April 2010 | Volume 03
The Speechwriter
Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild
Welcome
Welcome to the third edition
of The Speechwriter newsletter.
The purpose of this publication is
to circulate examples of excellent
speeches to members of the UK
Speechwriters’ Guild. We do this
by picking out openings, closings,
one-liners and quotations and
other topical extracts from
newspapers and the internet to
identify techniques, stimulate your
imagination and provide models
which you can emulate.
This newsletter appears quarterly
and is available to anyone who is
a Standard Member of the UK
Speechwriters’ Guild.
Contribute
We need your speeches. Most
of the examples in this edition are
taken from the Americans. We
want to raise standards in the UK.
Please send examples of
speeches to:
 info@ukspeechwritersguild.co.uk
WWW.UKSPEECHWRITERSGUILD.CO.UK
MASTERCLASS
Lessons from Lady
Montagu
Lady Fiona
Montagu is one of
the UK’s wittiest
speakers. She
trained with
Toastmasters
International and
she was the first
global ambassador for the Club of
Budapest. She is also a director of
Beaulieu Enterprises Ltd. Here are
some of her best lines:
So often a political speech can
become a nauseating trudge
through a treacly unset tarmac of
cant.
Be not afraid of soundbites -
but they should be part of the
tapestry, not a raisin stuck on a
hunk of porridge.
The corporate soul of our
nations is crying out for change; an
ethical society should NOT be an
alternative society. What good is
academic achievement if we fail to
live ethical and civilised lives; if we
fail to take responsibility and walk
hand in hand with life?
I am reminded of Laurens van
der Post’s central creed when he
said: ‘We must redeem the
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Bushman in all of us before it is
too late.’
He explained that he did not
want people to ‘be like Bushmen’,
rather he wanted us to rediscover
in a contemporary way the first
things, the first values of life. Our
task, first, last and most immediate,
is to make those values, the
imaginative and spiritual values,
‘CONTEMPORARY’. He didn’t
think that a man who had watched
the sun go down could walk away
and ‘commit a murder’.
I would suggest that we all be
brave enough to live creatively. The
creative is a place where no one
else has ever been. You have to
leave the city of your comfort and
go into the wilderness of your
INTUITION. You can’t get there by
bus, only by hard work, risking and
not quite knowing what you’re
doing. What you’ll discover will be
magnificent; and you’ll view life
though a wholly NEW window.
I was told the other day of a
little girl sitting a test at school.
The pupils had been given a list of
countries and asked to tick those
in which they though an elephant
would be found. The girl wrote
firmly at the bottom of her paper:
‘This is a silly question. Elephants
are much too big and much to
clever to ever get lost in the first
place.’
The Speechwriter April 2010 | Volume 03
Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild
Book Reviews
Voice of Influence, How to get
people to live to listen to you
Judy Apps (260 Pages)
Crown House Publishing Ltd, £16.99
ISBN 1845902882
At last year’s
UKSG conference
there was a bit a of a
ding dong about
neurolinguistic
programming (NLP).
Some delegates
thought it had some
scientific credibility, others did not.
Judy Apps is sympathetic to NLP
methodology and she has written a
book illustrated by lots of engaging
quotations, anecdotes and observations
about caring for your voice and getting
the best out of it. There are exercises
to do and insights from lots of
philosophers to work with.
I enjoyed browsing the tongue
twisters and reading the extracts from
literature that Apps cites to practise
getting the most from our voices. She
also speculates on how the way we use
our voice is wrapped up with our
experiences of life.
She has a formidable task, like
dance, managing your voice, is all about
physical sensations. It’s hard to write
well and at length about something so
intuitive.
If you’re doing a course, I imagine
this book is a very good textbook to
work with. But if you’re not into the soft
ideas that come with NLP, you will
need to enjoy this book in small doses.
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The Home We Build Together,
Recreating Society by Dr Jonathan
Sacks (273 pages)
Continuum £10.99
ISBN 0826423493
This is not a
new book. I
picked it up in the
library. I didn’t
expect it to be
relevant to
speechwriting, but
as I got to grips
with it, I realise it’s about the key
problem for a political speechwriter:
how do you find a ‘consensus of
accepted ideas’.
