Who agrees with whom?

I watched the first ever televised debate between the party leaders in the UK last night. For overseas readers the background is this. We are just a few weeks away from an election. In Britain there are two main parties - Labour and Conservative. There are a host of minor parties ranging from one-man-bands upwards but, if we don't count the nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales, only one with any significant amount of power, the Liberal Democrats. I say with any amount of power and it's true that they have 62 seats, but it's 62 out of 646. Under normal circumstances this isn't very much power. However we may not be under normal circumstances at the moment. It's looking increasingly likely that there could be a hung Parliament, one where no party has enough seats for overall control. In those circumstances a good result for the Liberal Democrats could put them in the position of kingmaker.

And that's why I found one element of last night's program quite interesting. Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, was given a chance to compete with Gordon Brown and David Cameron in an equal forum, just as if his party has as much chance of forming a Government as theirs do. It was a great opportunity for him and he performed very well, coming over as relaxed and amiable, apparently listening with interest to the others, putting his points clearly. None of that is what interested me though. What interested me was that, perhaps because they may be forced to rely on him later, both of the other leaders were at pains to be relatively nice to him and to repeatedly refer to areas of agreement that they had. But even that isn't what interested me. It was a phrase used several times by Gordon Brown - "Nick agrees with me". At one point Nick strenuously denied it but it's the word order that I find fascinating. Neither Gordon Brown nor David Cameron ever said "I agree with Nick." Both said "Nick agrees with me."

On the surface the two sentences have the same meaning. After all if I agree with you then you agree with me. The emphasis is the thing though. If Gordon Brown were to say, "I agree with Nick", it's giving the control to his opponent. It's saying, ""Hey, you have a good idea, I think I'll join you." By putting it the other way round it's saying, "I have a good idea, and you are right to support me." It's taking ownership of whatever the idea is instead of giving it away. Of course the reality is that if two parties have the same idea then they agree with each other but the reality is less important than the perception and that's why I'm absolutely sure the words were chosen with care to give that impression of ownership, that impression of who is really in charge. Nevertheless it would have been nice to hear someone say, "He's right, I agree."