis on which to trade. And, as the newspapers and the markets paid our salaries and kept us all in business, we did what they asked.
Anyway, Stella, you don’t have to read it or listen to it if you don’t want to, do you? 
Hi Terry… I’m not knocking the News folk… I appreciate that they have to sell their product.
I simply find it peculiar, to say the least… when we are told what someone will say… I find myself thinking… “Oh well, he/she can take the day off…we all know what is in the “speech”, …so go fishing, scuba diving or whatever you like to do… don’t waste time on News Conferences or Special Announcements.”
And I might possibly cheer someone who actually gave a Speech that bore no resemblance to what we had been told in advance… "yeah… got some guts, didn’t like the speech so threw it out the window "…that sort of thing… 
For me there is an important difference between being told what might be… and what will be…
These days the Press seems to have a direct line to whoever is writing the Speeches…
“These days the Press seems to have a direct line to whoever is writing the Speeches”
That was always the case, Stella. We would often have an advance copy of a speech, or more importantly a key economic report, under embargo or not. Sometimes it was issued by the press office, sometimes we got it by other means … aka “sources with access to the speech/report”, or “close to the prime minister/CEO/queen, whatever”. I recall a colleague who collided with an important person as he was on his way to give a major speech. They both fell over and as an apology he gave her a copy of his speech!
We did have to listen to the speech because, as you say, sometimes the speaker would make late changes. All part of the fun.
I’m probably from a generation far removed from most of you… and therefore see different things in the News of today.
I was brought up to listen to the Queen’s Speech every Christmas… after a lovely lunch, the whole family would gather together and sit in silent anticipation.
At 3pm…came the special moment when we would hear what Our Sovereign wanted to say to us.
I am fairly positive that, in those long-ago days, her words were not splashed in the news the day beforehand… at least, not on our radio.
I see no point in listening/watching a speech-maker, when the content has been done and dusted already in the News… but that is just me… 
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I’m delighted to be able to express my joy at your courageous blue-sky thinking and call on everyone to support you in this trail-blazing venture, never hesitating to push the envelope.
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As Terry has pointed out I always thought it was often to ease any shock on the financial markets. The news item that I thought was really bizarre, as others have noted was the Queen’s speech. I did not actually hear Her Majesty’s Voice on Christmas afternoon but I don’t think I missed anything. Any small detail that was missed out of the news items on the evening of the 24th or the morning of the 25th will have been covered during the news on the evening of the 25 and throughout Boxing Day. Luckily there was nothing of real importance to get in the way of this vital story.
Yes, times have changed and even the Queen’s Speech is bandied around beforehand nowadays…
Pity we don’t get advance notice of the Lottery numbers… now I would buy any newspaper which offered that…
I’m with you Stella. I can’t stand the “leaking” of stuff in advance but it is everywhere. TV programmes are trailered to such a degree that often you don’t need to see the programme because they have shown enough trailers to piece the entire story together, the stars are publicising it in advance, the papers can reveal “exclusives” with upcoming stories. Politics, entertainment, the whole things appears to be attracting attention to themselves so you can see how clever and important they are having this information.
That’s my rant over too! 
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I got fed up with this years ago. IMO what it does is avoid what’s happened or is happening - no time for that. They tell what someone’s going to say, they then talk about theories about why they’re going to say it, ad nauseum, then it’s already tomorrow & they’re telling you about what someone’s going to say, & so on, & so on. The only proviso, when someone tells a lie about an opposition - that’s pursued ad nauseum until a tiny retraction admitting it was a lie, when the whole thing gets dropped, leaving only the lie to waft around in the listener’s head.
It’s all part of the useless British press machine. They are content for the politicians to feed stuff to them and in general they print it without criticism. It fills up the pages and it saves having to research and write it themselves.