It harks back to Phil Collins’
comments at last year’s conference on
how Americans do God, but the British
don’t. America and Israel are nations
founded on convenants – powerful
stories about belonging. We don’t have
a national narrative.
Dr Sacks quotes John Major’s weird
speech about Britain being a country of
‘long shadows on county grounds,
warm beer, invincible green suburbs,
dog lovers and pool fillers…’ He also
quotes a similar piece by Prime Minster
Baldwin in 1924 evoking an England
where you hear: ‘the tinkle of the
hammer on the anvil in the country
smithy’. As Dr Sacks points out, these
speeches are impressions: there is no
story.
He argues that Britain has believed
itself to be an organic society where:
‘Those who wield power meet in clubs,
schools, universities, regiments and
teams; they cultivate an air of
amateurism and frown on meritocracy,
effort and enthusiasm.’
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That narrative has been ruined by
multiculturalism, and we are left
without a coherent story about our
national institutions.
As a speechwriter, I would say the
Bible and Shakespeare are my two key
texts. Those works infuse the rhythms
of speech and they are models to copy.
Dr Sacks goes into great detail about
just why texts are key to a culture. He
also provides some very satisfying
answers to Margaret Thatcher’s
uncomfortable musings about how to
define society.
The question he raises is how do
you define British spiritual reality in the
C21st. This book has inspired me to
organise an offshoot conference on this
subject in the autumn of 2010, bringing
together religious communicators to
find some answers.
Learning Rhetoric
If you want to learn the
basic skills of
rhetoric, the
Toastmasters
International
organisation offers
opportunities to practise in front of a
sympathetic audience. The groups offer
a comprehensive educational
programme, with evaluations from
senior members and nationwide
competitions. The organisation was
founded by Ralph C. Smedley on
October 22, 1924, at the YMCA in
Santa Ana, California, United States.
Branches have been set up all over the
world. To find out about London clubs,
go to the blog:
 http://www.thelondonspeaker.com
The Speechwriter April 2010 | Volume 03
Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild
INSPIRATIONS
Openings
What if the Three Wise Men had
been Three Wise Women? Well, this
is what one woman wrote in her parish
magazine: ‘If those Three Wise Men had
been Three Wise Women, they would
have arrived in Jerusalem much earlier
to ask for directions. They would have
reached Bethlehem in time to deliver
the baby. And they would have swept
out the stable, and given him much
more practical presents.’
Sermon by Revd Glyn James, St
Peter’s Bournemouth, 2 January 2010
It falls to me to address an issue
which affects us all here this evening.
Whilst it is my role to speak for the
City, in circumstances such as we find
ourselves in, I also have the
responsibility to speak to the City.
Everyone wants to live in a golden age.
I fear, however, we live in a challenging
one. Yet one which will in due course,
let us hope, allow us through our
efforts to reach the sunny side of the
street.
But at this time we in the financial
services industry face a number of very
serious concerns. The banks, City
culture, City pay, our regulation and
corporate governance, all have been
under sustained attack from the public,
the press, politicians and Europe. In
such a gladiatorial environment, it is
fitting that this evening we are sitting
over London’s Roman amphitheatre but
it may, however, feel more as if we
were in it!
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Speech by Alderman Nick Anstee,
The Rt Hon The Lord Mayor of
London, Guildhall, 1 February 2010
Good evening. Why do businesses
exist, and what’s their prime purpose?
What’s the role of profits and the profit
motive? How do you define business
ethics?
The reason for asking these rather
obvious questions is that next
Thursday, November 19, marks the
100th anniversary of the birth of Peter F
Drucker. He was the first, and some
would still say the greatest, theorist
about the management of businesses.
Among other things, he was the first to
define the modern concept of
management and of management by
objectives, as well as the role of the
knowledge worker, and he went on
writing and teaching right up to his
death in 2005.
And the reason for mentioning him
now is this. Re-reading some of his
books in the past few weeks, I’ve been
struck by how much light they shed on
the current predicament of businesses
everywhere – as well as by the
thought-provoking answers he gave to
my opening questions.
