Attitude.

“Global warming – what a scam!”

“Sharia Law – the right path.”

“Cressida Dick says she wants half of the Met to be female.”

As soon as people read these three very provocative statements, they take sides. They already know the answer. All the familiar arguments flood into our brains: it is just like downloading our favourite files.

The aim of this blog is to change that.

Instead of rushing to download the familiar arguments, how about thinking like a Barrister instead?
It is simply wrong to assume that all barristers are in it for the money. The few I have met (one completely naked as a life drawing model) are in it to argue.
It is simply wrong to say of them that they approve of murder, of rape, of slander. They emphatically do not.

Instead of rushing to download the familiar arguments, how about thinking like a doctor instead? I have had the pleasure of knowing some doctors very well. It is simply wrong to assume that they are all in it for the money. The ones I know are in it because they honestly want to help people come to terms with their illness one way or another.
It is simply wrong to say that they love cancer, that they enjoy seeing young mothers suffer, that they relish pain. They emphatically do not.

But barristers and medical people don't get worked up. They set out to use their skills without emotion and to make people's lives better. (What they do at 4 a.m. Is only known to them.)

This blog is to give you the tools to do the same.

Already there have been ten good ideas, based on Aristotle's Rhetoric, which can help everybody – whatever their beliefs – come to terms with sharing their thoughts with other people without insulting them and, we hope, with convincing arguments too.

So let us leave the emotions out and approach emotive subjects calmly and with skill, just like a top silk or a brain surgeon.

Simple advice, but very hard to do.

Practise on these, after taking a deep breath:
“Can we now scrap so-called sex-education and all the rest of the condom-waving and pill-pushing designed to appease and spread the permissive society?”
“When the Mobs are bashing bricks over their heads in Triumph, we'll know that Sharia truly prevails...….”

No downloading: cool expertise.