‘Let me tell you what I believe’: Narratives,storytelling and ethos building,the case of Tory leaders (2005

Abstract

This article proposes a critical narrative analysis of the way recent Conservative leaders have used storytelling to talk about themselves and reinforce their political ethos during the annual party conferences. We will use David Cameron’s transformative tenure as a starting point, as he tried to usher in a new Conservative creed, more compassionate and voluntarily different from Thatcherism. We will then see how his successors have also resorted to narratives to establish a strong political ethos. The main objective of the article is to examine the evolution of the image of the Conservative leader and to assess the role storytelling has played in this important communicational process.

Keywords

conservative party critical narrative analysis discourse analysis ethos narratives party conference storytelling

Introduction

Over the past 40 years or so (Atkins and Finlayson, 2012), scholars have recognised the crucial role that stories, and the way they are narrated, play in politics and international relations (Levinger and Roselle, 2017; Miskimmon et al., 2013; Salmon, 2007; Zhang and Orbie, 2021). De Fina (2017: 233) argues that the narrative mode has ‘a special significance for the study of politics’ because it represents a ‘tool for making sense of and constructing experience’ that ‘allows for an understanding of politics as an aspect of everyday life’. As ‘the communicative products of the process of storytelling’ (Reisigl, 2021), narratives are indeed often favoured in political discourse because they are ‘seen as representing a non-argumentative, more common-sense and therefore more grass-roots inspired mode of conveying political views’ (De Fina, 2017: 239). Storytelling, which is ‘a relatively old marketing technique, whose aim is to use narration to arouse interest by telling stories to audiences’ (Gallot and Leroux, 2021: 3) allows for the creation of a discursive image that is advantageous to the company, brand, or politician at the heart of the narrative. This framing dimension accounts for the abundant literature on the way narratives contribute to the elaboration of the public image of politicians (Galmisch, 2015; Polletta, 2015), that is, to the process of ethos building (Atkins and Gaffney, 2020; Bodkin et al., 2009; McAdams, 1993; MacIntyre, 1981; Polletta, 2008). In the United Kingdom, one essential moment in the political agenda, in terms of self-promotion and ethos building (Faucher-King, 2005), is the annual party conference, during which party leaders have to display powerful oratory skills, but also an authoritative image.

Within the field of political studies, narratology, and critical discourse analysis, this article proposes to examine how Conservative leaders have used narratives in their keynote addresses in a bid, we argue, to reinforce their political ethos and establish their credibility. Through a critical approach to narrative analysis, this article aims to decipher the discursive self-representation of recent Conservative leaders. The objective is to contribute to a better understanding of ethos building in politics and how this process might inform the evolution of Tory communication, on the eve of a crucial general election. The main thread underpinning the article is the evaluation of the discursive function of storytelling in the elaboration of a powerful ethos in discourse, by recent Conservative leaders, its evolution and how it might influence the future communication of the party.

The first part of the article introduces the theoretical framework and methodological approach so as to discuss the role and importance of narratives to the process of ethos building in political discourse. Drawing on these general introductory remarks, the second part proposes a critical narrative analysis of the keynote speeches delivered by David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak, so as to study how each leader used narratives in a bid to reinforce their persona. The conclusion assesses the influence of storytelling on the overall communication of the Conservative Party and highlights its potential for manipulation.

Theoretical framework and methodology

Narratives and the construction of political ethos

In the field of political communication studies, many articles and books have analysed the rhetoric deployed by recent British Prime Ministers (PMs), by focusing on the performance of the speaker (Atkins and Gaffney, 2020; Lacatus and Meibauer, 2022) or on the way they framed certain issues in discourse (Atkins, 2022; Bolt, 2023; Maher, 2023). Others have used specific rhetorical tools, such as metaphors (Charteris-Black, 2011, 2014), to explore the underlying messages at the heart of recent Tory leaders’ speeches. It seems, however, that relatively little academic attention has been devoted to the narratives PM used to convey political ideology and reinforce their political ethos (Atkins and Gaffney, 2020), despite the ubiquity of narratives in political communication. This article therefore proposes to examine this very fruitful aspect of rhetoric by assessing the impact of narratives on the discursive framing of the last five Conservative Prime Ministers. Investigating this evolution will offer an insight into the image of British political leaders at a time of recurrent crises (economic crisis, Brexit, COVID-19 pandemic, Partygate, Rwanda Bill, etc.) to see how Conservative leadership has adapted to these challenging times (Bonnet, 2023). To do so, we argue that the narratives Tory leaders used in their conference speeches offer a decisive gateway into the discursive construction of their political ethos.

In political communication, the concept of narrative can be envisaged as ‘the use of an amusing, or otherwise emotion-generating anecdote to make a point, break the ice, or in some other way support an effective public utterance’ (Schnur Neile, 2015: 1). Traditionally, narratologists differentiate stories and narratives (De Fina, 2017; Genette, 1980; Prince, 2003 [1987]). Abbott (2008: 21) explains that ‘a story is the series of events at issue, while narrative is the story “mediated” through how the teller presents it’. A story can thus be understood as ‘a sequence of events, experiences, or actions with a plot that ties together different parts into a meaningful whole’ (Feldman et al., 2004: 148). A narrative, however, is ‘one verbal technique for recapitulating past experience’ (Labov and Waletzky, 1967: 13) which constitutes a cognitive activity (De Fina and Georgakopoulou, 2012) that is inherently subjective and has an emotional (Reisigl, 2021) and persuasive (Polletta, 2008) effect on the story recipient. Fludernik (2009: 1) argues that the sharing of narratives is one of the fundamental characteristics of the human species, because ‘the human brain is constructed in such a way that it captures many complex relationships in the form of narrative structures, metaphors or analogies’. Communicating narratives allow us to mobilise our senses and share our emotions, which is crucial to the process of social interaction (Charteris-Black, 2014). Several reasons can be given to explain the ubiquity of storytelling in politics. Narratives have the capacity to simplify complex issues by introducing a familiar narrative pattern: a beginning, a middle, and an end that contains a conclusion or some experience of the storyteller (Titscher et al., 2000). Besides, the so-called ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ entailed by the narrative structure tends to inhibit counterarguing. Similarly, the fact that people tend to naturally ‘adopt the views of the character with whom they identify’ highlights the persuasive power of the narrative format which encourages us to ‘vicariously (share) the emotions and perspectives of the character’ (Polletta, 2015: 38). Last but not least, as stated earlier, storytelling plays a key role in the process of ethos building, that is, in the construction of the moral character that a politician wants to project, and which is ‘primarily shaped by the performance of the persona in speeches, media interviews and public appearances’ (Atkins and Gaffney, 2020: 295).