Most people today would, I think,
define businesses in some kind of
economic context, and express their
prime purpose in terms of the returns
they make for shareholders. Not
Drucker. Business enterprises, he
believed, are ‘organs of society’. They
do not exist for their own sake, but to
fulfil a specific social purpose and to
satisfy a specific need of a society, a
community, or individuals. They are not
ends in themselves, but means.
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Speech by Richard Lambert, Director
General of the CBI, at the Thames
Valley annual dinner, 11 November
2009.
Substance
Brian Eno likened it
(the Long Future) to the
story of New College
Oxford which, being
British, was actually
established in 1379 and
isn’t new at all.
The College’s Great Hall has this
fantastic arched ceiling with oak beams
across. After five hundred years, the
beams inevitably were rotting and
decaying so badly they needed to be
replaced.
So the Dean of the College asked
the groundsmen if they knew of
anywhere to source some similar
beams?
‘Oh yes’, the head groundsman said.
‘Five hundred years ago, when they built
the college’, he told the Dean, ‘the
founders planted a forest of oaks of the
same wood as the one’s used in the
ceiling just over there.’
In other words, they had had the
foresight to realise that, at a point in the
Long Future, the ceiling beams would
need replacing so they planted trees for
just such an occasion in the Long Now.
Brian Eno, Speech at Gresham
College, The Birth of the Long Now
Foundation, 1 February 2010
The Speechwriter April 2010 | Volume 03
Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild
The headline in the Racing Post of
29 December said it all:
‘Quantitativeasing Maintains Perfect
Record’. Its Newbury correspondent
reported that ‘Quantitativeasing started
as a red-hot favourite and had little
trouble maintaining his unbeaten record.
Ridden with plenty of confidence his
task was made easier when Tail of the
Bank came to grief at the second last.
His trainer said ‘I was delighted with the
way he went through that testing
ground’. Rather like the MPC, the
owners of Quantitativeasing, winner of
all three of his races in 2009, have yet
to decide how many outings he will
have in 2010. They are waiting for race
conditions to become clearer. The bold
action, taken both at home and abroad,
helped to end the collapse in
confidence and spending last year. But
equally bold action will be needed to
prevent a similar crisis from recurring.
Speech by Mervyn King, Governor of
the Bank of England, University of
Exeter, 19 January 2010
will take place on Friday 17th September 2010 at the Arts University College, Bournemouth.
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4
Banking is essential for society
Endings
because money and sex are at the heart
of everything we do.
Only marry nice men who are going
to be kind. It's fine to have dangerous,
As Jeremy Clarkson puts it: ‘Money
unpleasant, unreliable boyfriends — by
and rumpy-pumpy are the twin engines
all means have several at university —
powering everything we do.’
but don't actually marry them.
Never marry men who eat wine glasses
Jeremy Clarkson may not have
as an after-dinner stunt or have a crazy
realised how insightful this line proves
gleam of madness in their eyes.
to be but Money and Sex are the core
Because probably it is madness, and it’s
methods of controlling people and
seldom a long-term good bet.
society.
Speech by Nicholas Coleridge, MD
Money was in fact invented to
Conde Nast, to girls leaving Queen
support the world’s oldest profession:
Margaret’s School, York, July 2009
prostitution.
In Ancient Sumeria, 5,000 years
The British and the American
ago, the concept of money did not
people want a return to the days when
exist. However, by this time, the world
countries, governments and businesses
had moved from one of nomadic clan
came together in common cause, for
cultures that bartered to civilised
something larger than themselves. It’s
communities based around farming.
up to us to make this happen. It’s the
right thing to do, and our success
Farming meant that rather than
depends on it, even our survival.
scavenging for food all the time, food
could be created in abundance; but
I believe this very deeply, and that it
abundance can have its downside, as it
why I am grateful to everyone at the
caused fights over who had access to
Confederation of British Industry for
what lands, food and crops.
inviting me here today to share these
thoughts.
Therefore, there had to be a way of
controlling the community.
