Max Atkinson has picked up my comment as posted on his site about what makes a speech memorable and had a look at the famous speech by Sir Geoffrey Howe seen as a pivotal moment in the events which led to Mrs Thatcher’s resignation as Prime Minister. He asked if I knew about the role of Elspeth Howe in its drafting.

Here is the further comment I have posted in response:

Thank you for the link.

This was not one of mine. By then I was at the Embassy in South Africa grappling to end apartheid and Geoffrey Howe was no longer Foreign Secretary. I have no idea if Elspeth Howe contributed to it, but she is a feisty woman and no doubt would have had privileged opportunities to make her views known to her husband…

The full text of the Howe speech is here: https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199091/cmhansrd/1990-11-13/Debate-1.html#Debate-1_head1

It reads very much like his own work – careful and measured to a fault. Apart from the rather clunky cricket metaphor, it is in itself fairly unmemorable as a piece of rhetoric (see eg the warm words for the UK joining the ERM, which did not work out so well).

It nonetheless achieved its legendary status not for what it ‘said’, but for what it did – namely signal head-on an irreversible dissatisfaction with Mrs Thatcher from one of her previously most loyal colleagues, and so from the heart of her own ranks. It opened the way to her speedy downfall.

It achieved that by attacking Mrs Thatcher and her approach to Europe in a firm, principled but also impeccably honourable Hovian understated way.

Which perhaps is why it was so devastating in its unique way, as a more explicit/’obvious’ and/or insulting attack by Sir Geoffrey could have been dismissed as uncharacteristic, unconvincing petulance.

See the contrast between the Dan Hannan go at Gordon Brown and the other UKIP EP speech by Nigel Farage which UKIP are now busy pushing out as per the comment here above. Which is better and has more impact if you are a student of speechwriting? The more spontaneous, vehement Farage club? Or the more mannered but deft Hannan rapier?

All this reinforces the point in that terrific book on communication by Frank Luntz. ‘Words that Work’: "it’s not what you say – it’s what they hear".

And, more, what they remember?