In the traditional Aristotelian understanding of rhetoric (Rapp, 2012), the positive image of the speaker, or ethos, is one fundamental ‘technical’ pisteis, that is, ‘persuaders’ or ‘means of persuasion’. Drawing on Barthes and Bourdieu, Amossy (2016: 84) explains that the ethos is the self-representation of the speaker. It is a discursive construction (Maingueneau, 1991) that constitutes an illocutionary force. This positive image of the speaker relies on pre-existing elements that the audience knows or implies, from the speaker’s social status or political position. In the case of Prime Ministers (PM), this image préalable (‘prior image’, Amossy, 2016: 94) is reinforced by the institutional importance of the function, whose authority comes from electoral legitimacy.¹ In discourse, speakers build on this ‘prior image’ to elaborate a vision of the world likely to appeal to a majority of people in the audience. To do so, they can resort to several strategies, but with one leading principle: to show that they are worthy of credence. Micheli (2007) argues that one of the main stratagems to foster confidence is to show a direct link between the speaker and the audience. For that matter, narratives are fundamental because they allow for the identification of common experience between the speaker and the audience (Galmisch, 2015; Polletta, 2015), which explains why politicians so often relate their humble or difficult childhood, in a bid to reinforce emotional connection with the audience (Charteris-Black, 2014) and convey a political message. The objective for political leaders is to show citizens ‘evidence of their being “in touch” and “on our level”’ (Atkins and Finlayson, 2012). In line with the inherent interrelationality between ethos building and narratives, Seargeant (2020: 87) argues that the two most relevant archetypes in political narratives are what he calls ‘rags to riches’, which is an initiatory trip in which the speaker acquired the wisdom to lead a community, and ‘overcoming the monster’, in which a community is being threatened by some evil force and, in response, a hero sets out to fight and eventually defeat this monster. Narratives therefore serve a dual function: they highlight the popular credibility of the speaker while at the same time setting them above the crowd. Narratives enhance the leadership of the politician/narrator and help them create the ties that form a sense of belonging and identity within a community. Indeed, by relating stories, a politician effectively acquires the status of storyteller, that is, the person who makes stories possible, and by extension, the person who is able to set things in motion. Storytellers are therefore in a position of control and authority. Anthropologists have showed the social and societal importance of stories, as storytellers tend to coordinate social behaviour and encourage cooperation (Smith et al., 2017). This is why storytellers are often associated with the notion of wisdom: they are in possession of a certain knowledge, and more importantly, they are able to share and pass on this knowledge to others, by making complex situations or events more intelligible.

Storytelling is therefore a powerful tool which helps build the ethos of a politician, first, by showing that he or she has the best interest of the audience at heart because they speak in their names, and second, by reinforcing their position of power and their leadership over a given community. Polletta et al. (2011: 112) argues that ‘the stories that people [tell] offer insight into the ways they fashion identities from available cultural materials’. This construction of identity, or political ethos, is by definition purposeful, which, we argue, calls for a critical approach.

Methodology

Van Dijk (2001: 352) defines Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as ‘a type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context’. The aim of CDA is to bring to light the manipulative use of language by people in position of power and to show how ‘difference in power and knowledge are created by inequalities in access to linguistic resources’ (Charteris-Black, 2014: 83). CDA linguists are mainly interested in two interconnected concepts, context and persuasion, and believe that language is crucial ‘in determining social power relationships’ (Charteris-Black, 2014: 83).

The role of narratives in establishing those power relations has already been well-documented (Ba, 2019; Miskimmon et al., 2013; Pennisi di Floristella and Chen, 2023; Shenhav, 2006). We will therefore combine CDA with narrative analysis, what Souto-Manning (2014: 163) calls ‘Critical Narrative Analysis’ (CNA) and which, she explains, ‘allows us to learn how people create their selves in constant social interactions at both personal and institutional levels, and how institutional discourses influence and are influenced by personal everyday narratives’.

Even though there is no specific, one-fit-for-all CDA method, Charteris-Black (2014) argues that it must follow a three-stage process. First is the analysis of the overall context, or ‘speech circumstances’. The second stage involves both the identification of narrative units and their classification according to their inherent meaning, and function within the text. This process follows an inductive analysis of the corpus which relies on an interpretivist approach: a thorough reading of the entire corpus is needed in order to derive ‘emerging patterns of narratives’ (Pennisi di Floristella and Chen, 2023: 5), which are then classified and analysed according to the type of narratives they relate. To this end, our analysis relies on a typology elaborated by Galmisch (2015) in her analysis of how Nicolas Sarkozy and Barack Obama built their political ethos through storytelling. She defines three types of narratives, which together contribute to the creation of a powerful public persona and thus to reinforcing the leadership of a politician: personal, collective, and citizens. In personal, or autobiographical, narratives, a politician speaks about his or her own life. It is very often emotional because the audience can identify with the speaker, which is of course extremely useful to the process of persuasion. In citizens’ narratives, it is the life of somebody else that is related. The objective here is to use somebody else’s story – that is, supposedly real-life examples – to strengthen the credibility of the speech and to show that the speaker cares about the fate of other people. Atkins and Finlayson (2013) have argued that this type of narratives, which are close to anecdotes, reflect a populist approach, as they draw on ‘“everyday” experience and knowledge’ as opposed to ‘expert knowledge’ to make a political point. Finally, collective narratives usually appeal to the shared imagination and common memories of a people, which usually gives them a unifying power, as they entail a sense of belonging to the overall community evoked in the stories. We have decided to add another type of narratives: the ‘enemy narratives’ which are used to talk about political adversaries. This four-part typology provides a mechanism of categorisation that conceptualises the boundary work that narratives perform which simplifies the identification of narrative elements by framing their distinctive features.

The final stage studies the interaction between the overall political context, the image of the speaker and the choice of narratives. To this end, Feldman et al. (2004: 154) propose a three-level analysis. The first level consists in identifying the storyline. The objective here is to determine the type of narrative archetypes (Seargeant, 2020) used to convey political ideologies and worldviews. The second level of analysis consists in establishing the opposition(s) in the story because, according to Feldman et al. (2004: 155), ‘looking for oppositions allows the researcher to uncover the meaning of a key element of the discourse by analysing what the narrator implies the element is not’. The third and final level of analysis consists in determining the argument at the heart of the story. The objective is to ‘reproduce the story in the form of syllogisms, logical arguments that help the storyteller express the ideas in the story’, in order to explicit the storyteller’s arguments. Very often, one part of the logical reasoning is left for the hearer to imply, which reinforces the persuasive effect of truncated syllogisms, or enthymemes. We argue that this thorough methodology will enable us to decipher the way recent Tory leaders have created a coherent whole likely to strengthen their political image.