Speech by Jeff Kindler, Chairman and
CEO, Pfizer, The Lost Spirit of
A speech by Chris Skinner,
Common Cause, CBI, London, 23
www.thefinanser.com, Gresham
November 2009
College Are Bankers Good or Bad
for Society? 26 October 2009
The second conference of the UK Speechwriters’ Guild
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The Speechwriter April 2010 | Volume 03
Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild
Commandments
Sir Terry Leahy, Chief Executive of
Tesco, presented his Ten
Commandments for Good Management
to the Bank Management Conference,
Ledra Marriott, Athens on 18
November, 2009.
Commandment Number 1:
Find the truth
It is extremely difficult for any
institution to confront the truth. When
customers say they don’t like your
products or service, it’s tough to face
up to. Many companies filter out the
truth as they don’t want the senior
management to hear it.
This means, in the boardroom, you
can get isolated from reality in our
chauffeur driven cars and business class
flights. But you have find out the truth
of what customers think as the starting
point. Once you know where you are,
you have a compass to start charting
the course of your journey.
Commandment Number 2:
Set audacious goals
As a leader you have to vision a
better future for the company and the
bigger you can make that vision, that
goal, the more compelling. That way
you can engage the whole organisation
towards something worth fighting for.
Small incremental improvements do
not excite anyone – that’s shuffling
deckchairs on the titanic.
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Set big targets.
Ours was to beat Sainsbury, which
we did in 1997. We then went
international and into non-food, into
services like financial services, and
more. All of these were big stretch
targets and the right thing to do
because all organisations are capable of
major achievements, but most
underperform because they are too risk
averse.
As I’m in a room of bankers, and I’m
a banker, there is one caveat: the
organisation has to survive the stretch
so don’t set completely unrealistic
targets.
Commandment Number 3: Vision,
values and culture are critical
The vision of Tesco was to create
benefit for customers in order to earn
their lifetime loyalty. Our aim was to
understand customers’ lives and help
them in their lives. From that, all of our
success has flowed. In banking for
example, when do you offer the best
price to the customers? When they
open an account or as a reward for
lifetime loyalty?
Their answer was that we stand for
a firm where no-one tries harder for its
customers – we’re good at customers –
and that they wanted the company to
treat people with respect in the
business – I would like to be treated as
you would treat other people
So that’s what our culture stands
for and what we did.
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Commandment Number 4: Follow
the customer
No matter how fleet of foot your
organisation, the customer will change
direction and leave you overnight unless
you continually keep watching their
lives, needs, goals and aspirations.
As they change, change your
business to keep up with them. They
will take you in the right direction.
What are massive changes in
society begin with small changes in
customer behaviours. That’s why it’s so
important to watch the customer.
A lot of Tesco’s innovations and
leading moves, weren’t innovations or
leading moves at all. We simply stayed
close to the customers and followed
them. It just looked externally as
though we were being innovative and
risk taking, but it wasn’t.
Commandment Number 5: Create a
steering wheel
Everyone needs to feel the work
they do that day matters. And that it
matters not in a small way but to be
connected to the goals of the
organisation. So we use the balanced
scorecard but we call it the steering
wheel.
We use the five most important
things for the business: customers,
community, operations, people and
finance. We set measurements and
targets against all of those things and
every store, department and country
has a steering wheel. That means the
very large is directly connected to the
very small, and everyone can see where
they sit.
The Speechwriter April 2010 | Volume 03
Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild
Commandment Number 6:
People, process and systems
People say
it’s not the
strategy that’s
impressive
about us, but
how we
execute it.
How we do it.
It’s not difficult
to change
things so that customers can see it,
simply by aligning people, process and
systems.
So every time you want a customer
to experience it, you just need to link
these things so that the right people are
doing the right job in the right
sequence.
You can then automate it after
you’ve achieved that. Unfortunately,
most firms go straight to it and forget
to write down the work process and
flow first. They just jump to the
technology and forget how people work
in reality. We do it the other way
around.
Finally, every change we make has
to pass this test: it must be better for
the customer, simpler for the staff and
cheaper for the organisation. That’s not
a mutually exclusive approach – better,
simpler and cheaper – but an inclusive
one.
