The Dullard’s Guide to Diplomatic Speechwriting gives an iron formula. After the opening formalities, the speaker includes a positive passage rehearsing “contact between our two countries" down the centuries.
It does not matter much which examples the speechwriter pulls from the bran tub of history. A couple of the most obvious ones give the audience a warm glow of familiarity. The ambitious speechwriter might also use one or two lesser-known examples to add variety and cast light on contemporary themes. This safe and sure opening tactic accomplished, the speech then trudges through the current agenda.
The Dullard's Guide never explains what this formula is meant to achieve other than padding out the speech in a harmless way. Yet it is impressively popular. Perhaps diplomatic speechwriters get a shimmy of excitement when they look beyond today’s bland word-processed policy and explore nooks and crannies of history.
This formulaic way of starting a speech does have modest advantages. If done well it creates context, setting today's events against the wider sweep of history. This makes the speaker and the audience feel important, part of something bigger than themselves. Later on the clever speechwriter can pick up examples from this introduction to make some unexpected points; the opening passages help with Structure. If the right historical examples are picked, subtle points are made about modern people and events that the audience spot and appreciate. All this can be obliquely flattering to local ears.
More often than not, these openings are not done well. They are eccentric, irrelevant, even meaningless—a big dollop of tasteless porridge served at the beginning of a poor meal to make it look bigger and last longer. Worst of all, they are phony. Everyone present knows that the speaker did not know this stuff, but has tasked a luckless flunky to a little research work.
We have a fine example of how not to use historical allusions in a speech. Former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband visited Warsaw in 2009. According to the official version, he began his speech thusly:
"Any British Foreign Secretary visiting Poland is deeply conscious of the history between our two countries.
"It goes back a long way. Canute, the half-Polish King of Denmark who, in 1015, invaded England, bringing with him Polish soldiers and his mother, Princess Swietoslawa, who was buried in Winchester castle…"
The Internet lets us compare this Check Against Delivery version handed out by the Foreign Office with what in fact happened when the speech was delivered. UK Speech-writing expert Max Atkinson did just this. Behold the Foreign Secretary's unease on the day when cornered into using this clumsy lump of historical speech material that was quite new to him:
"It goes back a long way. I didn’t know that Canute—er—was the half-Polish King of Denmark who, in 1015, actually invaded England, bringing with him Polish soldiers and his mother, Princess Swietoslawa, who—er—is buried—is buried—Winchester castle."
When I asked for a historical lesson from our ambassador, I did not realize it would be a pronunciation test, but it has become such. The result? Diminished intellectual content, served up with a subliminally unhappy message that Mr. Miliband had not done the minimal personal homework to deliver the material confidently. Had he looked at the draft speech on the plane to Poland to work out how best to deliver this awkward passage?
What went wrong here? It looks as if the main speechwriter in this case was familiar with the broad rhetorical clichés of policy on EU issues, but knew little about Poland or the history of UK-Polish relations. Or, indeed, about speechwriting. Perhaps the speechwriter did some Googling to see what turned up, or asked the Embassy in Warsaw for some 'lively examples' and quotable quotes from British/Polish relations down the ages. From this essentially ignorant process a few supposedly interesting examples were summarily dumped in the opening passages.
How to do it properly?
The speech could link the migration to Poland of poor Scots in the seventeenth century to the UK's decision in 2004 fully to open its labour market to Poles. It could mention the famous Welshman who became Mayor of Warsaw. This would neatly make the point for Polish and UK audiences alike that down the centuries European peoples have moved to and fro, and that today’s EU open labour markets restore earlier freedoms our citizens once enjoyed.
The speech might also thank Warsaw for naming a square after Sue Ryder, famed for her fine wartime and later charity work involving Poland and the only member of the British House of Lords whose title referred to a foreign capital. Plus the speech could praise an earlier Labour Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, for publishing official papers on the FCO's decades-long equivocations about the Katyn massacres, linking that to the positive British reviews of Andrzej Wajda's momentous film on Katyn that had recently opened in the UK.
Those references could take the speaker into a lively passage about how Europe is still grappling with the legacy of WWII, but is doing so in an open spirit of reconciliation and honest debate. Europe offers these examples to other parts of the world: the European way of reconciliation is hard and long—but it works. In short, the speechwriter should find memorable (preferably unexpected) historical references to boost the speech’s messages, not add rhetorical clutter. It is not what you say. It is what they hear. What the audience ‘heard’ Mr. Miliband saying on this occasion was this:
"Here are some boring disembodied historical examples and quotes that I have never heard of, and cannot even pronounce. My speechwriter put them in, because that is what a speechwriter does in the Foreign Office these days.
"But don't worry; I'll be through them soon…"
Another pitfall to avoid with historical allusions is inadvertently picking the wrong ones. This happens when the speaker focuses on her/his own words and does not think enough about what the audience might expect to hear, or appreciate hearing.
In 2007 as UK Ambassador in Warsaw I hosted a reception to launch a new book by John O'Sullivan describing how Pope John Paul II, U.S. President Ronald Reagan, and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher worked together to end Communism. My speech of welcome picked one or two examples from the book and praised its thesis.