We have decided to focus on conference keynote speeches as they are delivered in a somewhat relax, and partisan, atmosphere, in which the leader is at the centre of attention and where he or she can display oratory skills in a friendly ambience, and therefore build a powerful ethos, with no real contradiction or confrontation. Keynote speeches enable leaders to express the ‘official’ narrative of the party on any given topic, what De Fina (2017: 236) calls ‘master narratives’ or ‘grand narratives’, to a dual audience. Indeed, the keynote address is destined directly for party leadership and membership in the conference hall, where the leader has to display unifying leadership, and it is indirectly addressed to potential voters outside the conference hall, as the edited highlights of the speech are usually aired on the evening news and on smartphone notifications. This dual target calls for clear-cut messages and powerful narratives that are readily taken on and used by party faithful and spokespersons and easily digested by TV viewers/smartphone users.

Finlayson and Martin (2008: 447) highlight the relevance of keynotes to the study of British speeches and rhetoric:

[Keynotes] are institutionalised events with a traditional, ritualistic and generic character; spaces within which roles are arranged and ritually enacted so as to confirm their existence and test the competence of individuals to fulfil them.

As a consequence, we argue that those speeches represent invaluable source material for the study of how recent Conservative leaders have built their political image.

Our corpus of interest is composed of 19 texts, 113,924 words in total (Table 1). Our study starts in 2005 with David Cameron and ends with Rishi Sunak’s 2023 address, which is the last keynote speech at the time of writing. It should be noted that during the 2005 conference, Cameron was not yet Tory leader. We have nonetheless decided to add his 2005 conference speech, because it is considered as the speech that reinforced his credibility as potential Tory leader and expressed his modernising and compassionate agenda (Heppell, 2014: 134). The relevance of this temporal boundary is justified by Cameron’s transformative mandate, as he initially intended to change the image of his party, and wanted to embody this new ideological direction.

Table 1.

Corpus of interest.

Speaker	Date	Venue
David Cameron	04 October 2005	Blackpool
David Cameron	04 October 2006	Bournemouth
David Cameron	03 October 2007	Blackpool
David Cameron	01 October 2008	Birmingham
David Cameron	08 October 2009	Manchester
David Cameron	06 October 2010	Birmingham
David Cameron	05 October 2011	Manchester
David Cameron	10 October 2012	Birmingham
David Cameron	02 October 2013	Manchester
David Cameron	01 October 2014	Birmingham
David Cameron	07 October 2015	Manchester
Theresa May	02 October 2016	Birmingham
Theresa May	04 October 2017	Manchester
Theresa May	03 October 2018	Birmingham
Boris Johnson	02 October 2019	Manchester
Boris Johnson	06 October 2020	Online
Boris Johnson	06 October 2021	Manchester
Liz Truss	05 October 2022	Birmingham
Rishi Sunak	04 October 2023	Manchester

Corpus

‘Full text: David Cameron’s speech to the Conservative conference 2005’, 4 October 2005, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/oct/04/conservatives2005.conservatives3.

‘Full text of David Cameron’s speech’, 4 October 2006, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/oct/04/conservatives2006.conservatives.

‘Leader’s Speech’, October 2007, British Political Speeches, http://www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/speech-archive.htm?speech=152.

‘David Cameron’s speech in full’, 1 October 2008, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/oct/01/davidcameron.toryconference1.

‘Full text of David Cameron’s speech’, 8 October 2009, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/08/david-cameron-speech-in-full.

‘David Cameron’s speech to the Tory conference: in full’, 6 October 2010, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/oct/06/david-cameron-speech-tory-conference.

‘David Cameron’s Conservative party conference speech in full’, 5 October 2011, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/oct/05/david-cameron-conservative-party-speech.

‘Conservative Party Conference 2012 in Birmingham: Full transcript of David Cameron’s speech’, 10 October 2012, Independent, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservative-party-conference-2012-in-birmingham-full-transcript-of-david-cameron-s-speech-8205536.html.

‘David Cameron – 2013 Conservative Party Conference Speech’, 2 October 2013, UKPol, https://www.ukpol.co.uk/david-cameron-2013-conservative-party-conference-speech/.

‘David Cameron – 2014 Conservative Party Conference Speech’, 1 October 2014, UKPol, https://www.ukpol.co.uk/david-cameron-2014-speech-to-conservative-party-conference/.

‘Tory Party Conference 2015: David Cameron’s speech in full’, 7 October 2015, Independent, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-party-conference-2015-david-cameron-s-speech-in-full-a6684656.html.

‘Theresa May’s keynote speech at Tory conference in full’, 5 October 2016, Independent, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-speech-tory-conference-2016-in-full-transcript-a7346171.html.

‘Theresa May’s Conservative conference speech, full text’, 4 October 2017, The Spectator, https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/theresa-may-s-conservative-conference-speech-full-text/.

‘Theresa May’s speech to the 2018 Conservative Party conference’, 3 October 2018, PoliticsHome, https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/read-in-full-theresa-mays-speech-to-the-2018-conservative-party-conference.

‘This was what the Prime Minister said live at Conference’, 2 October 2019, Conservatives, https://www.conservatives.com/news/2019/this-was-what-the-prime-minister-said-live-at-conference.

‘Boris Johnson’s Keynote Speech in full’, 6 October 2020, Conservatives, https://www.conservatives.com/news/2020/boris-johnson–read-the-prime-minister-s-keynote-speech-in-full.

‘Boris Johnson’s Keynote Speech’, 6 October 2021, Conservatives, https://www.conservatives.com/news/2021/boris-johnson-s-keynote-speech—we-re-getting-on-with-the-job.

‘Prime Minister Liz Truss’s speech to Conservative Party Conference 2022’, 5 October 2022, Conservatives, https://www.conservatives.com/news/2022/prime-minister-liz-truss-s-speech-to-conservative-party-conference-2022.

‘Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wrapped up Conservative Party Conference 2023’, 4 October 2023, Conservatives, https://www.conservatives.com/news/2023/cpc23-address-from-rishi-sunak.

