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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

Epiphenomenalism is, as 16-letter words go, not an obvious hook with which, dear reader, to draw you to this column; but let me explain; because I think I may be an epiphenomenalist.

My dictionary defines this as the doctrine that consciousness is merely a by-product of physiological processes and has no power to affect them: that we do not weep because we’re sad, but rather that we are sad because we’re weeping.

The idea is not quite as crazy as it sounds. Tony Blair did not sound passionately sincere because he was passionately sincere. He mastered the knack of delivering his lines with such passionate sincerity that he became spellbound by his own performance, and believed in it. And only last week in Blackpool the Times’s political sketchwriter, Ann Treneman, said to me, ‘I think an election may be approaching because I’ve started eating crisps.’ In the same way, one cow might observe to another, ‘I think it’s going to rain because I’m lying down.’

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C.Gatenby

October 12th, 2007 3:12am

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

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

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.

David Moss

October 15th, 2007 9:50pm

I see your "epiphenomenalism" and raise you "the intentionality of perception".

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