Parliament is ever more diverse but not at speaking other languages. A survey by Duolingo, the learning app, found that only 13 per cent of MPs claim to be bilingual, a decline of more than a third on 2004. A new year brings a new challenge, however, and more than 100 MPs and peers have signed up to learn a language on the app over the next three months, with the best-performing three winning a share of £20,000 for charity. French and Spanish are most popular of the 23 languages chosen but quite a few are learning Arabic, while Dutch, Korean and Latin all have students.
Alex Sobel, a Leeds MP, decided to learn Ukrainian from scratch because his grandparents are from Lviv, while Adam Thompson, MP for Erewash, wants to brush up his childhood Welsh and still knows: “Ga I fynd I’r ty bach, os gwelwch chi’n dda?” (May I go to the toilet, please?) Darren Paffey, MP for Southampton Itchen and a former linguistics professor, has gone for Danish, in part for entertainment.
“I’m a huge fan of Borgen,” he says. “But the country also appeals to the social affairs geek in me.” Plus he says he enjoys the daily dopamine hit of continuing his Duolingo streak. Politicians have to take praise where they can, even if it is from a cartoon owl.
Learning a language is one thing, using it in parliament is another. “As much Latin as you like; never French in any circumstances,” said Charles James Fox, the Whig statesman. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was more eclectic. “I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men,” he said. “And German to my horse.”
Mogg’s private audience
Even the most celebrated authors can struggle to draw a crowd. In a Lords debate on freedom of speech, the historian Andrew Roberts said he was once asked to address the Sevenoaks Literary Festival. “Sadly, fewer people turned up to hear me speak than there were oaks,” he said. Some politicians are lucky to get anyone. Jacob Rees-Mogg went to speak at a church hall while seeking election in Fife in 1997 and found one woman and her child waiting. Unperturbed, he addressed them at length on capitalism before asking if there were any questions. The woman raised her hand. “Excuse me,” she asked. “Is the mother and toddler group cancelled?”
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Let’s wrap up the series on diplomatic misinterpretations with one from a former ambassador, Thorda Abbott-Watt, an official during the expansion of the EU in the mid-1980s, who recalls bemused faces when the translator misheard one of the British arguments, explaining that it would “throw a Spaniard in the works”.
Voltaire-face
Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron enjoyed a Chequers bromance this week but on the French airwaves they are mocking Britain’s mauling at the hands of “Trusk”. On the Paris version of Today the host joked about the end of the special relationship and said we should heed Voltaire: “Lord, protect me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies.” Is that the Voltaire who fled to London in 1726 to escape his countrymen?
