February 2013 | Volume 11

The Speechwriter
EUROPEAN
Newsletter of the UK Speechwriters' Guild incorporating
SPEECHWRITER
NETWORK

MASTERCLASS by Garr Reynolds

Welcome
Welcome to the eleventh
edition of The Speechwriter
newsletter. The purpose of
this publication is to circulate
examples of excellent speeches to
members of the UK Speechwriters’
Guild. We do this by picking out
openings, closings, one-liners
and quotations and other topical
extracts from newspapers and the
internet to identify techniques,
stimulate your imagination and
provide models which you can
emulate.
This newsletter appears
quarterly and is available to
anyone who is a Standard
Member of the UK Speechwriters’
Guild or the European
Speechwriter Network.
Contribute
Every quarter we award
the Demosthenes Pebble (£25
Amazon token) for an outstanding
speech. Please send your
speeches to:
8 info@ukspeechwritersguild.co.uk
P resentation guru, Garr
Reynolds, uses analogies
with Japanese aesthetics and Zen
philosophy to give clarity to his
principles of creating effective slides
and talks. His mantra is: restraint
in preparation, simplicity in design
and naturalness in delivery. He
describes how to use his techniques
in his books Presentation Zen and
Presentation Zen Design.
Dakara Nani?
So what? At every stage in the
presentation, put your feet in the
shoes of the audience and ask what
the point is you’re making, and why
it matters.
Kanso
Reynolds quotes the architect Dr
Koichi Kawana, ‘Simplicity means the
achievement of the maximum effect
with the minimum of means.’ That
means elimination of the ornate, the
florid and the over-embellished.
Shizen
Shizen has about it a sense
of artlessness and an absence of
pretence or artificiality. It’s easy to
pack information onto slides but
Reynolds says, ‘Restraint is a beautiful
thing but…hard.’
Shibumi
This means simple, subtle
and unobtrusive beauty. Guy
Kawasaki says in the introduction
to Presentation Zen we want: short,
simple, legible, engaging.
Wabi-Sabi
The acceptance of transience
and imperfection. Wabi-Sabi says:
nothing lasts, nothing is finished
and nothing is perfect. Wabi means
poverty or lacking material wealth,
but at the same time feeling freed
from worldly things.
Hara Hachi Bu
Eat only till 80% full. A Japanese
proverb says: “eight parts of a full
stomach sustain the man; the other
two sustain the doctor”.
As applied to presentations, it
means leave them wanting more.

W W W. U K S P E E C H W R I T E R S G U I L D . C O . U K • INFO@UKSPEECHWRITERSGUILD.CO.UK
The Speechwriter February 2013 | Volume 11 2

Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild

BOOK REVIEWS speakers can achieve with their

Alan Barker reviews
two essential books
for speechwriters.
He will be running
a workshop at the
UK Speechwriters’ Guild spring
conference in London.
audiences’. At the base of the
staircase is ‘Inform’; we progress
through ‘Create understanding’.
‘Reinforce values’ and ‘Change
attitudes’ to the ultimate purpose:
‘Elicit action’.
Dean hangs a good deal of his
material on this hierarchy, although
I remained uncertain by the end of
the book whether this was indeed a
necessary structural sequence or a
typology from which a speechwriter
can simply choose.
the final chapters, outlining the
actual job spec of a professional
speechwriter: not merely a
wordsmith, but counsellor, coach,
fashion consultant and event
manager. A primer this may be, but
there’s enough real wisdom here to
make it a worthwhile read for the
seasoned speechwriter as much as
for the rookie.

After purpose comes structure.

It’s good to see Monroe’s
motivational sequence given a good
airing; the model’s hardly new, but
it’s robust and deserves to be better
known. When it comes to style, Dean
once more supplements the usual
advice with insight. Words should be
crisp and simple, but amplification
and repetition are essential tools in
building the audience’s recall.

