No Drama: The Toughest Task For Tony Blair's Speech.
29 Sep 03

At his Party Conference this year, Tony Blair must break the habit of a lifetime. He should give a speech, not a performance.

His overwhelming priority is to restore trust in himself, both from his party in the Conference centre and from the wider public. It is far more important to him now to be believed than to be applauded.

The second major task of his speech is to make people believe that he and the government listen to their concerns. Again this applies both to the people in front of him and the bigger audience he reaches through the media. Tony Blair has always tended to treat his party like the guests in Fawlty Towers – unreasonable, ungrateful complainers who simply do not understand the responsibilities of running a hotel. But lately he has started to treat the wider public in the same way. He must show his party and the public that he takes their doubts and complaints seriously: they may be misplaced, but they are not perverse.

That does not mean that he should confess his mistakes and beg for forgiveness (although that approach did no harm to Stanley Baldwin or Willie Whitelaw). But he should show the British people that they can expect (even) better government in the coming years – with changes in personnel, in methods, in content – and in results.

All of these priorities should lead him to make a very plain speech, without conscious drama or rhetorical flourishes. He should make no jokes, not even good ones. He should cut out those awful verbless sentences, with their fake sense of urgency. Above all, he should deliver no soundbites. However brilliant they are, they now create more distrust than inspiration. This year’s speech must be free of all additives and artificial ingredients. All the excitement should be in the content.

This year’s speech should be very short. Thirty minutes would be a good target. His usual aim, in his own phrase, is to "cover the waterfront" – to say something about every aspect of domestic and foreign policy. This year he should talk only about things that matter and say only what he wants people to remember.

All irrelevant material must go. That includes any reference to the opposition parties. The only thing that matters to people is how he, Tony Blair, intends to govern the country, and that is what he should tell them, in very clear and specific terms.

That means, above all, that he should cut out all those vague, high-sounding phrases like "Third Way" or "stakeholder society" or "young country" which fill up his speeches like wet cardboard clogging a dustbin.

He should cut out any mawkish references to children, his own or anyone else’s. He should cut out any attempt to present himself as an ordinary bloke, doing the best job he can. He is not an ordinary bloke and we all know it. Indeed, this year’s speech should make no special claims for his personality – it should give people a picture of what is going to happen to them and their country, not any manufactured images of himself.

Propelled by its content, every section of this speech should create a hard news story. He will have plenty of advice on what those stories should be. My personal choices would be first, "Blair admits September dossier mistaken", second "Blair promises referendum on EU constitution", third "Blair promises bonfire of targets in public services". All of these have three properties in common: they are right, they show recognition of public concerns, and they would take the country by surprise.

A speech of this kind may sound flat and look dull on the printed page. However it will save his Premiership. It will not earn him a mention in any books of great speeches, but it might give him the place he craves in the books of modern history.

Richard Heller is a professional speechwriter and the author of High Impact Speeches, published by Prentice Hall Business at £14.99. For more information or to purchase click here.

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