Commandment Number 7:
Lean thinking
Most think that lean thinking comes
out of Just-In-Time manufacturing in
Japan, but it can apply to anything from
retail through banking.
WWW.UKSPEECHWRITERSGUILD.CO.UK
We apply lean thinking to the complete
supply chain, and that is why we are
more productive than most.
Commandment Number 8:
Competition is good
A good competitor is the best
management consultant you will ever
get, as they will force you to act faster
and smarter. Seek out competition
therefore and put yourself up against
the best competitors. It will force you
to be a better business.
However, there is one word of
warning: don’t slavishly follow
competitors. Be your own business.
You’ve got customers for a reason –
they like your business – and don’t lose
that.
Watch and learn from competition
but keep your own identity.
Commandment Number 9:
Simple beats complex
Very often there are two courses
you can take – a solution that makes
business more complex or one that
simplifies things. Most people choose
the complex route but, as a leader, get
people to find the simpler one. Better,
simpler and cheaper. That’s the key.
Get your own people to see your
business as simple, and regulators and
customers will see it as easy too.
Commandment Number 10:
Leadership
Leadership does make a difference,
and my definition is that a leader should
take you further than you would go on
your own.
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It’s not what you do as a leader, but
what you cause other people to do.
So big organisations in order to be
effective needs thousands of leaders,
not just one.
You need to build an environment
that builds confidence in people, raises
their self-esteem and self-worth and
allows them to be leaders too
therefore.
Taken from the blog:
http://www.thefinanser.com
Edited by Chris Skinner.
Jeffrey Archer
On Friday 12 March 2010 Jeffrey
Archer spoke to the UK Speechwriters’
Guild at the Crosse Keys, Gracechurch
Street in the City of London.
Normally speakers are quite
gracious to the host. Jeffrey began by
pointing and saying: ‘I hope you’re not
in charge of the General Election’.
This was very disconcerting. He
chatted with some of the guests. Then
we got started and he said the host had
given him completely the wrong brief
and threw away his notes, saying he
was going to give a completely different
speech.
The Speechwriter April 2010 | Volume 03
Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild
He made rude remarks about the
food, the way he was welcomed and
the fact that he had been told he could
park his car at the venue, when he
couldn’t. (It was spelt out to his PA
that there was no way he could park in
the City, and it’s surprising that a
would-be Mayor was not aware of that).
When people introduced themselves in
the audience, Jeffrey took notes and
addressed them by name. He was
bombastic, saying things like: ‘I hope
there are no journalists in the audience’
and then following it with some rather
banal observation.
He moved around, he told stories
about Michael Foot, how he wrote his
novels and the candidates he was
coaching for the General Election.
He also explained how he loved the
theatre, and that was the clue to
Jeffrey’s entire performance. It was all
contrived. Every thing he did was
designed to put him at the centre of
attention.
It was a brilliant exhibition, which
everyone enjoyed immensely. It was a
privilege to see a master in action.
The Four Stages
Richard C Borden, a speech
professor at New York University,
described this formula, which is based
on the four stages of an audience
reaction to a speaker.
Ho-hum – The audience is waiting for a
reason to pay attention. Give them one!
Why bring that up? Why is this topic
important? What’s in it for the listener?
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For instance – Give examples, evidence
and tell a story, which supports your
point.
So what? What do you want them to
do about it? Be specific.
Mood Management
In him memoirs Ronald Millar, Mrs
Thatcher’s main speechwriter, explained
how writing for the Prime Minister was
a team effort. Millar's preference was
for brevity: ‘Write it tight and taut... Go
for short sentences with plenty of full
stops...Also, when possible accentuate
the positive. People don't want to be
talked into a depression, they may be
living one.’
Millar quotes Ronald Reagan's
speechwriter, Peggy Noonan: ‘All great
soundbites happen by accident.’
Writing is Rewriting
George Orwell suggested six rules to
improve one’s writing.
1) Never use a metaphor, simile or
other figure of speech which you are
used to seeing in print.
2) Never use a long word where a
short one will do.