Dean is good, also, on stories. He

10 Steps to Writing a
Vital Speech
by Fletcher Dean
Vital Speeches of the Day, 2011
F letcher Dean introduces his
book as “a primer on how to
write a speech”. And, as a primer, it
works extremely well. Dean knows
the worlds of both political and
corporate speechwriting. He takes a
pragmatic view of the speechwriter’s
job. He’s not afraid to tackle the fuzzy
areas: the relationship between script
and notes; the fraught question of
Powerpoint; and most importantly,
the relationship between
scriptwriters and their principals.
Dean’s first command is to know
the audience. What, above all, do
you want them to do after listening
to the speech? Although the early
chapters are somewhat checklist-
heavy, Dean’s take is refreshing. At
the heart of his approach is what he
calls the Communication Hierarchy:
five ‘communication possibilities
justifies their use wisely and with
ample references, and it’s typical
of the book that we’re suddenly
presented with a nugget of real
wisdom: don’t put stories at the end
of a speech, just when the audience
is wanting you to wind up.
The book’s packed with quotes,
none more welcome than Isocrates’
famous dictum that “in all our actions
as well as our thoughts speech is our
guide”. And Dean uses real speeches
to good effect (though I could have
done with a little less of MacArthur’s
1962 prolonged West Point oration).
He even manages to offer some
new ideas on Powerpoint. I shall be
checking out the Takahashi, Lessig,
Monta and Kawasaki methods
of slide design; and I like Dean’s
suggestion to place the lectern to the
left of the screen because audiences
read from left to right.
Nowhere is Dean’s good sense
displayed more humanely than in
Winning Arguments
by Jay Heinrichs
Penguin, 2011
J ay Heinrichs is my kind of
intellectual. After 26 years in
publishing, he headed for the wilds
of New Hampshire and devoted him-
self to writing. He resolutely avoids
academia; in a scathing article, he
castigates Harvard for systematically
downgrading rhetoric as a subject of
serious study over the last 200 years.
According to his Businessweek
profile, he starts every day at 4.30
with a strenuous workout and up-
dates his websites before kissing his
wife goodbye at 6.30 and walking or
skiing to work in his log cabin office.
He’s regularly hired by global corpo-
rations and sells ‘Talk Me Into It’ dog
t-shirts on his ‘junk site’ for $18.99.

