Malcolm Armsteen wrote:I used to have an excellent head teacher who said that the best way to spend cash on bright working class kids was to give the elocution lessons. Given the prejudice that Prescott has dealt with over the years for his working class tones he may well have been right, for John certainly had the intelligence, passion and drive to be leader of his party, yet he was never seriously considered.
As George Bernard Shaw said, an Englishman has only to open his mouth for another Englishman to despise him.
Brown is different, the Scots accent is considered to be reassuring and positive by most English people according to surveys on regional accents.
So do you think the personal attacks on Prescott's voice were justified then?
I'm more interested in the content of what people say than firing off ad-hominems at people for they way they speak.
The attacks on Brown's speaking voice were specific to his rather ponderous mumbling style rather than his accent. There were also anti-Scots attacks on him, but they were separate and largely related to the West-Lothian question (which funnily enough we never hear anything of in relation to Gove).