Forensic breakthrough could identify minute traces of Tory policy
4 Oct 2006
A breakthrough in forensic technology could make it up to 40% easier to find Conservative policies, experts have said. Until now scientists have struggled to identify policies in David Cameron's speeches, with many claiming that only one in a billion speeches contains any kind of substance."Our new technique can interpret previously unintelligible samples of politicians' speeches," said Professor Gregory T Mullet of Bootle University, which led the project. "We can now analyse material that has been touched by multiple individuals – such as spin doctors and focus groups – to work out what the original meaning was. Assuming there was any, obviously."
The new methods also make it possible to go back over 'cold' speeches with unsolved meanings. "Even where the quality of the material is poor or barely audible, we can still make progress," Professor Mullet continued. "It's now possible, for example, to work out what Iain Duncan Smith was banging on about."
"But I would have to question the utility of that exercise," he added.
The technology is not, however, foolproof. One person was injured during testing last week when a machine attempting to analyse one of John Prescott's speeches exploded.