W W W. U K S P E E C H W R I T E R S G U I L D . C O . U K • INFO@UKSPEECHWRITERSGUILD.CO.UK
The Speechwriter February 2013 | Volume 11
Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild
You do have to get through the
lifestyle. And there is a fair amount
of it in Winning Arguments. Persist,
however, and you discover a serious,
knowledgeable, practical thinker.
The new title (the original title
was Thank You for Arguing) is a tad
misleading. Heinrich’s central tenet
is that argument isn’t about scoring
points but about seduction: making
the other person desire what you
desire. “You fight to win,” he writes;
“you argue to achieve agreement.”
His book is a guide to arguing as a
consensual act. (Heinrichs is really
good on consensus.)
This is a rhetoric textbook
for people who might not read
textbooks. Everything’s here,
presented with flair and – somewhat
relentless – humour. Heinrichs takes
all the elements of the dark art and
illuminates them with vivid examples
and catchy language.
It’s quite an achievement. Take
the genera causarum. These are the
three branches of classical rhetoric:
forensic (the rhetoric of the court
room); epideictic (eulogies and
suchlike); and deliberative (rhetoric
of the political assembly). Heinrichs
drags this recalcitrant material
kicking and screaming into the real
world. What’s the issue?, he asks. All
issues boil down to three: blame
(that’s judicial), values (epideictic)
and choice (deliberative). Each has
its own tense: blame uses the past,
values the present and choice the
future. His advice? “If you find an
argument spinning out of control, try
switching the tense.” And lo! Fusty
rhetorical theory becomes instantly
applicable.
This is not dumbing down. For all
his self-deprecating facetiousness,
Heinrich clearly knows his stuff and
steadfastly resists the simplistic.
His book handsomely repays re-
reading, with plenty of explicatory
margin notes, pointers to aid further
study, and summaries revealing
the nuggets of wisdom beneath
W W W. U K S P E E C H W R I T E R S G U I L D . C O . U K
the anecdotery. (I trust he would
approve my anthimeria.)
Above all, he understands the
provisional nature of rhetorical
argument: its aim is always to find
agreement about what can never be
proved, which puts it at the heart of
any healthy democratic polity.
Heinrich’s purpose in all this is to
evangelise for rhetoric as a civilising
discipline. “Our tribal mindset,” he
writes, “has destroyed what little faith
we had in deliberative debate.” (He’s
referring to the US, of course, but
the picture is all too recognisable
in Europe.) “Even as individuals, we
think so little of argument that we
outsource it.”
Remove the seductive power
of rhetoric, and conflict escalates
into violence. “Incivility smoulders
all around us”; increased levels
of invective betray “a collapse of
faith in persuasion and consensus.”
“It’s time,” he concludes, “to revive
the founders’ original republican
experiment and create a new corps
of rhetorically-educated citizens.”
Winning Arguments is a powerful
tool in that experiment; and if his
project benefits from the sale of ‘Audi
alteram partem’ wall clocks ($11.99), I
for one am not complaining.
POST-ITS
M y essential piece
of equipment
when I wrote speeches
for Tony Blair was
a Post-it Note. Ted
Sorensen, JFK’s writer, once told me
that if you can’t get the basic point
on to a Post-It Note, then you don’t
know what it is. And if you don’t
know what the basic point is, then it’s
not your words that are blocked, it’s
your brain.
Philip Collins, The Times, 21/12/2012.
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3
RHETORBORES
A regular column giving extracts
of unintelligible speeches delivered by
key public figures - please send in your
examples.
I would like to talk to you about
economic modelling and
policy analysis with a particular
reference to limitations of analysis
based round the concept of a
representative agent. I will do this by
focusing on models which represent
the economy as a collection of
individual households in different
circumstances and their use to
address important policy questions
Even if they do not provide all the
answers to the questions we might
wish to ask, they have the prospect
of being able to help policy-makers
come to informed decisions and
understand the pressures that they
face.
I would like to describe the
way in which such models can be
used to address a heterogeneous
range of topics: the effects of credit
constraints and fears about credit
availability, tax structure, social
security and pension arrangements,
and influences on the take-up of
education by mature students.
From a speech Household
behaviour and policy analysis – by
Martin Weale, External Member
of the Monetary Policy Committee
(MPC), Bank of England, delivered
at the New Zealand Economists’
Network 2nd Annual Conference,
2012.
The Speechwriter February 2013 | Volume 11
Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild
TRENDS, TECHNIQUES AND TIPS
by Ian Griffin,
speechwriter
and blogger at
Professionally
Speaking.
1: CEOs need a confident confidant
Sitting in meetings at major Silicon
Valley companies such as Sun
Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and
Cisco, I’m often the only person in
the room without a few thousand
people reporting to them or a multi-
billion dollar target to meet. As the
speechwriter, I’m the one person
in the room the CEO can turn to
without an agenda of my own to
advance. A CEO once told me “Ian,
it’s lonely at the top. I’ve seen every
scam that managers can pull to cover
