Electric Airwaves' expertise was sought again by The Independent and published on 2nd July:
It has become known as the "Miliband Loop", the robotic interview technique adopted by the Labour leader on television news when attempting to communicate his disapproval of Thursday's mass walkout of public sector workers. Like a waxwork in Madame Tussauds that has been fitted with a voicebox, Ed Miliband replayed the same words to each question he was asked by ITV journalist Damon Green, over and over again.
"These strikes are wrong... the Government has acted in a reckless and provocative manner... both sides should put away the rhetoric and get around the negotiating table," he trotted out, irrespective of what he was asked.
The performance horrified media training experts ..... Andrew Caesar-Gordon, owner of Electric Airwaves, the company which prepared Nick Clegg ahead of his well-received, pre-election televised debates, said Mr Miliband would have made a greater impression if he had developed a narrative from a speech he gave on the day of the interview.
"He had a line that the Labour Party I lead will always be the party of the mums and dads who know the value of a day's education. For anybody watching the BBC who is a parent, and that's a lot of people, that would have struck a chord with them. But his automaton response made it look like he can't trust himself to talk about the issue genuinely without having his automatic paragraph generator to guide him."
Miliband was trying to ensure that the broadcasters used his pre-prepared soundbite when they edited this pre-recorded interview. Such repetition might seem therefore to be a legitimate strategy. But you need to fineness and refresh your key message to each question. How?
If you are focused on 'bridging back' to a key message you sound insincere if you end up robotically repeating a key message that all too often has little resonance with the audience, and especially if you repeat it word-for-word in answer to every question. Bridging back instead to a narrative allows for greater flexibility.
In every interview that he undertakes, Miliband should be trying to tell us what kind of Labour Party he is looking to create and lead. Which is why the line from his speech the previous day to the LGA that "the Labour Party I lead will always be the party of the mums and dads who know the value of a day's education" was so much more powerful.
He can make his point about the strikes and the government being wrong but contextualise it in an emotionally compelling way that drives to the heart of his political project. And then he can use other examples (e.g. lead a party that knows the importance of job centres being open at a time of economic hardship; courts dispensing justice to the perpetrators of crime etc) in answer to each question that makes the same point.
Andrew Caesar-Gordon
