Shut-In: Political Party Speeches

This has to be my personal favourite activity so far. Everyone joined in with such gusto (even Thomas), it was hilarious!

Earlier on in the day I had randomly chosen eight words from the dictionary. I did this by opening to a page and with shut eyes pointing to a place on the page. I then looked at the nearest noun and wrote it down. These were the words: didgeridoo, introvert, snorkel, enema, roughage, turnip, paragraph and quilt. These words were then turned into eight political parties (the Didgeridoo Party, The Introvert Party….etc). We each chose a party to represent and we needed to give a speech, lasting between 1-3 minutes, outlining why we, as leader of our party, should become the next prime minister. Some wrote a speech and others winged it. We all had an enormous amount of fun!

The Introvert Party

Ads was leader of the Introvert Party, and gave a rousing speech about how the extroverts had got us all into this current Corona Virus situation (being social and all!). Ads studies politics and eventually wants to have some sort of political career. He was a natural speaker and his slogan was ‘the quietest people make the loudest difference!’

The Turnip Party

Becs was next. She had chosen to be the Turnip Party. Now Becs was a bit too young to fully understand what was expected of her, so I helped her to write a small speech, which she delivered with gusto. Her party slogan was ‘The Turnip Party: A party you can rely on‘. She focused on the turnip’s reliability, versatility and general all round goodness.

The Didgeridoo Party

Lillie had been incredibly excited about her Didgeridoo party and delivered a very comical speech about becoming a ‘Didgeridoo-er and not a Didgeridon’t-er’!! She ended her speech by asking: ‘Do you want me for your next prime minister? Because I didgeridoo!’ Too funny!

The Quilt Party

Charlotte, who usually joins in everything with enormous amounts of energy, was feeling wiped out. Her speech wasn’t delivered with quite the passion expected, but she did extol the benefits of sleep and that the Quilt Party was like having a hug in a rug.

The Enema Party

Now it probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone that I chose to be the leader of the Enema Party. For those of you who do not know, an enema is an injection of fluid into the lower bowel by way of the rectum, often used to relieve constipation. I had so much fun with this one! I made two posters for the occasion stating my two party slogans: ‘Enema is our name, cleansing is our game’ and ‘Enema Party: Cleansing Britain from the Inside Out!’

I wrote my speech and have included it because, y’know, it was a great great speech!

It was also the winning speech! Yay, I am your next prime minister!

The Paragraph Party

Gary was leader of the Paragraph Party. He talked a whole lot of baloney, and managed to make it sound fairly sensible 🙂 The Irish in him. He didn’t have a slogan that any of us can remember…

The Roughage Party

There were many jokes going around about how the Enema Party should form a coalition with the Roughage Party 🙂 We didn’t. Because I won all by myself. Sorry Thomas!

Thomas approached his speech in a completely different way, plonking a bean bag down and casually chatting to us all, promoting his party’s beliefs that we should all be returning to a more natural, farming community. I loved how he did his, and I voted for him.

The Snorkel Party

Arguably Abigail had the worst party to lead, and being a little younger didn’t really understand what was required of her. I gave her a few ideas and she wrote a very stellar speech about the advantages of voting for a snorkel!

Another really great activity for building relationships, taking the edge off shut down and having lots of fun together 🙂