their rear ends. I need someone like
you who can tell it like it is.”
Key Lesson: Speechwriters with the
confidence to speak up become the
trusted advisor of a senior executive.
2: Be an impartial observer
I was once brought in to edit an
Annual Report for a European client
with four separate divisions. My
role was to resolve the different
viewpoints of each group. The VP of
Communications needed an outside
consultant with the independence
required to be able to write a
cohesive document. Executive
communications professionals are in
a unique position to be an impartial
observer in large organisations
with multiple departments and
competing interests.
Key Lesson: Take the initiative and
tell the truth, no matter what certain
executives want to hear. But don’t
take sides within a company. We
need to keep lines of communication
open to all parties.
3: Take complexity out
A speechwriter is a jack-of-all-trades,
master of none. But that’s our hidden
value to a company. It’s my job to
W W W. U K S P E E C H W R I T E R S G U I L D . C O . U K
know a little bit about everything the
company does, and who to talk to
when I need details. But lack of detail
is rarely an issue. Time and again,
I’ve asked SMEs for the background
information needed for five minutes
of a speech only to be given enough
data for a two-day seminar. My job
is to take the complexity out–to find
a way to communicate the message
without putting the audience to
sleep.
Key Lesson: Learn to simplify. Only
include what is necessary to convey
what is essential. As Einstein said
“Everything should be made as simple
as possible, but not simpler.”
4: Tell compelling stories
People may not remember what
you did or said, but they will always
remember how you made them
feel. Audiences forget facts, but they
remember stories. Once you get
past the jargon, the corporate world
is an endless source of fascinating
stories. I’ve found the best source of
great stories for speeches come from
informal chats when you are sitting
down over coffee or, as I did one
memorable afternoon, sharing a beer
and pizza with the CEO in Boston’s
North End. We talked about our
time there as students. He shared a
story about the lessons he’d learned
outside the Harvard classroom that I
used in a future speech.
Key Lesson: Always listen for stories
executives tell about their childhood,
family life, hobbies, early career and
more.
5: Embrace multimedia
The one-hour keynote is an
endangered species. Conference
organisers know audiences have
short attention spans. Given
travel budget restrictions, many
organisations are turning to virtual
meetings. Executives now need to
feel comfortable on camera as well as
on the podium.
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4
These days it’s not enough to write
clever speeches, you need to keep
current with the latest in multimedia
technology.
Key Lesson: Digital media expands
the boundaries of executive
communications.
6: Open up the backchannel
The audience is no longer silent.
They might look like they are sitting
quietly, but a raging debate on what
Cliff Atkinson called The Backchannel
can occur within and beyond the
confines of the presentation venue.
I’m amazed at the resistance some
speakers have to this. My experience
curating Twitter hashtags for specific
events shows that there’s a rapidly
emerging opportunity to magnify
the impact of a speech and increase
the reach beyond the walls of the
auditorium.
Key Lesson: Make sure your
executive has a Twitter account and
use it for shameless self-promotion
and to stimulate a lively debate
before, during and after each
presentation they make.
7: Learn to ask the right questions
Our role is to ask what headline the
CEO wants the speech to produce, to
find out the audience’s hot buttons,
and to uncover the unique point of
view the speaker brings to the issue.
If there’s one lesson I’ve taken away
from the work I’ve done for clients,
it’s to always be ready to ask “Why is
that?” when they suggest points they
want to make in a speech. When they
give an answer, have the courage
to ask the same question again. It’s
often only after they answer for the
third time that the core of the speech
is revealed.
Key Lesson: Don’t hurry to get
to a final draft. Be professional and
respect deadlines, but keep asking
questions until you reach an answer
that will make the audience sit up
and take notice.
The Speechwriter February 2013 | Volume 11
Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild
THE EU WINS THE NOBEL PRIZE
Y our Majesties, Your Royal
Highnesses, Heads of State
and Government, Members of
the Norwegian Nobel Committee,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.
It is with humility and gratitude
that we stand here together, to
receive this award on behalf of the
European Union.
At a time of uncertainty, this day
reminds people across Europe and
the world of the Union’s fundamental
purpose: to further the fraternity
between European nations, now and
in the future.
It is our work today. It has been
the work of generations before us.
And it will be the work of generations
after us.
Here in Oslo, I want to pay
homage to all the Europeans who
dreamt of a continent at peace with
itself, and to all those who day by day
make this dream a reality. This award
belongs to them.
War is as old as Europe. Our
continent bears the scars of spears
and swords, canons and guns,
trenches and tanks, and more.
The tragedy of it all resonates in
the words of Herodotus, 25 centuries
ago: “In peace, sons bury their
fathers. In war, fathers bury their
sons.”
