Vox Political: Stripped of Soundbites, May Has Nothing to Say

Theresa May receiving her programming at Tory Central Office.

Mike also put up a piece on Sunday after May’s appearance on the Andrew Marr show, pointing out how abysmal she was. Far from being an articulate, cogent speaker, May can only talk in specially prepared soundbites. Without them, she has absolutely nothing to say.

Before he began the interview, Marr asked her not speak in soundbites. She couldn’t. The first thing she said when she opened her mouth was the prepared line that this was the most important election the country had faced in her lifetime. Which is a line that has been repeated ad nauseam. She then went on to repeat the line about being ‘strong and stable’.

After more of this nonsense, Marr commented that people can listen to these statements ‘and think they’re a bit robotic’.

May’s response to that: a pause, then back to strong and stable leadership. Mike remarked to me later over the phone that she was so robotic, people were suggesting that she should line up for the Turing test. You know, the one which tests AIs to see if they can pass for human. By this evidence, May would probably fail.

Without her make-up backstage at the BBC

Mike also reblogs some of the comments about her performance, such as Martin Odoni’s remark that she couldn’t even handle Marr’s gentle guidance not to speak in soundbites. Within 30 seconds, she was on autopilot.

Indeed.

More seriously, May repeated the lie about people not going to food banks because they’re starving. Marr made the simple statement that it must be wrong for nurses to have to go to food banks.

May replied that there are many complex reasons why people go to food banks.

No, there’s only one: they don’t have any food because they are too poor to buy it.

But the Tories have been denying this obvious fact ever since food banks became an independent indicator outside their control of the amount of real, grinding poverty in Britain. And outside them, the UN estimates 8 million Brits live in ‘food insecure’ households. That means that they literally don’t know when their next meal is.

Another commenter, Dylan’s World, said it all:

“Couldn’t answer the question about food banks. A party of the rich, for the rich. Disgusting.”

Tags: Andrew Marr, Computers, Elections, Food Banks, Martin Odoni, Nurses, Robots, Starvation, Theresa May, Vox Political