3) If it is possible to cut a word out,
always cut it out.
4) Never use the passive where you
can use the active.
5) Never use a foreign phrase, a
scientific word or a jargon word if you
can think of an everyday English
equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than
say anything outright barbarous.
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The Art of Creative
Procrastination
(This article is adapted from a
speech delivered at a meeting of the
U.K. Speechwriters’ Guild in London on
January 8, 2010.)
American inventor Thomas Edison
once famously remarked that genius is
one percent inspiration and 99 percent
perspiration. American writer David
Feinberg once gave that quote a
humorous twist. He said that writing is
one percent perspiration, and 99
percent procrastination.
Feinberg was being facetious, but he
had a point. I’m as guilty of
procrastination as any other writer. But I
always procrastinate creatively.
To procrastinate creatively means to
enlist your subconscious. Your
subconscious mind is always working –
even while you’re asleep. So give your
subconscious mind something to work
on.
If you know you have to turn in a
speech by a certain time, begin doing
the research and collecting the raw
material for that speech immediately.
Don’t put it off. Then let your
subconscious mind work on the raw
material. If you procrastinate creatively,
the odds are very good that when you
finally sit down to write the speech,
you’ll find that your subconscious has
already done a lot of the work for you,
and you’ll make faster progress as a
result.
When you collect your raw
material, it’s a good idea to collect
more than you can possibly use, given
the time constraints of the speech.
The Speechwriter April 2010 | Volume 03
Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild
You may object that collecting more
data than you need is doing a lot of
extra work and wasting valuable time.
If you feel that way, I reply that
collecting a bit more material than you
can use takes less work than you think
and will actually save you time in the
long run.
The reason is that if you have more
material than you can use, you have an
enormous psychological advantage.
You’re concerned about how to boil
down too much material to fit the
allotted minutes of the speech. And
that is much better, psychologically
speaking, than having too little material
and trying to figure out how you’re
going to stretch it to fill up a given
number of minutes.
Also, when you’ve got too much
material, you have the luxury of picking
and choosing. You can pick the best
items to put into your speech.
If you’re a writer, and you’ve got a
surplus of raw material, it’s going to be
a lot easier for you to find something
intriguing for the opening paragraph, and
still have something good left over for
the ending.
Does this advice apply even if
you’re on a short deadline? It does
indeed.
When you’re on a tight deadline
you’re going to be tense and fearful.
And when you’re tense and fearful
you’re going to be especially prone to
creative block. So having surplus raw
material is going to be even more of a
comfort to you when you’re under
pressure. You’ll be less prone to freeze
up and you’ll be less likely to lose time
struggling to get yourself started.
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Procrastination by itself is a bad
habit and a serious waste of time.
Creative procrastination, on the other
hand, puts your subconscious mind to
work for you 24/7, and can actually
make you more productive.
Hal Gordon, who has written
speeches for the Reagan White
House, Gen. Colin Powell, and a raft
of top corporate CEOs, currently
freelances and teaches rhetoric in
Houston, TX.
He can be reached at:
 gordon.h@sbcglobal.net.
Interview with Roger
Lakin, Speechwriter at the
Department of Culture,
Media and Sport.
How did you become a professional
writer?
By realising I had no desire to
translate incomprehensible mass
spectrographs into incomprehensible
chemical formulae; or the patience to
handle toxic chemicals with sufficient
respect for my long-term health. I’m a
lapsed food scientist who spotted the
chance to escape from the lab and
write about food scandals for Which?
magazine. It helped with the transition
that I’d run the music pages for the
Leeds Student newspaper while
studying.
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How many speeches do you write in
an average week?
I don’t recall an average week.
Some it might be six or seven; quiet
weeks for events, one or two. In and
around that I’ll be drafting forewords,
articles and blogs. Parliamentary
recesses are a time for catching your
breath and catching up with other areas
of work.
How much time do you spend with
the people you write for?
The usual speechwriter’s complaint,
not enough. For the high profile
speeches I’ll get one, possibly two
meetings with the speaker and other
key contributors (press office, advisers,
officials). Then generally as much time
as I need (or the deadline allows)
one-to-one with that supporting cast.