Key findings

David Cameron as the perfect family man

David Cameron won the 2005 Conservative Party leadership election on a modernising platform. He had realised, and accepted, that the political image of his party had been damaged by years of divisions over controversial issues such as Europe, taxes or immigration. It was seen as the ‘Nasty Party’, as Theresa May, then Chairwoman of the party, had put it in 2002. This is why Cameron set out to change the way people saw the Conservative Party in what amounted to no less than a process of ‘brand decontamination’ (Heppell, 2014: 136). Cameron personified ‘this “different, more sympathetic” Conservatism’ (Bale, 2010: 292). He embodied so-called ‘compassionate conservatism’ (Seawright, 2015: 38) and displayed positive values in carefully crafted photo-ops in which he was seen doing the washing up with his family or hugging a husky in the Arctic to bear witness to the effects of climate change. The aim of the Conservatives was to create a new narrative in which Cameron ‘carefully cultivated [his] image as a “family man”’ while at the same time presenting himself as ‘a modernising leader, keen to demonstrate that he and his party are in touch with contemporary society’ (Hayton, 2010).

The overall strategy was therefore to shift media attention to topics not traditionally associated with the Conservatives, in order to ‘embrace social liberalism’ (Heppell, 2014: 137) and focus on counter-intuitive issues, such the environment, gender pay gap or gay rights. One of Cameron’s flagship policy areas in his modernising agenda was the family (Hayton and McEnhill, 2015: 2), and storytelling would help him put the message across.

From 2005 to 2009, while in opposition, personal narratives enabled Cameron to reinforce his political legitimacy. One example was in 2006, when he talked about his grand-father:

Last week the prime minister criticised me for wanting a foreign policy which was more independent of the White House. I don’t need lessons in the importance of Britain’s relationship with America. My grandfather went ashore in Normandy in June 1944, in a combined Anglo-American operation that liberated western Europe from the Nazis. I became involved in politics in the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan defeated the Soviet Union. Unlike some, I never had any doubts about whose side I was on in the cold war.

Personal narratives, however, are mainly used to highlight the positive values he wants to embody (a); while introducing self-deprecating remarks (b) to back up his arguments in favour of social improvement. For that matter, personal narratives are often used along with citizens’ narratives (c) to show that he cares about the fate of regular people, and that the Conservative Party has indeed changed and can now be trusted as a caring organisation:

(a) I’m a forty-one-year-old father of three who thinks that family is the most important thing there is. For me. For my country. I am deeply patriotic about this country and believe we have both a remarkable history and an incredible future. I believe in the Union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and I will never do anything to put it at risk. I have a simple view that public service is a good way to channel your energy and try to make a difference. I am not an ideologue. I know that my party can get things wrong, and that other parties sometimes get things right. I hold to some simple principles. That strong defence, the rule of law and sound money are the foundations of good government. (2008)

(b) Those of us who don’t live the life of a single parent, just try and imagine it for a moment. Think about what it’s like when you’re left on your own to look after the kids. If I’m in charge on my own for just a few hours the place looks like a bomb’s hit it. Imagine looking after children all on your own all the time. (2006)

(c) I want to be able to say to the mum who’s thinking, ‘How will I pay for Christmas?’ and worrying how to get the kids to school: ‘Yes, we want to leave more money in your pocket, but we know the value of good public transport, too, so we’ll share – that’s right, we’ll share – the fruits of economic growth between tax reduction and public services’; [. . .] To the family trying to keep their heads above water to provide for their kids and to give them the time they need, we’ll say: ‘Yes, we believe in the family, because the most important thing in the world is that children are brought up in a stable, loving home. So, we’ll help you with childcare. We’ll make sure the benefit system helps all families get together and stay together’. (2005)

Cameron characterises himself as a modern family man who is not reluctant to take part in everyday house chores, which enables him to promote ‘positive’ values, such as the defence of the National Health Service (NHS) – his family had to rely on the NHS for their son Ivan – or the environment, as he aims to address the concerns of ‘the new parent who worries about the air her kids will breathe, the state of the parks where they’ll play and the food that they put in their mouths’ (2005). Personal narratives are therefore important to highlight the sense of modernity Cameron wants to embody in order to change the image of his party.

The 2007–2008 economic crisis somewhat toned down the initial upbeat and positive narratives about the transformation of British society. As highlighted in the literature, the Conservatives’ rhetoric was now shifting towards the ‘age of austerity’ (Heppell, 2014: 143). After ‘shadowing’ the government’s economic policy, the Tories were now reverting to fiscal conservatism and distancing themselves from Labour (Gamble, 2015: 62). This reversal considerably influenced the overall framing of Cameron’s narratives, and even more so when he reached power. From 2010 onwards, after entering 10 Downing Street, Cameron’s personal narratives become scarcer and seem to reveal another side of his personality, more authoritative, to highlight that hard work and self-reliance should be the main drivers of the British society, effectively creating a distinction between those who deserve to be rewarded and helped, and the others:

My dad influenced me much more than I ever thought. He was born with no heels on his feet and legs about a foot shorter than they’re meant to be. But he never complained – even when he lost both those legs later in life. Because disability in the 1930s was such a stigma, he was an only child. Probably a lonely child. But Dad was the eternal optimist. To him the glass was always half full. Usually with something alcoholic in it. When I was a boy I remember once going on a long walk with him in the village where we lived, passing the church he supported and the village hall where he took part in interminable parish council meetings. He told me what he was most proud of. It was simple – working hard from the moment he left school and providing a good start in life for his family. Not just all of us, but helping his mum too, when his father ran off. Not a hard luck story, but a hard work story. Work hard. Family comes first. But put back in to the community too. There is nothing complicated about me. I believe in working hard, caring for my family and serving my country. (2012)

During these four years, I hope that the British people have come to know me a little. I’m not a complicated man. I believe in some simple things. Families come first. They are the way you make a nation strong from the inside out. I care deeply about those who struggle to get by but I believe the best thing to do is help them stand on their own two feet – and no, that’s not saying ‘you’re on your own’, but ‘we are on your side, helping you be all you can’. And I believe in something for something; not something for nothing. Those who do the right thing, put the effort in, who work and build communities – these are the people who should be rewarded. (2014)

We can see a clear evolution in Cameron’s use of storytelling, in particular concerning personal narratives. In what amounts to a nurturing parent/strict father paradigm, the financial crisis first and then his accession to Downing Street seems to represent a turning point to the overall storyline he develops: if, at first, he emphasises his concerns for the fate of those at the bottom of the social ladder, he slowly adopts a more patronising attitude, in which hard-work and self-reliance should be the sole tokens through which people should be judged. This opposition between ‘workers and shirkers’ (Hayton and McEnhill, 2014), created in order to transform the ‘welfare dependency’ culture (2008), enabled Cameron to promote his agenda of ‘mending Britain’s broken society’, while tackling the fallout of the 2007-2009 economic crisis. Arguably, Cameron’s storyline draws on Seargeant’s ‘rags to riches’ narrative archetype, as Cameron’s narrative is about getting more mature and coming of age. As such, his storyline shows that he has become wise enough to see that the main oppositions in Britain are between community and social division, in a bid, it seems, to promote his Big Society agenda, and, maybe more fundamentally, between what he depicts as his simple values, such as love for the family and for the country and the perceived lack of consideration of his opponents. The logical argument at the heart of his narratives highlights his modernising/detoxifying ambition and could be summarised as

The simplest things in life are often the best (major).

