Speech of the Month, August 2022 - Mick Lynch

At the start of the year, if someone had said to me, ‘Cor, that Mick Lynch has got something about him”, I’d have nodded weakly and assumed they were talking about Ireland’s new fly-half or similar. But by mid-summer, you’d have had to have been a tortoise not to have known who he was. He was never off the box or the radio; news editors wanted him on their shows.

What’s astonishing is that most of those news outlets are right-leaning and what’s even more astonishing, but testament to Lynch, is that 58% of the population - a population that’s elected a Tory government at the last three generals - support the RMT’s strikes. I greatly admire his communication style but if you are that tortoise, do take a look at the video below to become acquainted...

Referring to the ‘Good Morning Britain’ interview, I’m going to highlight the communication strenghts Lynch displays.

Media interviews aren’t easy and it’s easy to feel on the back-foot when a camera, lights, boom etc are thrust before you, and if you’ve come to that later in life, then it could throw you. So I think it’s incredible that Lynch is so comfortable in these moments. But I also find his calmness inspiring.

How often do we become inarticulate or lose focus in environments where we don’t feel wholly comfortable; where we feel the people we’re addressing are more experienced, educated or just posher than us? It’s happened to me. But it doesn’t happen to Lynch. He knows his facts, he knows his purpose and he’s not going to let the narrative drift into places he doesn’t want it to go. 

He calls out ridiculous questions

When Richard Madeley, doing his best Jeremy Paxman tribute act, opens the interview by asking, “Are you or aren’t you a Marxist?” Mick Lynch laughs and says, “Oh, Richard, you do come up with the most remarkable twaddle” and then states that he’s never been a Marxist but states who he is, the leader of the RMT. The laugh is brilliant. It works because it’s not fuelled by arrogance, it’s fuelled by disbelief and bemusement, which viewers can empathise with. 

He ends points with a strong statement

This is something I always encourage clients to do, to round off points so that they finish on a strong note and don’t fade out.

When Lynch is asked if he accepts that the strikes will mean that cancer patients can’t get to hospital appointments, thereby increasing their chances of death, Lynch does something extraordinary; rather than immediately and automatically empathising with cancer patients, which is what politicians would do, he faces up to the question. He says that he doesn’t accept that the strikes are costing lives; that deep-rooted problems in the NHS are more harmful to patients, he expands on this and then he rounds off with the strong statement, “Rail workers are not killing cancer patients.”

He broadens out his arguments

In interviews, if Lynch only talked about the plight of his members, I don’t think he’d have 58% of the country backing the strikes. But instead of talking about rail workers specifically, he speaks about workers generally. He talks about there being a problem in society when workers’ wages are being eroded by inflation and nurses and council staff find themselves having to use foodbanks. Suddenly, everyone who’s struggling financially is nodding along. 

He’s happy in his skin

Can you imagine Mick Lynch ever having a psychological crisis because he’s not sure he knows who he really is? No, me neither. In several interviews, he’s painted a clear portrait of himself as “a working class bloke who’s a trade union leader, wanting better pay and conditions for my members.” 

I don’t think he consciously decided to use the word ‘bloke’ as David Cameron might have done to speak the lingo of the masses, I think he uses the word ‘bloke’ because he uses the word 'bloke.' And his language is always clear and correct and plain. He’s not tried to soften his accent, but then he hasn’t needed to because he’s not playing up to it so it’s never unclear. 

He comes across as a straightforward bloke who cares about working people and fighting for his principles. There’s no spin, affectation and little hyperbole. And in a shouty world where those three beasts roam wildly, Lynch’s lack of them is very appealing.