Yet, after two terrible wars
engulfed the continent and the
world with it, finally lasting peace
came to Europe.
In those grey days, its cities
were in ruins, the hearts of many
still simmering with mourning and
resentment. How difficult it then
seemed, as Winston Churchill said,
“to regain the simple joys and hopes
that make life worth living”.
W W W. U K S P E E C H W R I T E R S G U I L D . C O . U K
As a child born in Belgium just
after the war, I heard the stories
first-hand. My grandmother spoke
about the Great War. In 1940, my
father, then seventeen, had to dig his
own grave. He got away; otherwise I
would not be here today.
So what a bold bet it was, for
Europe’s Founders, to say, yes, we
can break this endless cycle of
violence, we can stop the logic of
vengeance, we can build a brighter
future, together. What power of the
imagination.
Of course, peace might have
come to Europe without the Union.
Maybe. We will never know. But it
would never have been of the same
quality. A lasting peace, not a frosty
cease-fire. To me, what makes it so
special, is reconciliation.
In politics as in life, reconciliation
is the most difficult thing. It goes
beyond forgiving and forgetting, or
simply turning the page.
To think of what France and
Germany had gone through, and
then take this step. Signing a Treaty
of Friendship. Each time I hear these
words – Freundschaft, Amitié –, I am
moved. They are private words, not
for treaties between nations.
But the will to not let history
repeat itself, to do something
radically new, was so strong that new
words had to be found. For people
Europe was a promise, Europe
equalled hope.
When Konrad Adenauer came to
Paris to conclude the Coal and Steel
Treaty, in 1951, one evening he found
a gift waiting at his hotel. It was a
war medal, une Croix de Guerre, that
had belonged to a French soldier. His
daughter, a young student, had left
it with a little note for the Chancellor,
as a gesture of reconciliation and
hope.
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I can see many other stirring
images before me. Leaders of six
States assembled to open a new
future, in Rome, città eterna. Willy
Brandt kneeling down in Warsaw. The
dockers of Gdansk, at the gates of
their shipyard. Mitterrand and Kohl
hand in hand. Two million people
linking Tallinn to Riga to Vilnius
in a human chain, in 1989. These
moments healed Europe.
But symbolic gestures alone
cannot cement peace. This is where
the European Union’s “secret weapon”
comes into play: an unrivalled way of
binding our interests so tightly that
war becomes materially impossible.
Through constant negotiations, on
ever more topics, between ever more
countries.
It’s the golden rule of Jean
Monnet: “Mieux vaut se disputer
autour d’une table que sur un champ
de bataille.” (“Better fight around a
table than on a battle-field.”) If I had
to explain it to Alfred Nobel, I would
say: not just a peace congress, a
perpetual peace congress!
Admittedly, some aspects can be
puzzling, and not only to outsiders.
Ministers from landlocked countries
passionately discussing fish-
quota. Europarlementarians from
Scandinavia debating the price of
olive oil. The Union has perfected the
art of compromise.
No drama of victory or defeat,
but ensuring all countries emerge
victorious from talks. For this, boring
politics is only a small price to pay.
It worked. Peace is now self-evident.
War has become inconceivable.
Yet ‘inconceivable’ does not mean
‘impossible’.
And that is why we are gathered
here today. Europe must keep its
promise of peace. I believe this is still
our Union’s ultimate purpose. But
Europe can no longer rely on this
promise alone to inspire citizens.
The Speechwriter February 2013 | Volume 11
Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild
In a way, it’s a good thing; war-
time memories are fading. Even
if not yet everywhere. Soviet rule
over Eastern Europe ended just two
decades ago. Horrendous massacres
took place in the Balkans shortly
after. The children born at the time
of Srebrenica will only turn eighteen
next year. But they already have little
brothers and sisters born after that
war: the first real post-war generation
of Europe. This must remain so.
So, where there was war, there is
now peace. But another historic task
now lies ahead of us: keeping peace
where there is peace.
After all, history is not a novel,
a book we can close after a Happy
Ending: we remain fully responsible
for what is yet to come.
This couldn’t be more clear than it
is today, when we are hit by the worst
economic crisis in two generations,
causing great hardship among our
people, and putting the political
bonds of our Union to the test.
Parents struggling to make ends
meet, workers recently laid off,
students who fear that, however hard
they try, they won’t get that first job:
when they think about Europe, peace
is not the first thing that comes to
mind…
When prosperity and
employment, the bedrock of our
societies, appear threatened, it is
natural to see a hardening of hearts,
the narrowing of interests, even
the return of long-forgotten fault-
lines and stereotypes. For some, not
only joint decisions, but the very
fact of deciding jointly, may come
into doubt. And while we must
keep a sense of proportion – even
such tensions don’t take us back to
the darkness of the past –, the test
Europe is currently facing is real.
If I can borrow the words of
Abraham Lincoln at the time of
another continental test, what is
W W W. U K S P E E C H W R I T E R S G U I L D . C O . U K
being assessed today is “whether that
Union, or any Union so conceived and
