While the world will never run out of disingenuous political speeches, a new online tool has popped up to help you "cut the drivel and clichés out of political speeches".
Enter Polifiller, the jargon-busting website designed to help you cut through the least genuine of political speeches. Polifiller does this by searching for the most overused phrases in a block of political pabulum, highlighting them and giving it a "poli-factor" score showing just how big a part phrases like "there are no easy answers", "Big Society" or "hard-working families" of any speech's constitution.
At the moment the tool is aimed at a British audience, but the UK-based company hopes to expand to cover political bores around the world. However, put to use in the British context, it reveals that the least cliché-prone of the party leaders is Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party (Ukip), who are currently surging in the polls.
Analysing conference speeches from David Cameron (5% cliché), Ed Miliband (2%), Nick Clegg (2%) and Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader comes out as the most straight talking with a score of almost 0%.
Prime minister David Cameron's most frequently used cliché in his speech to the Conservative Party conference was the phrase "everyone is proud".
The least linguistically inventive segment of the prime minister's speech comes shortly after he proclaims he is "not a complicated man", insisting the Conservative party are committed to helping "those finding it hard to get by".
Through that particular part of his address, Cameron managed to squeeze in a remarkable 16 rhetorical clichés in six sentences, oscillating between candid declarations of his love for Britain to reiterations of his commitment to helping Britons "stand on their feet".
By contrast deputy prime minister and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg's most overused phrases were "future" and "generations", followed by a succession of references to "our children", "our grandchildren" and "your family".
Most of the 49 terms deemed cliché in his 2014 party conference consisted of words falling in that category, leaving him with a score of 2%.
Labour Party leader Ed Miliband fared relatively well by contrast, despite his speech being longer than the other two, with a mere 2% poli-factor rating. However he had 99 filler terms in total during his address at the Labour party conference, the majority of whom were mentions of the word 'friends'.
In fairness to the other party leaders, however, the score does not take into account the sections of his speech which he admitted to forgetting.
Meanwhile, Ukip leader and Westminster bogeyman Nigel Farage, who told Newsweek Europe that Cameron, Clegg and Miliband's patronising style made them "dull as ditchwater" last week, had only six references to clichéd terms in his conference speech in 2013, bringing his poli-factor rating to virtually 0%, and suggesting why he is seen by many a political maverick.
Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party and another critic of Westminster's main parties would have also done better in his party conference speech in 2013 than the poli-factor of 2% it got, had he refrained from his frequent mentions of "the people". He used the phrase 10 times during the his 2013 SNP party conference speech.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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