It’s enormously helpful to be
managing the special advisers’ office as
that’s where you pick up the stories, the
policy nuances and steers on the
speaker’s personal priorities from the
day-to-day traffic of phone calls and
conversations.
How do you sharpen your skills?
By running seminars and workshops
on speechwriting for colleagues, and
contributing to events outside the
department if an opportunity arises. I’ve
relied on instinct most of my writing
life, and it’s been a revelation – a
relatively recent one – analysing what I
do in order to explain it to others. I
also blog match reports for my eldest
son’s football team – it’s refreshing to
take a few more liberties than you can
with a speech about funding for
apprenticeships.
The Speechwriter April 2010 | Volume 03
Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild
Is there such thing as a personal
style, or is the role of a speechwriter
to translate messages into the
language of public speaking?
Personal style is paramount. Rhetoric
should be used like a raising agent, to
bring out the best from the natural
ingredients.
What’s your funniest joke?
I adapted one about Mark Hughes,
the ex-Manchester City manager, and
Marcuse, the Marxist, Hegelian
philosopher, for a tribute to a retiring
arts administrator known for both his
early academic work on the Frankfurt
School and his later championing of
popular culture. It worked in the office
but didn’t make it as far as the lectern.
Who would you most like to write
for?
The Malibu Angling Times, or
Wisden (Caribbean correspondent).
Have you ever written and performed
a wedding speech? How did it go?
Twice. Once successfully, when I
took my partner’s advice and crafted
well in advance some sincere, authentic
and appropriate lines. Once
disastrously, a few years previously,
when I thought the best thing to do
would be to go out the night before
with the groom – my best mate – and
wait for the stories and the structure to
fall effortlessly into place as the
evening wore on. I woke up the next
morning face down, fully clothed
(including shoes) with no recollection
of a word we’d said – and the hangover
from hell.
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Ted Sorenson, JFK’s former
speechwriter said: ‘The boldness and
strength of a statement is in inverse
proportion to the number of people
who have to clear it.’ Is this a
problem for a Government
speechwriter?
Not so far in my experience. There
are stages in the process where a great
many people are bursting to contribute
to your speech, and are forthright about
what they believe should be said, and
how it should be said. But ultimately,
the minister is the one who stands up
and says what she or he wants to say.
Do you know any poems by heart?
No, I have the short-term memory
of a parent with two young insomniac
children. But I can recall a few first
lines:
“There was a baboon
who one afternoon,
Said, ‘I think I will fly to the sun....”
Does being in the Department for
Culture Media and Sport mean you
can be more creative and
experimental in your speechwriting?
I now have this vision of the
Secretary of State addressing the
Confederation of Boxing Clubs on the
subject of tax relief through the medium
of dance. I happen to think DCMS
territory is some of the most fascinating
in government, but good speechwriters
should be able to conjure creative
speeches from the driest of raw
material.
One of the best opening paragraphs
I’ve heard recently was written about
pensions policy by an official from the
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Dept for Work and Pensions on a
National School of Government training
course.
What’s your most useful reference
book?
I’m a great admirer of Max
Atkinson’s Lend me your ears, and
Susan Jones’ Speechmaking, and always
refer back to both when planning
seminars with colleagues. I also like to
run any new civil service jargon phrases
I come across in briefings past Roger’s
Profanisaurus to check that they’re not
already in there as a euphemism.
Have you ever written a speech for a
hostile audience?
Bizarrely, not one in over six years.
I’ve crafted speeches with passages
likely to be contentious with sections
of the audience, but not a speech for
quelling or surviving a bear pit. I was
working for Andy Burnham when he
spoke at the Hillsborough 20th
anniversary memorial at Anfield in
2008, but wasn’t involved in drafting
that speech. His words (his own) and
delivery are worth studying. As the
representative of the authorities on that
occasion he was inevitably going to be
a lightening conductor for the crowd’s
anger, but his authenticity meant that
many there were prepared to listen
what he had to say.
Credits
The Speechwriter is edited by
Brian Jenner.
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