Another voice

The quality of a political speech is a symptom of popularity not a cause

Matthew Parris

Wednesday, 10th October 2007

Matthew Parris on this year's conference speeches

I did not, immediately afterwards, hear anybody calling the speech a disaster, and many liked it. Yet within days it was being pronounced a chilling socialist dirge, delivered with neither charm nor narrative skill. Anyone would have thought we had been addressed by Enver Hoxha. Even as I write, that speech is entering British political folklore as Brown’s first big failure to live up to national expectations. But the world didn’t turn against Mr Brown because it heard a bad speech. It heard a bad speech because it had begun to turn against Mr Brown.

Finally came that speech by David Cameron in Blackpool. It was pretty good — that’s all. It wasn’t the greatest speech ever made; there were some rather dull stretches, it rose to no great heights, and some of it was trite. At times Mr Cameron looked and sounded a little too earnest and anxious; at others he was quite winning and thoughtful. It was impressive to do it all without notes, however, and as he reached the end I thought he’d done well enough to please those who already approved of him and persuade doubters that he was at least up to the job. Yet within hours I was hearing news of a bravura performance, a tour de force, a magnificent climax to a successful week, and a triumphant personal success. I conclude that millions of people, including much of the news media, have decided that David Cameron’s star is rising. They therefore heard the speech of a rising star.

Instructive — because I felt the same about the speech Cameron made in Blackpool two years ago, the speech that projected him into the leader’s job. It was quite good too. But the speech of his rival, David Davis, hadn’t been nearly as bad as the media and many of his own colleagues immediately pronounced it. Mr Davis is not a brilliant speaker but his speeches are pretty solid and never less than serviceable. His party didn’t turn away from him because his speech had flopped. His speech flopped because his party was turning away from him.

Margaret Thatcher was often monotonous on the public platform: her oratory had the quality of an electric drill and I never once heard her say anything interesting, original or uplifting. But because she stood for big things and did big things, her speeches resonated.

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C.Gatenby

October 12th, 2007 3:12am Report this comment

I would disagree that Cameron’s popularity is the catalyst for his ‘good’ speeches. We rate Cameron because he, unlike Brown, has the capacity to inspire. The line 'Call that Election. We will fight, Britain will win' will forever give the British people a reverend flutter to what is quintessentially the lions heart.Could he be the one to now give it it's roar? Britain is listening - and it likes what it hears.

Michael Gorman

October 15th, 2007 8:01pm Report this comment

Agreed absolutely. I was there in 2005 for the Tory leadership speeches. Cameron, competent but a little nervous since he was without notes; Davies, competent; Fox, good but unlikely to win; Clarke, brilliant, by far the best, but outclassed by the Cameron PR machine. (P) I write as a former President of the Guildford Speaking Club, accustomed to judging speeches.

Purple Scorpion

October 15th, 2007 8:28pm Report this comment

There are two different phenomena here. Cameron was in trouble before the Tory conference, so his outriders (including your editor) were saying he would have to make the speech of his life ... in preparation for saying afterwards that he had. While the Cameron narrative was sketched out beforehand, the narrative about Brown seems to have been changed after the event. At the time the speech was not bad, but with hindsight it became dull. This is just scribblers desperate for a striking angle.