Whatever happened to the (Northern) Irish?

This is the second post in a short series analysing how the PM changed his rhetoric right after he got into government. It compares how a number of themes are presented in his campaign speeches vs his early speeches as PM, based on close, statistical, linguistic analysis.

Taken from: http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/ni-is-british-now-let-s-govern-says-cameron-1-2757478 (26/05/2012; 23:00)

Just a very brief post (more of a comment, really) about one thing Cameron said in his campaign, which sets up the next blog post nicely.

As you’ll have seen if you read the last post, David Cameron was a lot more inclusive in his campaign speeches than in his speeches once he got into office. I thought I’d just share one more neat little example of this with you now.

On his visit to Northern Ireland, Cameron was all about bringing Northern Ireland into ‘mainstream politics’. He said he wanted,

‘to enable people in Northern Ireland to play their full part in the affairs of the country as a whole, and to realise at long last the basic democratic right to equal citizenship within the United Kingdom.’

Cameron said it was time to Northern Ireland to be re-enfranchised, and play its central role in UK politics. Funny, then, that they don’t play a very full part in his own rhetoric once he gets through the election. In fact, in the year following the election he only mentions them 4 times (usually in a list with Wales and Scotland) - that's only once more that the Republic of Ireland! So much for being inclusive, and so much for the Northern Irish playing ‘their full part in the affairs of the country as a whole’!

Like I said, just a comment for this post - but it neatly ties together the last post of Cameron’s decreasingly inclusive speeches, and the next one in this series: which will be all about who Cameron really says holds the power.

Comments always welcomed.