so dedicated, can long endure”.
We answer with our deeds,
confident we will succeed. We are
working very hard to overcome
the difficulties, to restore growth
and jobs. There is of course sheer
necessity. But there is more that
guides us: the will to remain masters
of our own destiny, a sense of
togetherness, and in a way speaking
to us from the centuries, the idea of
Europa itself.
The presence of so many
European leaders here today
underlines our common conviction:
that we will come out of this
together, and stronger. Strong
enough in the world to defend our
interests and promote our values. We
all work to leave a better Europe for
the children of today and those of
tomorrow. So that, later, others might
turn and judge: that generation, ours,
preserved the promise of Europe.
Today’s youth is already living in a
new world. For them Europe is a daily
reality. Not the constraint of being
in the same boat. No, the richness
of being able to freely share, travel
and exchange. To share and shape a
continent, experiences, a future.
Our continent, risen from the
ashes after 1945 and united in 1989,
has a great capacity to reinvent
itself. It is to the next generations
to take this common adventure
further. I hope they will seize this
responsibility with pride. And that
they will be able to say, as we here
today: Ich bin ein Europäer. Je suis
fier d’être européen. I am proud to be
European.
“From war to peace: a European
tale”, Nobel Peace Prize Lecture
on behalf of the European Union,
Herman Van Rompuy, President
of the European Council, Oslo, 10
December 2012.
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6
RORY SUTHERLAND
IS BUSINESS
COMMUNICATOR OF
THE YEAR 2013
R
ory Sutherland, Vice Chairman
of Ogilvy, the advertising
agency, is the UK Speechwriters’
Guild Business Communicator of the
Year 2013.
The award is made to the most
outstanding public speaker in
business over the past 12 months.
Last year’s winner was Gillian Tett, the
financial journalist, the year before
that it was Geoff Burch, the author
and motivational speaker. In 2009
the winner was Sir Martin Broughton,
Chairman of British Airways.
The citation from the judges
said: “Mr Sutherland‘s good
example (which can be viewed
on many YouTube clips) illustrates
how wasteful it is to try to engage
audiences with Excel spreadsheets
and complex PowerPoint slides. He
spreads optimism with insights like,
‘recession is the mother of invention’
and ‘human understanding is the
future of business and Government’.
These are the kind of sentiments
that entertain audiences. Business
leaders like Mr Sutherland, who can
inspire audiences to try new things,
will ultimately lead the way out of
recession.”
The Speechwriter February 2013 | Volume 11
Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild
UK SPEECHWRITERS’ GUILD LAUNCHES
EUROPEAN SPEECHWRITER NETWORK
T he founders of the UK
Speechwriters’ Guild have
officially launched the European
Speechwriter Network.
The new website can be found at
www.europeanspeechwriters.org
Brian Jenner, the organiser, said:
“Since the accession of the Baltic
states and the Eastern European
states, English has cemented its place
as the lingua franca of the EU.
“The European Speechwriter
Network will bring together those
specialists who write speeches in
English for their bosses, even if
DEALING WITH DIFFICULT CLIENTS by William Cohen
E arlier this year, a man
of considerable wealth,
domiciled abroad, contacted me
to say he wanted a speech for his
60th birthday. He had completed
the renovation of a house in
central London and was planning a
combined celebration.
“I just want a five minute speech
he says to deliver in front of a dozen
friends and family in my house in
London.”
I told him I would have to
interview him and I quoted him a fee.
Any landmark birthday is going
to be an emotional occasion.
It’s a moment to take stock. Like
Christmas, it’s supposed to be a
happy occasion, but like Christmas, it
can expose uncomfortable truths. If
I’m looking for good material for the
speech, I’ve got to dig a little.
My first questions was: ‘Who do
you want to thank?’
W W W. U K S P E E C H W R I T E R S G U I L D . C O . U K
English is not their native language.”
In a visit to Brussels in January,
Brian Jenner met with speechwriters
to discuss an inaugural conference in
Brussels in September 2013.
“We’ve had a number of Dutch,
Danish and German speechwriters
come to our conferences over
the past few years, so the new
organisation reflects the ‘pan-
European’ scope of the role these
days.
“The European Commission
is quite open about its use of
professional speechwriters.
This is an open questions which
can lead to discussion of parents,
wives and children. ‘Nobody’.
I sensed then this was going to be
a difficult client. When I give talks on
how to do social speeches, I suggest
a technique I found in a book by
the psychotherapist Irvin Yalom.
He advocates an exercise called
‘rippling’: acknowledging those
people who have influenced your life.
All too often we wait until a
person is dead before we tell them
what we appreciated about them:
Yalom says identify those people
who have helped to shape your life
and write a letter to express your
gratitude. He goes further and says
rather than waiting until their funeral,
arrange a ‘gratitude’ visit to that
person, and read your letter out.
So much for the exercise. Why is it
relevant for speechwriting? Giving a
wedding speech or a birthday speech
needs to start with appreciation - for
two reasons.
• INFO@UKSPEECHWRITERSGUILD.CO.UK
7
