Author Archives: Max Atikinson

Last call for entries: Speechwriting competition – can the right words fend off protestors?

Writing speeches with Paddy Ashdown sometimes happened at difficult times, like when we’d spent weeks preparing his announcement that he would run for the leadership in 1988 – only for it to dawn on us that we’d have to produce another one for the next day, then another, followed by almost a speech a day for the next three weeks.

Nor was it much fun when the party was at 4% in the opinion polls or, and this was probably the most difficult one of all, working on his first speech as High Representative to the parliament of Bosnia Herzegovina.

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