In thinking about the worst political speeches delivered in Britain, I reached for lectures that weren’t just technically poor but epoch defining in their badness. Each one had to have said something larger about the inherent problems of the political class in our beleaguered age.
With that in mind, in descending order, here are five that fell flat:
Jeremy Corbyn’s 2015 Labour conference speech
In his first conference speech as party leader, the reasons for Corbyn’s eventual defeat are all here, on full display. The speech itself is relentlessly boring and substance is remarkably absent throughout. For a guy who was supposed to shake up the established way of doing things, it is notable how free of any original ideas he seemed to be in his first big set piece.
If you want to understand why Corbyn eventually got politically crushed, it was all there in 2015.
Most memorable line: ‘We need to be investing in skills, investing in young people, and…strong message here…not cutting student numbers.’ It’s rare in a speech by a major political figure you hear empty platitudes as well as a reading out of the bit that was mistakenly left on the teleprompter in one sentence, but when it happens you get comedy gold.
Jo Swinson launching the 2019 Lib Dem general election campaign
I don’t think any political speech has ever personally disappointed me as much as this one did. It was watching two things I didn’t want to happen unfold at once: one was the end of the Lib Dem resurgence that had happened since the summer of 2019, and with it the end of the party; the other was Brexit definitely happening, and probably a very harsh version of it at that. For in this short speech, the leader of the Lib Dems demonstrated that her party was woefully unprepared for the election ahead.
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