Cameron has very simple tastes and believes in positive values (minor).

Cameron is the most able leader to bring about social change and mend the broken British society (conclusion).

His narratives therefore were instrumental in the creation of a positive ethos as a wise leader who worked and learned his way up, thus embodying the values he wanted to promote politically. The evolution of his narratives, due in part to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC), is also quite relevant in that it combines the concept of welfare and the idea self-reliance. This ideology is described as ‘libertarian paternalism’ (Corbett and Walker, 2013) – as it promotes welfare (paternalism) ‘at the same time as allowing freedom of choice (libertarianism)’ (Jones et al., 2010) – and it would underpin Cameron’s flagship policy of the ‘Big Society’. Theresa May, it seems, drew inspiration from Cameron’s narratives.

Theresa May as a working-class hero

Theresa May entered the 2016 leadership race as the ‘antidote to chaos’ and the unity candidate (Atkins and Gaffney, 2020: 298). This ‘healer’ persona was nonetheless damaged by her decision ‘to swiftly turned, in rhetoric at least, into an enthusiastic Brexiter when she became Prime Minister’ (Schnapper, 2018: 6). This is reflected in her use of storytelling, as she seems to create new divisions within British society, between the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ of globalisation:

We also value something else: the spirit of citizenship. That spirit that means you respect the bonds and obligations that make our society work. That means a commitment to the men and women who live around you, who work for you, who buy the goods and services you sell. That spirit that means recognising the social contract that says you train up local young people before you take on cheap labour from overseas. That spirit that means you do as others do, and pay your fair share of tax. But today, too many people in positions of power behave as though they have more in common with international elites than with the people down the road, the people they employ, the people they pass in the street. But if you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what the very word ‘citizenship’ means. (2016)

In this example of citizens’ narratives, May effectively divides British society between the haves and the have-nots and decides to side with the latter in order to exclude the former from the national community (as they do not understand what ‘“citizenship” means’).

Personal narratives come in handy to reinforce her ambition to create ‘a Britain where everyone plays by the same rules and every person has the opportunity to be all they want to be [. . .] and to put the power of government squarely at the service of ordinary working-class people’ (2016). She sets out to change the way British society works and personally commits to ‘righting wrongs’ (2016):

That is why I have always taken on vested interests when they are working against the interests of the people. Called out those who abuse their positions of power and given a voice to those who have been ignored or silenced for too long. And when people ask me why I put myself through it – the long hours, the pressure, the criticism and insults that inevitably go with the job – I tell them this: I do it to root out injustice and to give everyone in our country a voice. That’s why when I reflect on my time in politics, the things that make me proud are not the positions I have held, the world leaders I have met, the great global gatherings to which I have been, but knowing that I made a difference. That I helped those who couldn’t be heard. (2017)

In a way reminiscent of Cameron, Theresa May combines personal narratives (a) with citizens’ narratives (b), but also collective narratives (c), to show that hard work is the only way to renew and achieve what she calls ‘the Brexit Dream’, that is, the collective cry for a ‘quiet revolution’ (2016) to transform British society, to make it more equal, caring and inclusive:

(a) My grandmother was a domestic servant, who worked as a lady’s maid below stairs. She worked hard and made sacrifices, because she believed in a better future for her family. And that servant – that lady’s maid – among her grandchildren boasts three professors and a prime minister. That is why the British Dream inspires me. Why that dream of progress between the generations spurs me on. And it is why today at this conference, this Conservative Party must pledge to renew the British Dream in this country once again. (2017)

(b) Our next challenge is to help working people with the cost of living. We know how hard people work to make ends meet and provide for their families. It isn’t easy. It never has been. And the difference it makes to have a little bit of money left to put away at the end of each month isn’t measured in pounds and pence. It’s the look on a daughter’s face when her mum says she can have the bike she wants for her birthday. It’s the joy and precious memories that a week’s holiday with the family brings. It’s the peace of mind that comes with having some savings. Many people, in towns and cities across our country, cannot take these things for granted. They are the people this party exists for. They are the people for whom this party must deliver.

(c) And I want us to be a country where it doesn’t matter where you were born, who your parents are, where you went to school, what your accent sounds like, what god you worship, whether you’re a man or a woman, gay or straight, or black or white. All that should matter is the talent you have and how hard you’re prepared to work. But if we’re honest we’ll admit that’s simply not the case for everyone today. Advancement in today’s Britain is still too often determined by wealth or circumstance. By an accident of birth rather than talent. By privilege not merit. (2016)

May resorts to the ‘overcoming the monster’ narrative archetype and frames her speeches as a heroic narrative in which she claims to defend the interests of the working class, which is effectively depicted as a victim of global neoliberalism, against the will of an internationalist elite, symbolised by the European Union (EU), which acquires the status of villain. In terms of ethos and discursive opposition, her initial ‘healer’ persona is duly replaced by a more confrontational attitude in which she takes on the supposed enemies of the nation, mainly those who oppose Brexit and who do not conform to the Conservative creed. The overall syllogism that could be drawn from her corpus is as follows:

Brexit is a wake-up call, even an SOS from regular people that politicians need to hear (major).

Theresa May has understood the message (minor).

Theresa May can be trusted to right the wrongs of British society (conclusion).

May attempted to build a powerful ethos to acquire the status of hero. However, as she ‘tailored her rhetoric primarily to an imagined audience of Leave voters’ (Atkins, 2022: Conclusion), she reinforced divisions within society, thus ending a relatively short honeymoon period (Burton, 2021: 202) that had already been severely damaged by her failure to secure a majority at the 2017 general election (Bonnet, 2021; Ross and McTague, 2017: 184). Boris Johnson would nonetheless double down on the confrontational rhetoric.

