Are these the Top Ten British speeches?

Last night, while some friends were swooning over Obama's Ebenezer church speech, we began to talk about whether such a speech could be made in Britain.

I remarked that when I wrote speeches for William Hague he used to tease me for drafting him texts that would be suitable for use on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the culmination of a million man march, when in fact he was addressing the North Western conference of the Royal Opticians' Assocation.

So do British political leaders ever have cause to make thunderous ovations?

Here is the one blogger's attempt at a top ten of British speeches:

1. Calgacus / Tacitus, speech to the Britons (85 AD).
2. Winston Churchill, “We will fight them on the beaches…” (1940).
3. Thomas Rainsborough, address to the Putney debates (1647). 
4. Queen Elizabeth I, “Heart and stomach of a king…” (1588)
5. William Gladstone, first home rule bill (1886).
6. David Lloyd-George, proposing the people’s budget (1909).
7. Oliver Cromwell, “for godsake go…” (1653).
8. Geoffrey Howe, savaged by a dead sheep (1990).
9. Earl Spencer, funeral oration for Princess Diana (1997).
10. Harold MacMillan, “wind of change…” (1960).

What has he missed?

Comments

[David Boothroyd]

Nothing from any of Disraeli's speeches that set the tone for the modern Conservative Party? That in Manchester in 1872 is one of the best. What about John Bright's frequently misquoted 1858 speech in Birmingham about reform, which contained "England is the mother of Parliaments"?

Harold Wilson's 1963 conference speech was also very effective. Then there's Tony Blair's Chicago speech of 1999, little noticed at the time.

On a negative aspect, Stanley Baldwin's apocalyptic belief that "The bomber will always get through" should be read carefully.

[Simon]

Michael Portillo, "The SAS have a motto: 'Who Dares Wins'. We dare. We will win".

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=54rhgUrzOXM

[Brussels Chris]

I suppose the speeches from before the modern era depend on who wrote them down, and such scribes were not always very reliable...

Certainly the likes of Churchill and Macmillan were far better orators than today's lot, but then television was either not around or not important for most of their careers and being able to make a speech was a prerequisite for a politician. Now I sometimes cringe when Gordon Brown and most of his ministers just rattle off statistics as if things that can be measured are the only things that matter. "Newsnight" can be pretty unedifying when their lack of intellingence is shown up by someone quick thinking like Paxman or Esler. (The worst offender here is Hazel Blears).
To the list, I would add Tony Benn (perhaps in the Iraq war debate or his 1991 speech against the Maastricht treaty) Neil Kinnock (the Llandudno "first Kinnock in a thousand generations to go to university" 1987 speech) perhaps Archbishop Runcie's sermon at the Falklands victory service and almost anything by Roy Jenkins.

We mustn't forget that a speech is all about the moment, and that words written on a page sometimes give no hint of the experience of being there when they were spoken.

[Mark Heenan]

I's have to nominate Neil Kinnock taking on Militant, if only for its bravery.

From the same era Thatcher's speech to conference following the Brighton bomb also deserves an honourable mention.

And I know Cromwell's speech is already in, but I think the reprise during the 1940 Norway debate (I forget the speaker's name) can be argued to have been even more significant.

[Bruce]

William Pitt the Younger's speech in 1792 attacking the slave-trade deserves consideration.

[Guy Shirra]

Calgacus was addressing his troops, not the British, and they must all have fallen asleep after the first sentence; move to No 11....

[Rob]

Earl Spencer's speech at Diana's funeral was little more than the bleatings of a pathetic, bitter hypocrite. It was cringeworthy, self seeking and embarrassing and doesn't deserve it's place on this list.

[kevin]

In my opinion, the finest Churchill speech was the one he gave to Parliament on the occasion of the death of Neville Chamberlain in November 1940. Moving, honest, humane, generous and brilliantly constructed, it is less well known than his more famous wartime speeches, but greater than them too.

