Gordon Brown's speech

Hi I've read somewhere that PM gordon Brown has a Scottish accent, so I've listened to this Youtube speech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv5cqh26CC0&feature=related

his accent doesnt impress me as being very different from a sterotypical Recieved Pronuntiation, so can anybody point me to some features in this speech (some words pronounced in a particular way, some particular intonation,..) that would mark him as a Scottish speaker?

As nobody else has replied to this I suppose it falls to me, as a fellow Scot, to supply the required information on the accent of our Prime Minister - well, the current UK Prime Minister - it may well be that by the morning of Friday 07 May the bloke will be a sort of "has been" - one of those rare premiers who never actually won an election in his own right....he took over when Tony B'liar resigned of his own accord, for which Heaven be praised.

Gordon Brown was born in Kirkcaldy (pronounced "Curr-CODDY" in true Scottish style) - a town in Fife, or the Kingdom of Fife as it is officially called - not far from Edinburgh but on the other side of the Firth of Forth and to reach it from here you have to use either the Forth road bridge or the Forth rail bridge depending on your mode of transport. If you have a helicopter you can be in Kirkcaldy in less than ten minutes.

Anyway, our Gordon was literally a son of the Manse - a manse being the home of a minister of the Church of Scotland - his old man was such a minister, so he is definitely a Scotsman through and through. Sadly Gordon lost the sight of one eye as the result of an injury sustained while playing rugby as a lad, and now the sight of his other eye is not all that good - so he has obviously been a Prime Minister lacking full vision....interpret that in any way you wish.

I reckon his Scottish accent has been tempered a great deal since his youth, probably because his political career has necessitated him being away from Scotland for much of the time although he was originally the Labour MP for Dunfermline East (immediately on the other side of the Forth bridges from here) but following the complete reorganisation of Scottish Parliamentary constituencies he has been the Labour MP for the new seat of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath - so he was back in his own back yard, so to speak - and he will undoubtedly hold onto the seat in this General Election, but with a wee bit of luck no longer the PM.

He was educated at Kirkcaldy High School and then at Edinburgh University where he gained an MA and a Ph.D, and before entering politics he was employed as a hack - in other words, a journalist and an editor and a lecturer.

If you listen to him say things like "what you do" then you will clearly recognise the Scottishness in his accent. He would be moritified, naturally enough, if it was ever suggested that his nationality was anything other than Scottish, and on this point I would concur with him, but that's about all we would see eye to eye over - if you will forgive the pun here.

Yes he is Scottish and has a Scottish accent. He doesn't speak RP and he likes to list three things every time he talks about a subject.

<he likes to list three things every time he talks about a subject>
Is it a Scottish feature?
I guess it's just classical rhetoric.
I've heard him a lot on BBC and I haven't noticed anything particular, neutral RP.
What exactly Scottish is there in "what you do"?

English and Northern Irish politics is riddled with Scottish rulers and even Welsh politics is burdened with Scottish Mafias. The British military is also disportionately overrun with centuries of Scottish rule too.

The Conservative party have always been the most English party having always fielded the most Englishman. Take a look at Thatcher cabinets and PMs for good English names. The probable reason as to why Labour and the Libs are awash with Scot natives, is that the relivately young Labour Party started out has a workingman's party in Scotland and the Libs were historically the only opposition to conservatives. Hence both the Lab and Lib drew their politicians from Scottish elites whereas almost all English elites would natrually end up in the Conservative party.

Note these Scots were not just footmen but end up the most powerful political jobs - half of UK primeministers have been Jocks. This list could be extended one hundredfold.


Henry Campbell Bannerman,
Arthur Balfour,
William Ewart Gladstone,
Andrew Bonar Law,
Ramsey MacDonald,
Stanley Baldwin,
Harold Wilson,
Sir Alec Douglas Home,
Harold MacMillan,
Kinnock,
Blair,
Brown,
Cooke,
John Smith,
Kennedy,
Galloway,
Darling,
Cameron,
Menzies Campbell,
Jim Murphy,
Douglas Alexander,
Robertson,
Helen Liddell
Donald Dewar,
Lord Irvine,
David Clark,
Gavin Strang,
John Reid,
Lord Falconer,
Ian MacCartney,
Russsel Johnston,
Alan Beith,
David Steel,
Robert MacClennan,

Don't you just love that long list of Scottish luminaries, not to mention the names themselves......

I fully support an English Parliament, if only to deal with any matters or issues which affect England and the English people only....on the same basis as the Scottish Parliament here in Edinburgh and the Welsh Assembly down in Cardiff, in which anything concerning Scotland and Wales respectively and their peoples, are dealt with. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.

The Scots and the Welsh had to fight tooth and nail in order to obtain their respective national governing bodies to handle all their domestic affairs, so why can't the English do likewise? Surely it is up to them, and rest assured neither the Scots or the Welsh would offer any objections whatsoever.

If the English can't summon up the will and energy or even sufficient national pride in their own separate identity while remaining firmly within the all embracing auspices of the United Kingdom regarding issues which affect us all on a nationwide basis, then that is their fault alone.

With regard to the very high profile we Scots have secured for so many years on the British Parliamentary and overall Government scene and in British public life generally - well, surely that says something about us as a people. ;-) We keep turning up like the taxman, don't we? Very difficult to keep at bay......

Did you know that over half the population of the English town of Corby, in Northamptonshire, in the Midlands of England, is of Scottish extraction? And Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, says he feels most relaxed and liberated when he is wearing his kilt....

There's no getting away from the fact that very many Scots do believe that the Conservative Party is very much linked to England and the English people - especially to the more "true blue" areas of Southern England and the Midlands....the so called "shires" especially, where come election night they may well weigh the Conservative votes in large bundles rather than count them individually. At least that is what my grandfather says, the one who lives in the constituency of Herefordshire North which is one of the most "true blue" in the whole of England, where many people would vote for a chimpanzee if it wore a blue Tory rosette pinned to its chest and promised the return of legalised fox hunting in Englands' green and pleasant land once again.....and then celebrated with a Pimms.

At least it's not as bad as UKIP lead by a derranged French descendent called Farrage, and the BNP lead by someone with a Welsh name. Anyway, both UKIP and BNP don't represent the English hence their titles.

Asian darkie Claude Moraes (member of the European parliament for life) is Scottish too!

Damian: This political talk is very interesting, and really I have been mostly educated in American English and had an idea of politics in the USA, where the South states are predominatly Republicans (though conservative) as you can see in this map:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Red_state,_blue_state.svg
And the blue estates are all in New York State, New England, the great Lakes and the West Coast, predominantly in the north of the country.

So when you say that the conservative states in England are in the South it made me thing if maybe there's a correlation between the south of a country being conservative and the north liberal... Would like more data from other countries to confirm this trend. But I think that in Italy there's a similar phenomenon.