A senior Polish guest at the reception had a quiet word with me afterwards to say that it had seemed strange that I had not mentioned the historic role of Lech Walesa as well.
I saw immediately that his point made sense. The Polish people praise the role-played by key Western leaders and Pope John Paul II in ending Communism, but these leaders had succeeded by supporting millions of Poles defying martial law and Moscow. Any speech made in Poland referring to those momentous days should acknowledge what the Polish people and their home-grown leaders achieved over grueling decades of principled political struggle.
Here too, Mr. Miliband’s Warsaw speech fell curiously short. It did not include any mention of Pope John Paul II. A Leftist/atheist slight? Or had the speechwriter not heard of him? A political speech about modern Europe and Poland delivered in Warsaw by a British politician that does not acknowledge the moral dimension of the end of communism in central Europe is missing something profound.
Mr. Miliband likewise did not mention the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in its 70th anniversary year. And its personal passages were coy:
"I am one of the million Britons who have Polish blood. My father's parents lived in Poland, leaving the country at the end of the First World War. My mother was born here; her life saved by those who risked theirs sheltering her from Nazi oppression. After the war, in 1946, she left the country for the UK.
"I come here with a curiosity about the place where my grandparents and my mother were born alongside an acute sense of tragedy for the terrible losses suffered during the Second World War…"
Hmm. Mr. Miliband did not mention his earlier relative who fought in the Red Army that in 1920 tried to conquer Poland and was famously defeated on the edge of Warsaw. Plus his father was a noted Marxist writer. Do we know what senior Milibands made of Soviet Communism and Poland's subordination to the Soviet Union after WWII? Did they never talk about it at home with young David and his brother Ed (now Labour Party leader)?
It is not surprising that David Miliband and his spin-doctors steered firmly around any reference to these complex and potentially controversial issues. Why open a flank of potentially withering criticism? Against that we might wonder whether the speech would had impact and authority precisely because he rose to the occasion and frankly tackled such sensitive problems.
Conclusion? There is a lot of history out there. Draw on it in a speech to reinforce key messages and insights. But do it well.
Charles Crawford was British Ambassador in Sarajevo, Belgrade and Warsaw. He is now a private presentation skills consultant and founding partner of The Ambassador Partnership, a global corporate diplomacy panel. He tweets at @charlescrawford.
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's March/April 2014 print edition.
Photo: Chatham House, London (cc).
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Bad Diplomatic Speeches: Historical and Cultural Allusions
March 27, 2014
The Dullard’s Guide to Diplomatic Speechwriting gives an iron formula. After the opening formalities, the speaker includes a positive passage rehearsing “contact between our two countries" down the centuries.
It does not matter much which examples the speechwriter pulls from the bran tub of history. A couple of the most obvious ones give the audience a warm glow of familiarity. The ambitious speechwriter might also use one or two lesser-known examples to add variety and cast light on contemporary themes. This safe and sure opening tactic accomplished, the speech then trudges through the current agenda.
The Dullard's Guide never explains what this formula is meant to achieve other than padding out the speech in a harmless way. Yet it is impressively popular. Perhaps diplomatic speechwriters get a shimmy of excitement when they look beyond today’s bland word-processed policy and explore nooks and crannies of history.
This formulaic way of starting a speech does have modest advantages. If done well it creates context, setting today's events against the wider sweep of history. This makes the speaker and the audience feel important, part of something bigger than themselves. Later on the clever speechwriter can pick up examples from this introduction to make some unexpected points; the opening passages help with Structure. If the right historical examples are picked, subtle points are made about modern people and events that the audience spot and appreciate. All this can be obliquely flattering to local ears.
More often than not, these openings are not done well. They are eccentric, irrelevant, even meaningless—a big dollop of tasteless porridge served at the beginning of a poor meal to make it look bigger and last longer. Worst of all, they are phony. Everyone present knows that the speaker did not know this stuff, but has tasked a luckless flunky to a little research work.
We have a fine example of how not to use historical allusions in a speech. Former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband visited Warsaw in 2009. According to the official version, he began his speech thusly:
"Any British Foreign Secretary visiting Poland is deeply conscious of the history between our two countries.
"It goes back a long way. Canute, the half-Polish King of Denmark who, in 1015, invaded England, bringing with him Polish soldiers and his mother, Princess Swietoslawa, who was buried in Winchester castle…"
The Internet lets us compare this Check Against Delivery version handed out by the Foreign Office with what in fact happened when the speech was delivered. UK Speech-writing expert Max Atkinson did just this. Behold the Foreign Secretary's unease on the day when cornered into using this clumsy lump of historical speech material that was quite new to him:
"It goes back a long way. I didn’t know that Canute—er—was the half-Polish King of Denmark who, in 1015, actually invaded England, bringing with him Polish soldiers and his mother, Princess Swietoslawa, who—er—is buried—is buried—Winchester castle."
