Edwina Currie
The Diplomat
People, composure and the difficult conversation held well.
Edwina Currie is a former Conservative Minister who reflects on the significance of accents in politics and identity. This interview reveals her diplomatic approach to understanding and bridging regional divides within the political landscape.
“Up in the Yorkshire Dales, and I'm very proud of where I came from and my identity and also very conscious that there are very few people doing the kind of job I do that have the accent that I have, but it is a kind of part of who I am. Of course it's part of who I am, but professionally it's part of who I am. I'm also”
“It can sound really put on and really fake. The linguist Dr. Rob Drummond from Manchester Metropolitan University grew up in Hertfordshire and now lives in Bolton. But we do do this and it's all part of being a good communicator in some ways. I'm talking to somebody from Bolton, say if a plumber comes around to my hous”
“It already, and she'd done it already several times, so she must have, I don't know really how she would have spoken in the 1940s and 50s, no recordings of it, and I'm not particularly an expert on the Lincolnshire accent. But clearly she made it posha. But as she, oddly enough, as she became more powerful, perhaps psy”
Political Thinking with Nick Robinson — Bonus podcast: Could the PM have a Brummie accent?
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