[Tom]

Surely for political impact, this must be on the list:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G8F-4du3rQ

[Nick]

The eve of battle speech by Lt Col Tim Collins, as his troops prepared to enter Iraq in 2003, must be one of the finest, and stands comparison with Elizabeth I and Shakespeare's Henry V.
Earl Spencer has no place on this list.

[Marco]

King Henry V / William Shakespeare, "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more..."

[Nick Anstead]

As the person who came up with the list, I now feel moved to defend some of my choices (although I won't defend them that strongly, as the whole exercise is so horrendously subjective - I suspect I wouldn't choose the same top ten on any given day).

For my money, Calagcus had to be number one. I know in the narrative context of Agricola, he is addressing his troops, but when he says "To us who dwell on the uttermost confines of the earth and of freedom, this remote sanctuary of Britain's glory has up to this time been a defence", there can be no doubt that he is saying something very particular about Britain, which continued to reverberate. Indeed, that is why Churchill is number two - in many ways he follows the model that was laid out 2000 years before by Tacitus (and yes, we can have the conversation about whether a speech, never given and written by a Roman should be on the list).

Secondly, Earl Spencer is getting a lot of stick - and partially I think rightly so. I can offer two defences, one more conservative and one more radical, the latter of which actually relies on some of the criticisms made above. Firstly, the conservative one - basically, it is hard to think of a speech in the past decade or so that has impacted on the public more, that was seen by more people, and caused such controversy. Tim Collins speech might be remarkable in many ways, but it never did that. Of course, in some senses this goes back to the point I made in the original post - great speech making is sometimes created more by opportunity than by oratory skill. Spencer was given one of the greatest opportunities to make a great speech that British public life has ever offered, and - measured by many standards - he took it.

But I prefer the second defence. Calagcus and Churchill are on there because they say something profoundly good about Britain. I put Spenser in their because I thought his speech said something not so great (but still important). Here after all was a member of the British aristocracy not critiquing the royal family from below, but instead from above - and in so doing, he demonstrated the complete hypocracy and viciousness of his own class and institution, which is every bit as flawed and dysfunctional as the royal family. And then a very remarkable thing happened - everyone rose in unison to cheer this speech... they might as well have been tugging their forelocks.

So on those grounds I put it in - a great piece of oratory (technically, it was a great speech) with contents that said a great deal about class and social relationships in Britain.

[matt]

Tony Blair's speech to the TUC in 1995

Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile.

[David Ward]

You've got to go some way to beat churchill's speech aof 13 May 1940 - remember this is just after being appointed PM by the King with no election. Lots of disquiet and the house was moved from indifference to a n ovation.

http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/churchill.htm

[CLIVE BURGHARD]

Churchill, will for me, always be the greatest of them all.
He must be appaulled by the politicians of recent years, I certainly am. we have been sold down the river by countless irresponsible charlatans thinking only of themselves and caring nothing for the British People.
Regarding Churchill, one felt that he loved us as a nation, as for those we now suffer it is abundantly clear that they despise us just for wanting a Referendum as promised and a say in the running of OUR Country.

[DaveP]

May I suggest the following two speeches.
1. William Pitt's address to the Commons on the abolition of slavery.

2. The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln.

Both are not just gems, but had a profound effect, continuing right through the ages.

[Jasper Shawcross]

I cannot conceive of Maragaret Thatcher's 'The Lady's Not for Turning' speech not being included.

This speech, in the face of over 300 professional 'so-called' economists who claimed she was wrong with her policies of restricting money supply, was the economic turning point of Britain, Europe, and possibly the world.

The argument still raged at that time in the UK - and internationally - about what caused inflation, and how economic stability could be achieved (remember Heath's ridiculous 'Price and Income' policy ?!).

There were only three people at that time talking about money supply being the root of the problem. Enoch Powell, Milton Friedman, and M. Thatcher. Thatcher was the one with the political power and had the courage to push forward a new economic treatise.

It worked. The 300 economists evaporated without even an acknowledgment of their mistaken analysis. Britain today still reaps the rewards of Thatcher's economic revolution, and similar templates have been adopted owrldwide.

Central bankers were quick to see the issue, the world economy is now run by central bankers who manage money supply and control inflation.

