Should politicians be making more speeches and taking part in fewer interviews?
Public speaking expert, Dr Max Atkinson, will explain why making speeches is a much more effective way to communicate messages than taking part in interviews, because broadcast interviews seldom deliver anything but bad news for politicians.
He will expound the ‘snakes and ladders theory of political communication’ when he delivers the UK Speechwriters’ Guild Christmas lecture on Thursday 8 December at the School of Life, 70 Marchmont Streeet, in Bloomsbury.
By David Greatbatch and Timothy Clark
Published by Routledge, (156 pages)
ISBN 041530623X, £29.99
This book is a laconic, but rather devastating academic analysis of how business gurus ply their trade. Part of me thinks there may be a streak of envy in all this because academics are notoriously poor communicators. All the same the authors dissect how the gurus work their magic. They tell rather banal stories, they avoid criticising the audience directly, they make everyone laugh and they craft tales which paint themselves as being at the cutting edge.
Stuart Mole is a freelance speechwriter and consultant. He is a former Director-General of the Royal Commonwealth Society and a former Director of the Secretary-General’s Office in the Commonwealth Secretariat.
What was the first speech you wrote for somebody else?
My guess it was when I was appointed the Parliamentary Press Officer of the Liberal Party back in 1975. My first draft was for Clement Freud, then MP for the Isle of Ely. He did the jokes and I inserted the party policy. I am not sure it was the ideal way to write speeches. Read more