Boris Johnson the political entertainer

Boris Johnson campaigned for both the leadership election and the 2019 general election on a pro-Brexit platform. His objective was to ‘Get Brexit Done’, so he kept the Brexit champion persona he had developed during the 2016 referendum, in order to rally the Leave vote (Bonnet, 2020). His 3-year mandate was no bed of roses, which was not entirely his fault. As soon as he managed to get (his) Brexit done, the country was hit by a global pandemic. His downfall, however, can be attributed to the many (personal) scandals that tarnished the end of his reign. Despite the political upheaval, Johnson’s overall storytelling remained quite constant, at least as far as personal narratives are concerned. Just like Cameron, Johnson uses them to evoke the values that he wants to embody:

You are entitled to ask yourselves about my core principles and the ideals that drive me and are going to drive me as your prime minister. I am going to follow the example of my friend Saj. I am going to quote that supreme authority in my family – my mother (and by the way for keen students of the divisions in my family you might know that I have kept the ace up my sleeve – my mother voted leave) and my mother taught me to believe strongly in the equal importance, the equal dignity, the equal worth of every human being on the planet. (2019)

As explicitly stated in the very first sentence, Johnson needs to strike the right balance between his public persona as ‘a benign, old-school English eccentric, who refuses to identify with superego figures of authority’ (Yates, 2018: 4) and his new role as Prime Minister, which calls for seriousness and diligence. To achieve this delicate objective and in order to reinforce his credibility and his ethos as Prime Minister, which might be legitimately questioned (‘You are entitled to ask yourselves about my core principles and the ideals that drive me’), he mentions his family, and in particular his mother, who is not the most mediatic – or controversial – member of the Johnson family, and adds a touch of humour, to show continuity with his image of entertainer. Humour is also used in his enemy narratives to attack his political opponents:

We can beat the sceptics [. . .] this country leads the way in satellite technology and we are building two space ports, one in Sutherland and one in Newquay. Soon we will be sending missions to the heavens geostationary satellites. Conference can you think of anyone who could trial the next mission can you think which communist cosmonaut to coax into the cockpit? and let’s get Brexit done on October 31. Not just because we have such an immense agenda to take this country forward, but because Brexit is an opportunity in itself. We will take back control of our fisheries and the extraordinary marine wealth of Scotland and it is one of the many bizarre features of the SNP that in spite of being called names like Salmond and Sturgeon they are committed to handing back those fish to the control of the EU. We want to turbo-charge the Scottish fishing sector; they would allow Brussels to charge for our turbot. (2019)

As this example reveals, Johnson’s storytelling is arguably even more politically loaded than the narratives related by Cameron or May. This might indicate that he does not open up as much as his predecessors, despite his being one of the most popular politicians of his time. The following two examples are cases in point in which, we argue, personal narratives are used to talk more about the policies he wants to set up rather than to share personal memories in order to create an emotional connection with the audience. In (a), he introduces his flagship policy to reduce obesity in the United Kingdom, while his hospitalisation (b), when he had contracted COVID-19 and was admitted into intensive care, is used to promote his so-called ‘build back better’ strategy to revive economic growth after the pandemic:

(a) I have read a lot of nonsense recently, about how my own bout of Covid has somehow robbed me of my mojo [. . .] and yet I have to admit the reason I had such a nasty experience with the disease is that although I was superficially in the pink of health when I caught it I had a very common underlying condition. My friends I was too fat. And I have since lost 26 lbs, and you can imagine that in bags of sugar and I am going to continue that diet, because you’ve got to search for the hero inside yourself in the hope that that individual is considerably slimmer, and when you look at the general economic condition of this country when we went into lockdown there was a similarity because we were on the face of it in pretty good shape. (2020)

(b) When I was lying in St. Thomas’ Hospital last year, I looked blearily out of my window at a hole in the ground between the ICU and another much older Victorian section. And amid the rubble of brick, they seemed to be digging a hole for someone or something, or indeed someone, possibly me. But the NHS saved me and our wonderful nurses pulled my chestnuts out of that Tartarian pit. And I went back on a visit the other day, and I saw that the hole had been filled in with three or four gleaming stories of a new paediatrics unit. And there you have a metaphor my friends for how we must build back better now. (2021)

Boris Johnson uses humour but he does not talk much about himself or his family. His storytelling is actually mainly used to attack his political opponents. Contrary to Cameron or May, who are very often depicted as personally committing to what they say and promise, Johnson, quite unexpectedly, seems to take a step back and put up a performance, like an actor. This might be explained by the fact that Johnson’s personal popularity is a clear electoral asset, but ‘his often-colourful turn of phrase and a tendency to go off script’ (Piper, 2019) was considered as a potential liability by his political advisors who made sure he would not make any political gaffes. Besides, the divisions within his family over Brexit, and his marital problems, might also represent a liability that he preferred not to evoke.

In terms of narrative analysis, Johnson’ storytelling clearly leans towards the ‘overcoming the monster’ archetype, which is not surprising as his 3-year tenure was marked by a succession of political struggles. Johnson decided to make the most of those oppositions between the EU and the United Kingdom, between him and Jeremy Corbyn, and more generally between his post-Brexit vision of Britain and those who would like to hamper his ‘Brexit dream’. The enthymemic structure of his logical argument reinforces his ethos as commander in chief, even military general (Bonnet, 2024):

Politics is about confrontation and defeating your enemies (major).

Boris Johnson is always ready for a fight (minor).

Boris Johnson is the right leader to see the country through those troubling times (implicit conclusion).

Thanks, in part, to his narratives, Johnson was able to surf the Brexit wave and make the most of the growing polarisation within British society, which allowed him to secure a landslide in 2019 by standing unapologetically as the Brexit champion, but eventually caused his downfall. If Liz Truss was not as impulsive – and popular – as Johnson, she nonetheless used the same kind of aggressive rhetoric.

Liz Truss: Margaret Thatcher 2.0

Liz Truss took over the reins of the Conservative Party after Johnson’s many scandals. She managed to gain support among Tory membership by ‘emerging as the right-wing candidate and proudly claiming Margaret Thatcher as her political hero’ (Hickson and Williams, 2023: 22). Her main objective, which ‘she justified in strong economic terms’ (Hickson and Williams, 2023: 22), was to tackle the cost-of-living crisis by fostering entrepreneurialism and achieving higher rates of economic growth. To that end, in terms of political communication and ethos-building, she kept Johnson’s aggressive language and tried to emulate the image of Margaret Thatcher by developing the ‘ruthless, courageous and uncompromising’ (Atkins and Gaffney, 2020: 295) public persona usually associated with the Iron Lady. The leitmotif of her 2022 address seems to be the notion of confrontation, which might be due to her personality but also to the immediate socio-political context: she had to deal with the fallout from her controversial minibudget and was therefore fighting for her economic credibility and political legitimacy.