The speech, in context, was not only incredibly courageous, it marked the commencement of a 'new economics' which continues today and which has brought enormous economic improvement to so many people.

[Louise]

What about Lord Palmerston's eloquent heartfelt parliamentary oration at the time of the Don Pacifico incident - in which he invoked the principle "Civis Romanus Sum" and applied it to Britain?
They don't make 'em like Palmerston any more (more's the pity!).

[Patrick Darcy]

Enoch Powell - Rivers of Blood

A warning ignored.

History will judge when the civil war is over.

[Chris Wigley]

One of the best opening speeches was by Barbara Castle to a pensioners rally, it started "You have committed the ultimate crime, you have lived too long........."

Whilst the written word of the speeches made by Churchill are good, I am not sure that his delivery would be seen to match this by modern tastes.

Perhaps we should also consider speeches that got it wrong, as in Chamberlain's return from Munich speech of Peace in Our Times. The crowd roared, Britain felt calmed and before very wrong the error was seen.

[Bruce]

"The crowd roared, Britain felt calmed" (Chris Wigley)

If these are the new criteria, then Delia Smith's great 'Let's be 'Aving yer' speech has to be the Number 1.

[R.Rowan]

Enoch Powell's River of Blood speech the most prophetic speech of modern times.

[Pete Brown]

Must say most of the list is a bit dismal. Pinter receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature actually said something rather than bleating or kow-towing. All those who go on about Churchill's war time speeches forgwt the tricks he got up to in his earlier days. As for anything by Neil Kinnock, well...

[David]

Rivers of blood speech. Enoch Powell.

Not about racism but the dilution of British Society and what being British is all about.

Read the speech and make you own mind up about it. Rather funny thought to end. I was talking to a friend at work who escaped from Iraq just before the war.

And guess what he was moaning about? All the polish people coming to the country with no block on the numbers.

[Gareth Davies]

Charles James Fox, house of commons 1797
"man has the fundemental right to state his opinion"

Probably more accurate now than then

[Hugh]

Interesting. Why is it that in modern history, aside from Churchill, we have to look to the United States for inspiration? It is the words of JFK, Martin Luther King, FDR or even Theodore Roosevelt that have the power to lift us out of the ordinary and everday.

And for the record, Lincoln's Gettysburg address must rate as the finest speech ever given in the English langauage. Whether standing in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington or reading from my book on the 7.59 from Berkhamsted to London Eauston his words never fail to inspire.

[Peter Mann, Northern Ireland]

One of the most most famous speeches for me has to be from former Royal Irish Regiment Colonel Tim Collins OBE at the beginning of the Iraq war. This Belfast man's speech is inspiring:

We go to liberate not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own. Show respect for them.
There are some who are alive at this moment who will not be alive shortly. Those who do not wish to go on that journey, we will not send. As for the others I expect you to rock their world. Wipe them out if that is what they choose. But if you are ferocious in battle remember to be magnanimous in victory.

[Oakville Brian]

I agree with the comments about the Calgacus' speech being addressed to Romans, and so not fitting the bill.

Churchill's speech should go to Number 1. It surely is one of the very finest examples of oration in the entire English language, rivalled only by Martin Luther King at his very best.

[zoom]

The Churchill voice making the speech heard on the video is not the one heard on the radio on 18 June 1940. That broadcast was issued on a pair of 78s by HMV at the time (Catalogue Nos JOX.34-35). It is clearly different and indeed I would suggest that what you hear on the video soundtrack is the voice of Norman Shelley, who stood in for Churchill on more than one occasion. In any case, as anyone who has the old 78s will soon confirm, this is not the speech that was broadcast at the time, where the voice is higher in range and faster in delivery. Why then wasn't the original recording used?

[Coldfusion developer]

We mustn't forget that a speech is all about the moment, and that words written on a page sometimes give no hint of the experience of being there when they were spoken.

I agree - emotion and place have a great impact on the effectiveness of the speech.

Martin Parry
BeetrootStreet Ltd
http://www.beetrootstreet.com