Mr Chris Smith

I am currently in the fourth year of a part-time PhD project, provisionally titled "Lower  

than Vermin? A Rhetorical Political Analysis of Invective in Parliament, 1971–2024". 

The thesis conducts a small-scale investigation into perceptions that modern politicians are more insulting, and political rhetoric less civil than in the past by examining PMQs and parliamentary debates on Britain’s relationship with the European Union (formerly European Economic Community).  

This research uses Rhetorical Political Analysis (RPA), derived from Aristotle's classic works, to identify how politicians use the three persuasive methods of: ethos, appeals to character; pathos, appeals to emotion and logos appeals to reason to construct their rhetoric. I am looking forward to identifying continuities and changes to rhetorical practise over recent history and writing up my findings. 

Before beginning my studies at the OU I worked as secondary school teacher of history and politics, in Norwich teaching mostly A - Level and GCSE.  

I left teaching in 2021 to work full time for the National Education Union as a regional trade union official which afforded me the work life balance to undertake my PhD, an ambition since completing my MA in 2010. 

Leaving the classroom to have more time for politics, to paraphrase Tony Benn, also enabled me to be elected to Norwich City Council in 2024 as a Labour councillor.  

Having spent much of my professional life to date talking about politics to various audiences is what has led to my fascination with the significance of rhetoric to the theory and practise of politics. I am grateful to now be able to explore this at the OU and have been able to present some of my findings to the wider academic community at the conference for EPOP, PSA and specilasit PSA groups.  

I look forward to meeting and collaborating with more friends and colleagues in making sense of the words and behaviours that make up our politics.