Luuk van Middelaar, speechwriter to
Herman van Rompuy, was recently
featured preparing a speech in a
YouTube video produced by the
European Council.”
José Iturri, an interpreter at the European
Commission, asking a question at the
UK Speechwriters’ Guild conference in
Bournemouth.
Firstly, the unexpected thing
is, when a person reads out what
they’ve written, they often can’t
help welling up. I’m not advocating
delivering schmaltzy speeches, but
key into those buried emotions and
you’re going to find rich material.
Secondly, the impulse of many
inexperienced speakers is to be
abusive, because they think it’s funny.
A roast is an American ritual whereby
the speakers are rude to the target
as a backhanded compliment. This
works in the hands of professional
comedians. It might be possible for
you to copy them, but when you’re
looking for humour, start off working
out what you like about the person. It
means the speech is framed correctly.
Back to my wealthy client.
‘Do you have any children?’
I got the sense that he was
resentful of them not fulfilling their
potential. And he wasn’t going to tell
me about his parents or any ex-wives.
The Speechwriter February 2013 | Volume 11
Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild
‘Your date of birth?’
The date of birth at least gave
me the chance to find something
significant about the time he was
born. I could also speculate on how
he felt when he was 21.
‘Have you had any memorable
birthdays?’
He told me a story about an
ex-girlfriend. This turned out to be
stony ground. I tried to probe into a
different part of his life. What inspired
his business success? He seemed
taken aback by such a question. He
was clearly not used to introspection.
He told me how he’d been lucky
buying properties and he learnt that
central London prices never dipped.
‘Do you have any funny stories
from your business career?’
He explained how he’d once had
a purchaser who didn’t understand
the difference between freehold and
leasehold. I was hoping for some
kind of punchline, but it never came.
He told me he wasn’t moving back
to England because it’s going to the
dogs.
Sometimes it takes 24 hours for
good material to surface. I decided to
bring the interview to a close. I said
I would start writing and ask more
questions later.
I Googled him. I do this for most
of the people I write for, ever since
one client asked me to call her back
on a premium line, which I later
discovered, was also used to run an
escort agency.
The results didn’t fill me with
confidence. He was rich, but he’d
been involved in scrapes. But,
you never can tell, last year I did
some work for someone had been
described in the House of Commons
as a man who should be ‘shunned as
a business leper’. I got my money.
The next day I fired off some extra
W W W. U K S P E E C H W R I T E R S G U I L D . C O . U K
questions, and I got the following
replies:
Have you had any more
thoughts about your speech?
This is in your court.
Are there any of your friends in
the room who are your age or older
who you can tease?
None.
Do you ever bump into the
neighbours?
No.
The strategy in this case has to
be to find some bland one-liners
that are appropriate without being
irrelevant. I put in a joke about
how his doctor had recommended
Viagra and prune juice. But he’d said,
no thank you, he wanted to know
whether he was coming or going.
I put in jokes about his children,
jokes about how he was born
the same year as Vladimir Putin
and Jimmy Connors. I improvised
something about his attempts to
learn French. I put together nine
minutes of text for his five-minute
speech, so he could skim off the
cream.
He agreed to pay 50% up front,
then 50% on sight. I sent him the
speech. It was followed by radio
silence. The speech was to be made
a few days later, so I sent a follow-up
email saying I was happy to work
with him on amendments. No reply.
There’s a good Jewish proverb:
With money in your pocket, you are
wise and you are handsome and you
sing well too. As speechwriters, we
can help, but we’re not in the miracle
business. We can’t be expected to
shore up a crumbling life.
It reminded me of a time when
a president of a golf club wanted
me to write a ‘funny speech’
• INFO@UKSPEECHWRITERSGUILD.CO.UK
8
which expressed his dismay at the
admission of women to the club. You
can’t simultaneously disdain and
amuse your audience.
After the date of delivery I politely
emailed him again to settle the
balance. He emailed back: ‘Sorry,
rejected it.’ I was tempted to argue,
but I concluded he gave me some
useful material of his own.
THE
COMMANDMENTS
1) Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out
thy Usual Shtick
2) Thou Shalt Dream a Great
Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous
New Thing, Or Share Something Thou
Hast Never Shared Before
3) Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity
and Thy Passion
4) Thou Shalt Tell a Story
5) Thou Shalt Freely Comment on
the Utterances of Other Speakers for
the Sake of Blessed Connection and
Exquisite Controversy
6) Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine
Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy
Failure as well as thy Success.
7) Thou Shalt Not Sell from
the Stage: Neither thy Company,
thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy
Desperate need for Funding; Lest
Thou be Cast Aside into Outer
Darkness.
8) Thou Shalt Remember all the
while: Laughter is Good.
9) Thou Shalt Not Read thy
Speech.
10) Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time
of Them that Follow Thee
The Speechwriter February 2013 | Volume 11 9

