The last party conference season before the next general election was an opportunity for the three leaders to stake their claims to lead the country. In this month’s word cloud analysis, Andrew Hobson asks what their choice of language revealed about their strategies:

A leader’s conference speech in the run up to a general election is usually a chance to rehearse the arguments they will take to the country. That was certainly the case for Cameron, Brown and Clegg, with the main message from each being, ‘My spending cuts are better than your spending cuts’.

These addresses to the party faithful lit the touch paper for the General Election 2010 campaign. The word clouds clearly highlight not only the differing personal styles of each leader but also demonstrate the communications strategies each is adopting to maximise their electoral appeal.

Gordon’s key theme was ‘choice’ which gets 40 mentions in his speech. His underlying point is that the election should be a choice between Labour and the Tories, not a referendum on his government. His challenge to voters, and to the media, is to ask questions of the Conservatives.

Brown’s speech is, therefore, peppered with a shopping list of high profile policies designed to open up dividing lines with the opposition. The word ‘announce’ is mentioned seven times by Brown, making it feel more like a ‘Queen’s Speech’ setting out future Government business than a traditional political conference offering. We see words relating to specific policies like ‘cancer’, ‘social care’ and ‘benefits’ cropping up regularly.

Compare this approach with Cameron, who needs to keep the focus on Labour and Gordon Brown. His plan is to shut down the dividing lines as quickly as Labour can open them up. To that end, his speech wasn’t a game-changer mainly because it didn’t need to be. His catch-all attack on big government is not only an ideological position, but a strategy to ensure the Conservatives aren’t drawn into policy battles they don’t need to fight. As the crux of his political strategy, it is no surprise to see ‘big government’ mentioned 14 times.

Another key theme for Labour conference was promoting the image of a party ‘fighting back’. It was about reviving the morale and ensuring that activists who were in despair now had something to fight for. Brown’s language is, therefore, suitably uncompromising with unequivocal words like ‘right’, ‘wrong’, ‘never’ and ‘now’ featuring heavily. Clegg and Cameron demonstrate their less aggressive personal style and softer use of language by comparison. They frequently use touchy-feely words like ‘love’, ‘care’ and ‘understand’.

This points to Brown’s major weakness in contrast to his slicker, more articulate opponents. Contrary to popular opinion Brown isn’t a poor public speaker but his words (he insists on writing his own conference speeches) too often let him down. Words such as ‘model’, ‘approach’ and ‘ensure’ are technocratic and unnatural. This tendency to overcomplicate only serves to distance Brown from his audience. Cameron, and to a lesser extent Clegg, on the other hand has the ability to communicate in a simple, effective way. He uses words like ‘got’, ‘start’, ‘make’ and ‘want’. For example, he would probably ‘start’ a project rather than ‘commence’ it.

The conferences may have been inconclusive in terms of their effect on public opinion, but they certainly showed where the political battle lines will be drawn next May. They highlighted, once again, that in political communications choice of words and language really do matter.

Andrew Hobson is account director at Insight Public Affairs