Labour leadership candidates: a message from Pericles!

A short one this month as I am battling to finish a talk for an exciting conference on Greek and Roman oratory rhetoric hosted by the University of Cyprus next week.

As a member of the Labour Party for some years and as a supporter of the party since my teens, I am at a loss for words about the current leadership contest and the still-developing fiasco over the vetting of voters.  However, assuming that the current contest is not halted and that we do actually get a new leader in September, whoever emerges as victorious would do well to heed this observation from a speech of Thucydides’ Pericles:

ὅ τε γὰρ γνοὺς καὶ μὴ σαφῶς διδάξας ἐν ἴσῳ καὶ εἰ μὴ ἐνεθυμήθη

‘Anyone who has an intelligent policy but cannot explain it clearly is in the same position as one who did not have the idea in the first place .’

I have altered the translation from the original to a gender neutral one for obvious reasons!_83648787_labour