Her political ambition to secure economic growth is narrativised into a heroic fight between the (neoliberal) forces of good against what she calls the ‘anti-growth coalition’. Storytelling becomes central. Personal and enemy narratives are intertwined to show that she has fought for what she has (a), echoing Thatcher’s conviction politics, which de facto, annihilates any form of compromise, but also to attack (b) those who get in the way of economic recovery, that is, Labour; a clear lack of ambition (‘let down by low expectations’) and so-called Wokism (‘more interested in political correctness’):

(a) I have fought to get where I am today. I have fought to get jobs, to get pay rises and get on the housing ladder. I have juggled my career with raising two wonderful daughters. I know how it feels to have your potential dismissed by those who think they know better. I remember as a young girl being presented on a plane with a ‘Junior Air Hostess’ badge. Meanwhile, my brothers were given ‘Junior Pilot’ badges. It wasn’t the only time in my life that I have been treated differently for being female or for not fitting in. It made me angry and it made me determined.

(b) I remember growing up in Leeds, where I saw too many children being let down. Let down by low expectations. Let down by a Labour council who were more interested in political correctness than they were in school standards. But I was lucky to have been brought up in a family that cared about education. They taught me the value of hard work and enterprise.

Her childhood memories are used to give credibility to her struggle while giving her legitimacy to act, because she saw the consequences of low-growth at firsthand:

I know what it is like to live somewhere that isn’t feeling the benefits of economic growth. I grew up in Paisley and in Leeds in the 80s and 90s. I have seen the boarded-up shops. I have seen people left with no hope turning to drugs. I have seen families struggling to put food on the table. Low growth isn’t just numbers on a spreadsheet.

Through storytelling, Truss builds on the ‘overcoming the monster’ archetype to create a negative atmosphere of pain and despair which calls for resolution. In the traditional narrative pattern, this can only be achieved at the cost of a mighty conflict to decide the fate of the hero – here some (Conservative-leaning and pro-Brexit) part of the British people – and to assess whether the latter are worthy of being victorious. This epic battle is depicted at the end of the speech, with an enemy narrative in which she lashes out, indiscriminately, at her political opponents:

We need an economically sound and secure United Kingdom. And that will mean challenging those who try to stop growth. I will not allow the anti-growth coalition to hold us back. Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP . . . The militant unions, the vested interests dressed up as think-tanks . . . The talking heads, the Brexit deniers and Extinction Rebellion and some of the people we had in the hall earlier. The fact is they prefer protesting to doing. They prefer talking on Twitter to taking tough decisions [. . .] They don’t understand the British people. My friends, does this anti-growth coalition have any idea who pays their wages? It’s the people who make things in factories across our country. It’s the people who get up at the crack of dawn to go to work. It’s the commuters who get trains into towns and cities across our country. The anti-growth coalition just doesn’t get it. This is because they don’t face the same challenges as normal working people [. . .] The anti-growth coalition think the people who stick themselves to trains, roads and buildings are heroes. I say the real heroes are those who go to work, take responsibility and aspire to a better life for themselves and their family. And I am on their side.

Through her aggressive rhetoric, Truss voluntarily fosters divisions within British society, and sides with ‘normal working people’, who are narrativised as the heroes of her story, while she excludes the ‘anti-growth coalition’, which de facto becomes the villains. The Thatcher creed onto which she builds her personal ethos seems therefore to be solely envisaged through a confrontational attitude, which might account for her eventual chaotic downfall which ‘revealed her inadequacies as Leader’ (Hickson and Williams, 2023: 24). Truss tried to fuel the already existing Brexit divisions to the maximum, which might not have been the best political strategy to secure a powerful ethos in the long run. Still, her logical argument echoed that of Johnson:

Life is about confrontation and defeating your enemies (major).

Liz Truss has fought all her life (minor).

Liz Truss is the leader to see the country through those troubling times (implicit conclusion).

The almost exclusive focus on confrontation, with no real vision for a better future and at the heart of a particularly challenging economic – and personal – context, might account for the very aggressive image she created for herself and which, arguably, failed to resonate with British people. Rishi Sunak would adopt a different strategy.

Rishi Sunak as political fixer

Rishi Sunak inherited a highly divided party, with little prospect of winning the next general election, according to voting intention polls (Yougov, 2024). Sunak’s prime objective was to restore confidence and stability in government (Hickson and Williams, 2023: 26). He explicitly recognised in his first speech as PM, that ‘some mistakes were made’ by his predecessor(s) and that his role, as PM, was ‘to fix them’. From the very beginning, therefore, Sunak tried to strike a balance and to find compromises in order to somewhat decontaminate the Conservative brand, after the scandals of the Johnson mandate, and the radical economic decisions of the Truss era.

In his only keynote address to date, Sunak promises to ‘lead in a different way’ and assumes the role of political fixer (a) who will use his personal background (b), and the positive values he has learned growing up, to lead the way:

(a) It was seeing the difference they made to people’s lives that made me want to go into politics. My mother set up her own pharmacy. It was a proper family business. We all chipped in; as a teenager I helped deliver prescriptions and do the books. I learnt there the importance of being able to meet your commitments and make good on your promises. My parents are long retired now. But the Sunak pharmacy left me with a lasting respect for every small, family business. This Conservative party, the party of the grocer’s daughter and the pharmacist’s son, will always be the party of enterprise, the party of small business.

(b) Politics doesn’t work the way it should. We’ve had thirty years of a political system which incentivises the easy decision, not the right one. Thirty years of vested interests standing in the way of change. Thirty years of rhetorical ambition which achieves little more than a short-term headline. And why? Because our political system is too focused on short term advantage, not long-term success. Politicians spent more time campaigning for change than actually delivering it. It doesn’t have to be this way. I won’t be this way.

The ethos of a political fixer enables Sunak to attack Labour by highlighting that, by contrast, Labour is in favour of the status quo:

The Labour Party have set out their stall: to do and say as little as possible and hope no one notices. They want to take people’s votes for granted and keep doing politics the same old way. It is a bet on people’s apathy. It does not speak to any higher purpose, or brighter future. It is about power for the sake of power. It is in short, everything that is wrong with our politics.

Despite this early focus on social issues, which arguably places him on the One Nation side of the Conservative ideology, he refers many times, directly or not, to Margaret Thatcher, so as to embrace, it seems, all the different strands of Conservatism and therefore to propose a more unifying leadership than his direct predecessors. In addition to ‘the grocer’s daughter’ reference above, Sunak seems to echo Thatcher’s famous remarks when she entered 10 Downing Street, which confirms the unifying project:

So, where a consensus is false, we will challenge it. Where a vested interest is placing itself above the needs of the people, we will stop it. And where common sense is under attack from an organised assault, we will defend it.