When I asked for a historical lesson from our ambassador, I did not realize it would be a pronunciation test, but it has become such. The result? Diminished intellectual content, served up with a subliminally unhappy message that Mr. Miliband had not done the minimal personal homework to deliver the material confidently. Had he looked at the draft speech on the plane to Poland to work out how best to deliver this awkward passage?
What went wrong here? It looks as if the main speechwriter in this case was familiar with the broad rhetorical clichés of policy on EU issues, but knew little about Poland or the history of UK-Polish relations. Or, indeed, about speechwriting. Perhaps the speechwriter did some Googling to see what turned up, or asked the Embassy in Warsaw for some 'lively examples' and quotable quotes from British/Polish relations down the ages. From this essentially ignorant process a few supposedly interesting examples were summarily dumped in the opening passages.
How to do it properly?
The speech could link the migration to Poland of poor Scots in the seventeenth century to the UK's decision in 2004 fully to open its labour market to Poles. It could mention the famous Welshman who became Mayor of Warsaw. This would neatly make the point for Polish and UK audiences alike that down the centuries European peoples have moved to and fro, and that today’s EU open labour markets restore earlier freedoms our citizens once enjoyed.
The speech might also thank Warsaw for naming a square after Sue Ryder, famed for her fine wartime and later charity work involving Poland and the only member of the British House of Lords whose title referred to a foreign capital. Plus the speech could praise an earlier Labour Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, for publishing official papers on the FCO's decades-long equivocations about the Katyn massacres, linking that to the positive British reviews of Andrzej Wajda's momentous film on Katyn that had recently opened in the UK.
Those references could take the speaker into a lively passage about how Europe is still grappling with the legacy of WWII, but is doing so in an open spirit of reconciliation and honest debate. Europe offers these examples to other parts of the world: the European way of reconciliation is hard and long—but it works. In short, the speechwriter should find memorable (preferably unexpected) historical references to boost the speech’s messages, not add rhetorical clutter. It is not what you say. It is what they hear. What the audience ‘heard’ Mr. Miliband saying on this occasion was this:
"Here are some boring disembodied historical examples and quotes that I have never heard of, and cannot even pronounce. My speechwriter put them in, because that is what a speechwriter does in the Foreign Office these days.
"But don't worry; I'll be through them soon…"
Another pitfall to avoid with historical allusions is inadvertently picking the wrong ones. This happens when the speaker focuses on her/his own words and does not think enough about what the audience might expect to hear, or appreciate hearing.
In 2007 as UK Ambassador in Warsaw I hosted a reception to launch a new book by John O'Sullivan describing how Pope John Paul II, U.S. President Ronald Reagan, and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher worked together to end Communism. My speech of welcome picked one or two examples from the book and praised its thesis.
A senior Polish guest at the reception had a quiet word with me afterwards to say that it had seemed strange that I had not mentioned the historic role of Lech Walesa as well.
I saw immediately that his point made sense. The Polish people praise the role-played by key Western leaders and Pope John Paul II in ending Communism, but these leaders had succeeded by supporting millions of Poles defying martial law and Moscow. Any speech made in Poland referring to those momentous days should acknowledge what the Polish people and their home-grown leaders achieved over grueling decades of principled political struggle.
Here too, Mr. Miliband’s Warsaw speech fell curiously short. It did not include any mention of Pope John Paul II. A Leftist/atheist slight? Or had the speechwriter not heard of him? A political speech about modern Europe and Poland delivered in Warsaw by a British politician that does not acknowledge the moral dimension of the end of communism in central Europe is missing something profound.
Mr. Miliband likewise did not mention the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in its 70th anniversary year. And its personal passages were coy:
"I am one of the million Britons who have Polish blood. My father's parents lived in Poland, leaving the country at the end of the First World War. My mother was born here; her life saved by those who risked theirs sheltering her from Nazi oppression. After the war, in 1946, she left the country for the UK.
"I come here with a curiosity about the place where my grandparents and my mother were born alongside an acute sense of tragedy for the terrible losses suffered during the Second World War…"
Hmm. Mr. Miliband did not mention his earlier relative who fought in the Red Army that in 1920 tried to conquer Poland and was famously defeated on the edge of Warsaw. Plus his father was a noted Marxist writer. Do we know what senior Milibands made of Soviet Communism and Poland's subordination to the Soviet Union after WWII? Did they never talk about it at home with young David and his brother Ed (now Labour Party leader)?
It is not surprising that David Miliband and his spin-doctors steered firmly around any reference to these complex and potentially controversial issues. Why open a flank of potentially withering criticism? Against that we might wonder whether the speech would had impact and authority precisely because he rose to the occasion and frankly tackled such sensitive problems.
Conclusion? There is a lot of history out there. Draw on it in a speech to reinforce key messages and insights. But do it well.
Charles Crawford was British Ambassador in Sarajevo, Belgrade and Warsaw. He is now a private presentation skills consultant and founding partner of The Ambassador Partnership, a global corporate diplomacy panel. He tweets at @charlescrawford.
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's March/April 2014 print edition.
Photo: Chatham House, London (cc).
