Keir Starmer: can we just voice train him ourselves?

[Stripeyzebraz]

Nobody has done anything about Keir Starmer’s voice yet. And maybe Labour don’t have the expertise among their staff.

There must be Lamda and elocution people on here. Can Mumsnet just train him via a thread (I am sure he would read it and take our advice).

What could we tell him to do? Gargle with whisky?

I agree.

Margaret Thatcher was rightly ridiculed for her ghastly fake elocuted voice. She was completely inauthentic, she grew up in Grantham, FFS! The scorn didn’t do her much harm, though.

Starmer sounds like a normal lower middle-class boy made good, which is exactly what he is.

Liz Truss has obviously been given some awful voice coaching, she talks incredibly slowly and in an accent that doesn't appear to be hers, it sounds really disingenuous.

He just reminds me of Max Headroom, sort of robotic

He doesn't need voice lessons.

I like how he uses intonation to deliver a scathing one liner.

I always think I'm glad I'm not his daughter and getting the "I'm really disappointed in you " line from him

This is genuinely not the case! Nor has this thread elicited that sort of nastiness.

"Maybe Labour don't have the expertise among their staff ." To provide voice coaching? Striperyzebraz whatever are you on about?

@Karistraveller
Well, the premise of my post is that it is curious that Keir Starmer and those around him haven’t addressed the issue of his voice lacking the authority of a prime minister, and that I wondered if people on Mumsnet had expertise in this area and what sort of thing they would advise someone in his position to do.

I do think @Karistraveller that it is quite plausible that Labour lack capacity in this area, actually. They are not well-resourced.

Ian Leslie wrote about Starmer’s voice last week (picked up here
www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/opinion/columnists/4406670/keir-starmer-voice-vision-chris-deerin-opinion/) and Glenda Jackson said as much here in the Evening Standard.

Not all posts about the next Prime Minister need to be abusive @Karistraveller . This one isn’t. Nor is (my) observation that Starmer’s voice could benefit from coaching in any way referring to accent.

Gargle with whiskey - do we want him to sound like Tom Waits.

I agree with you op. And I like KS.

Quite.

He definitely needs voice training! It's nasal. It's uncomfortable to listen to, makes me want to tell him to blow his nose.

If people aren't hearing consciously, some of them are picking up on it subconsciously and it's detracting from his impact.

It's whiny and snippy and makes him sound petulant.

And it doesn't need to be! It could be more relaxed, less forced, and so much more comfortable. I think Blair had similar tendencies until it was trained out of him, too!

It's the aural equivalent of wearing clothes that don't fit/match. It undermines his impact.

It's quite possibly far worse when he's public speaking than it is in person. It's related to tension, I think. When he's relaxed it's likely to be lower and less forced.

Voice training would keep all the character of the voice, but lose the poor projection technique.

Unfortunately this is not true.
Research has shown that people focus much more on how you say something rather than what you say.

Yes. Pitch is modulated at the back of your throat. If your are singing, the higher the note, the further your jaw comes forward. The back of your throat tips up. Women can make their voices higher to sound more girly ir lower to sound more assertive.

Kier is a strange one though. I would recommend he learns to sound more forceful, lowers his voice slightly, stresses important words and adds a tone to it.

Boris, for example had a voice that screamed decent, intelligent, well educated guy.

Kier sounds like he doesn’t believe in himself.

Op I agree.

And yes, nasal and constricted sound right.

The policitians and wannabe politician's definitely had voice and mannerisms coaches training them.

When asked about cervix he denied that only women had one. Does he really believe that?Either he does believe that men can have a cervix on which case he:s an idiot. Or he is pretending to a belief which he thinks will get him votes.
Not much integrity there.

I did not say you were being abusive, I questioned why you are focusing on the Leader of the Opposition’s voice. Are you getting rattled that he could be better than other party leaders? Are you a new poster , I haven’t seen your name before? You’ve certainly used my name a lot in your reply .

I agree with the OP. His voice lacks authority.

But a lot of high profile MPs have speech impediments in England. Seems to be much higher than the general population? Not sure why.

Off the top of my head can think of Ed Milliband, Lisa Nandy, Ed Balls, Angela Raynor. Even Boris has a stammer and Gordon Brown had a dislocating jaw that was distracting when giving a speech. Priti Patel can’t say her ‘Gs’

It doesn’t hold them back - Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak both have soft lisps and are in the final two to be the PM. Penny Mourdant had a perfect voice and image and didn’t get through. So I’m not sure it’s the voice which is holding Starmer back.

I think it’s great as a society having a speech impediment doesn’t hold you back (whereas in other countries it would).

It's a bit nasal but I agree he can't win. If he had coaching the media would be all over him.

Does his voice go high because of poor projection technique? If that’s the case, then perhaps it could be remedied quite easily. Maybe through posture or breathing?

A pp did say that he doesn’t sound nasal in real life.

You are absolutely spot on about Boris. Oh the irony!

… reading your post, I am starting to wonder if Keir Starmer can sing? Would it help if he learned?

Yes, I'll agree that people can be coached into sounding inauthentic. But it can be done gradually and well so that that is not the case.

The poster above who said that pitch is modulated at the back of the throat is talking nonsense btw - the length of the vocal folds determines the pitch, and the shape of the tube above it can modulate the harmonics of that pitch. The jaw doesn't need to go forward unless you're yelling.

I also agree that he's probably fine when relaxed and not under pressure - that's Johnson's gift - he oozes entitled confidence and can gab his way out of any scrape. KS always has his lawyer filter on and as well as constricting, often trips over his words as he's being too careful.

It's not about his accent - that's perfectly fine - it's about timbre and constriction. The sound of someone's voice does elicit reaction in the listener, consciously or unconsciously; that's why Mr Bean talks the way he does, or Julian Clary, or Richard Burton, or... the list goes on for ever. People are literally cast for the way the speak as much as for the way they look.

Is this the new version of Keir's beer, but Jeremy Corbyn and at least Boris knows what a woman is?

I'll add it to my bingo card.

I agree with OP. I always find Starmer's voice really off-putting. He sounds very nasal to me like he has a constantly stuffed up nose. It would with his public image if it could be fixed.

At least Johnson sounded like a Prime Minister us plebs could doff our cap to.