Twenty-five years ago in Buxton’s Pavilion Gardens, the SDP were debating a worthy paper on equality at their annual conference, when a novice speaker Ann Brennan came to the podium.
Brennan punctuated the pomposity of the discussion by making some pithy observations on the foibles of the Guardian-reading delegates and the high-falutin language used in many of the policy documents.
“The most refreshing speech we’ve heard so far”, commented Sir Robin Day wryly. In fact Mrs Brennan’s performance was not entirely spontaneous. She had received coaching from Max Atkinson, who was then an Oxford academic.
Professor Max Atkinson went on to be Paddy Ashdown’s speechwriter. But despite Max selling thousands of books, the simple techniques of speechwriting are still eschewed by the many top people in public life. Verbless sentences, meaningless phrases and jargon litter the speeches of many politicians.
You can be sure that many delegates at this year’s Liberal Democrat conference will make the mistake of focusing on what they want to say, rather than how they ought best to say it.
Speechmaking is where politics and art meets. Some of us speechwriters hope that politicians will be inspired by Obama’s example to raise their game. To this end, we have founded the UK Speechwriters’ Guild to share knowledge and raise the profile of the profession.
On the eve of the Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth this year, we have organised a speechwriting conference. Delegates will be able to hear Professor Max Atkinson in action, along with Phil Collins, former speechwriter to Tony Blair and Dr Susan Jones, a long-standing civil service speechwriter.
We’re not exclusive. Anyone with an interest in speechmaking is welcome. We’re meeting on Friday 18 September 2009 at the Arts University College, Bournemouth. For more details go to www.ukspeechwritersguild.co.uk or 01202 551257.
To see Anne Brennan’s speech see www.speaking.co.uk (.mov file).
Brian Jenner is a speechwriter.
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11 Comments
But Brian is also a rampant Tory.
Doesnt need to be a rampant SDP or Liberal Democrat for his points to be valid here. Except if he is a rampant Tory, why is he bothering to help anyone who is not of a like-minded persuasion. Odd he is even bothering to advertise it, unless there is a bit of dosh involved in those who attend.
Style over content is what he pushing here – its not the message, is the way the message is delivered that counts.
Might explain why the Tories have a 18 per cent lead in the polls ….
py
More to the point, what happened to Ann Brennan?
It costs a nice round £168 per attendee.
How much did Brian Jenner pay Lib Dem Voice for this advert?
Clearly her coaching didn’t include sticking to the time limit or how to bring a speech to a close if you are heading towards your time limit!
Thanks for posting this article, I’m really grateful.
For the record, I left the Tory Party in 2007.
I asked about a listing in the Liberal Democrat Conference brochure, and the cheapest advert was £800. Which is far too expensive for a new organisation.
I don’t think speechwriters are going to represent the unacceptable face of capitalism very soon.
If Daniel would like to come along for free to the conference as a token of gratitude to LibDem Voice, we’d be delighted to have him along.
Daniel: we’re happy to take a piece from anyone running a fringe meeting or similar at conference. There might be an issue if the piece was extremely poor or was offensive etc, but basically it’s an open invitation. We’ve publicised this in various ways in the past, including for example at the last autumn conference going round all the stalls to let people running them know. Letting our readers know more about what is going to happen at conference – and giving those who aren’t at conference a stronger flavour of what is going on – is a service that we try to provide. Hopefully well!
@Hywel: I agree. I remember walking away smugly after Vince C followed me on the podium, and dismissed the amendment I was summating. He went on to overrun, whereas I’d been comfortably to time and wound up well.
Even our most popular front bencher seems to be in need of this training.
Naturally, my speech was on the back of an envelope, and written on a mix of alcohol and caffeine 😉
“I don’t think speechwriters are going to represent the unacceptable face of capitalism very soon. ”
Blimey. You’re able to say what speechwriters will and will not represent now?
I can see why you’ve called it the Speechwriters’ Guild.
I can assure Hywel that Ann Brennan’s speech was timed at rehearsal at exactly 30 seconds less than the allotted time – to allow for possible bursts of applause. The only reason she didn’t get to the end before Shirley Williams told her that time was up was that she was applauded far more and for longer than we had expected. Faced with the dilemma of a chairperson trying to shut her up and an audience shouting for more, I also thought she did rather well in bringing it to a close with a contrast and a three-part list – especially given that it really was the first time she’d ever made a speech.
As for what happened to her, she was elected to Islington Council shortly after making the speech. After the merger between the Liberals and the SDP in 1988, she was one of the few who remained loyal to Dr Owen’s rump SDP and presumably lost her seat not long after that.
Ah, style over substance, which is exactly why the price of the course is not mentioned in the article itself, which would be, y’know, above board and honest like. Sort of how we’d like our politicians who make speeches to behave…