Newsletter of The UK Speechwriters’ Guild

SPEECHWRITER PROFILE Frank van Hoorn is speechwriter at the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Netherlands. He is also author of the book ‘Vuil van
de reis’ (‘Travel-stained’ as well as ‘The Stain of Travel’)

How do you become a his book ‘The Places in Between’

speechwriter in the Netherlands?
Merely by chance.
Can you remember the first
speech you ever wrote?
Yes, it was in my second year at
university. I remember working on
it through the night. I survived on
strong coffee and loud music.
Are you employed to write
speeches in English as well as
Dutch? How does that work?
Yes, I write in both English
and Dutch. Professional language
translators check the final version of
speeches in English.
Is it easy to get access to the
ministers you write for?
It could be better, it could be
worse.
Did you do debating at school?
Unfortunately not. It is hardly a
tradition in the Netherlands.
on Afghanistan very much. And
I recently enjoyed watching his
TedXTalk on why democracy matters.
What is your book about?
The book reveals how
dictatorships in Europe used tourism
for the purpose of propaganda.
And it is an account of my travels in
former European dictatorships. The
leading question is: how do they
handle the relics of dictatorship?
Can you visit the grave of Benito
Mussolini? Is the birthplace of Enver
Hoxha open to the public? What
happened to Hitler’s flat in Munich?
In short: a dictatour of Europe.
Tell us about the ‘speechwriting’
scene in the Netherlands.
Dutch speechwriters are
associated in a network called ’t
Doode Paert. Or, in English: The Dead
Horse Society. The (ironic) name
is derived from the Dutch saying
‘trekken aan een dood paard’ (pulling
a dead horse). It means something
like ‘being on a mission impossible’.
Need I say more?
their mother tongue. My tip is to
keep it as basic as possible. This
may lead to some quarreling with
professional language translators. In
these discussions it is important to
stand your ground.
DATES FOR THE
DIARY
Spring Leadership &
Communication Conference
15-17 May 2013
Institute for Government, London
To buy tickets go to:
http://internationalspeechwriting.
eventbrite.co.uk/
Essentials of Speechwriting
Training
6 June 2013
Institute for Government, London
To register go to:
http://essentialsofspeechwriting.
eventbrite.co.uk/

What do you think of British
Euroscepticism?
From a speechwriter’s point of
view it is rather amusing. It brought
us famous speeches such as Margaret
Thatcher’s Bruges Speech and
Geoffrey Howe’s Resignation Speech.
And it brought us entertaining
speakers like Nigel Farage. Quite
something.
Who is your favourite English-
speaking politician?
Are there any Dutch writers you Autumn Leadership &
recommend? Communication Conference
19 & 20 September 2013
I recommend Cees Nooteboom Résidence Palace, Brussels
and Frank Westerman. Nooteboom’s
novel ‘All Soul’s Day’ is one of the best To buy tickets go to:
I have ever read. And Westerman is http://europeanspeechwriters.
one of our finest non-fiction writers. eventbrite.co.uk/
I especially endorse ‘Ararat’ and
‘Engineers of the Soul’.
Do you have a tip for writing for The Speechwriter is edited by
multilingual audiences? Brian Jenner
europa|studio
TM

Most speeches for multilingual Design by

That must be Rory Stewart. A audiences are in English. For many
politician as well as a writer. I liked people in the audience this is not

W W W. U K S P E E C H W R I T E R S G U I L D . C O . U K • INFO@UKSPEECHWRITERSGUILD.CO.UK