Interesting point made by Matthew Flinders, a politics professor at the University of Sheffield, in the wake of Boris Johnson’s disastrous CBI ‘Peppa Pig’ riff:

“He’s absolutely fantastic in terms of his performative skills and his ability to work a crowd. He uses speeches not to convey information but as a tool of entertainment, to ingratiate himself and develop himself as a character.”

I thought it a very telling illustration of the difference between any communication’s supposed/purported objective and its true goal, often all but totally divorced from the notional.  It flags up for any communicator the crucial importance of being crystal clear not about what you’re trying to say, but what you’re trying to achieve.