Contrary to Johnson and Truss, and maybe more in line with Cameron and to certain extent May, Sunak tries to develop a unifying ethos, so as to make sure the Conservatives will put up a united front before the 2024 election, despite growing unrest about the Rwanda policy and the Brexit fallout.

In terms of narrative analysis, Sunak transcends ‘the rags to riches’ versus ‘overcoming the monster’ dichotomy by subsuming the two into a narrative about the way his personal background, depicted as modest, will help him break the 30-year consensus which, he argues, is holding Britain back. The opposition is mainly between a broken system that no longer works and the new solution that he proposes. As such, the logical argument at the heart of his speech reads as follows:

The current political system no longer works (major).

Rishi Sunak is a political fixer (minor).

Rishi Sunak is the only leader able to mend the political system (conclusion).

Sunak’s narratives enable him to create the image of a political fixer who both draws on the positive work of his predecessors while at the same distancing himself from what had not seemed to work. The general political context vindicates the choice of such narratives, as the Conservative Party is divided and so is the British society. Albeit limited, research on Sunak’s rhetoric nonetheless highlights that this is an uphill battle. The divisions created by Sunak’s predecessors – and that he personally reinforced, in particular by resorting to the notion of culture war to draw a dividing line with Labour (Casalicchio, 2024; Harvey, 2023; McLatchie Miller, 2023) – represent a significant challenge to reverse the ‘narrative of decline’ (Sunak, 2023) that is currently engulfing the Tory party before the 2024 general election (Prior and Eroukhmanoff, 2023).

Conclusion

The initial objective of this article was to analyse the way recent Conservative leaders have built their political image through the use of storytelling. We have seen that personal narratives play a key role in the shaping of the political ethos, in that they enable leaders to open up a little about themselves. Since 2005, Tory leaders have nonetheless decided to reveal different things about their lives. If David Cameron was keen to talk about his family in general and the difficulties he had to face as a father but also the pleasure he took as being a caring family man in particular, the next three leaders did not open up so much. This might be a matter of personality, but it might also be contextual and due to the overall strategy of the Conservative Party. Indeed, from 2005 to 2009 (Heppell, 2014), Cameron needed to change the image of his party and, as he intended to embody this change, he tried to display the traits of a caring father (Hayton, 2010). Besides, and within the theoretical framework of Rhetorical Political Analysis (Finlayson, 2007; Roe-Crine, 2024), it seems fair to assume that, lacking prior authority and a powerful institutional ethos (as he was only opposition leader and not yet Prime Minister), Cameron was more inclined to focus, at first (2005–2009), on pathos and emotionally driven family narratives. We might nonetheless argue that his emphasis on ‘mending Britain’s broken society’ provided fertile ground for his successors, as he introduced the idea of divisions within British society, in particular following the 2007–2008 great financial crisis. As he intended to end the ‘something for nothing welfare culture’, he effectively dwelt on a ‘shirkers vs. workers’ narrative to promote his economic agenda of austerity (Hayton and McEnhill, 2014).

May, Johnson and Truss adopted a diametrically different approach, in terms of personal storytelling, as they did not talk about their families so much, but they seemed to follow Cameron’s lead in voluntarily fuelling divisions within British society, as Brexit had indeed exacerbated political cleavages. May pitted the losers of neoliberal globalisation against an EU-friendly economic elite; Johnson depicted himself as the Brexit champion, thus excluding his political opponents from the national community and Truss created a new, catch-all, enemy, the ‘anti-growth coalition’. Storytelling enabled all three leaders to exploit the new Brexit reality: the Tory leader was now the keeper of the referendum result, and they had to build their ethos accordingly. As a matter of fact, the situation has somewhat changed lately. Sunak drew extensively on his family narrative, which partially echoes the modernising will of the early part of the Cameron years, as both leaders attempted to decontaminate their party’s brand, even if some researchers have recently – and convincingly – questioned Sunak’s detoxifying ambition (Prior and Eroukhmanoff, 2023).

To answer the initial research question, we might therefore argue that storytelling plays a key role in the elaboration of a political ethos. Our original methodology, drawing on a critical approach to narrative analysis, has arguably shown that storytelling serves several discursive and rhetorical purposes, which constitutes the main contribution of this article to the fields of discourse analysis and political studies. Indeed, storytelling allows politicians to establish their credibility and legitimacy by talking about their youth and the positive influence of their hard-working parents. This, in turn, is intended as a paternalistic twist to show that they have worked hard to achieve their objectives and should therefore be taken as examples, just like they had themselves taken their parents as examples. Besides, as storytellers, leaders come to embody the heroic narratives that they relate, which enables them to promote flagship policies. Once again, they seem to lead by example, as what happens to them, in their stories, should be either copied or reflected upon. For example, Boris Johnson used his obesity problems to make people aware of this health issue. The implicit message of storytelling is that people should learn from the lessons of the story, which gives storytellers the position of man and woman of wisdom, able to draw a positive moral from the difficulties they had to face and which they managed to overcome. Last but not least, storytelling helps create an emotional connection with the audience which might facilitate the introduction of comic relief elements and therefore reinforce the political image of the politician with whom people can more easily, and unconsciously, identify, thus creating potential manipulation. Our study shows that despite the fact that recent Tory leaders have used different types of narratives to establish their ethos, focusing on certain aspects of their lives, the overall communication of the Conservative Party has drawn on similar rhetorical levers, first among them being the idea of division. This ‘us vs. them’ narrative allows for the creation of scapegoats and ‘others’ (those who refuse to work, the disconnected London elite, Remainers, the ‘anti-growth coalition’ and the ‘woke’), which reveals populist tropes (Flinders, 2019; Wodak, 2021: 8). Storytelling should therefore be considered as an important rhetorical device and its crucial role in the process of ethos building calls for more investigation. One particular moment of interest is the upcoming general election during which Rishi Sunak will have to further establish his political ethos, in the mid of internal Tory dissentions over the Rwanda bill, and, for Labour, Keir Starmer will have to narrativise his claim to power, as a true Labour leader, following the difficult tenure of his predecessor.

Footnotes

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Alma-Pierre Bonnet

Notes

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‘Let me tell you what I believe’: Narratives,storytelling and ethos building,the case of Tory leaders (2005–2023)

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Theoretical framework and methodology

Narratives and the construction of political ethos

Methodology

Key findings

David Cameron as the perfect family man

Theresa May as a working-class hero

Boris Johnson the political entertainer

Liz Truss: Margaret Thatcher 2.0

Rishi Sunak as political fixer

Conclusion

Footnotes

Funding

ORCID iD

Notes

References