Can a British leader speak as well as this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNFxGFAVbSs&amp;feature=related</p>

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Excellent speech.........but Clinton was also good and no one gets near Blair

 

don't get me wrong, i like obama....

...but that's the trouble with politics. best speaker wins. forget what they actually say or do, it's all image.

as tony blair once said, more spin, less substance.

 

One of the best Orators there's ever been.

Adolf Hitler.

 

Brilliant speech wish we had someone with as much passion as that instead of the one eyed plank Brown !!

 

There is quite a bit of criticism that he can only speak with the aid of a teleprompter. You watch the difference if he's in a question and answer session.

 

This Nobel Peace Prize thing is ridiculous as well. Not made a huge difference anywhere...yet.

 

Good point made yesterday

He got it by not being George W Bush.

 

Did Blair get it...

....for Northern Ireland?

 

No

John Hume and David Trimble did though

 

RE: No

Always thought he was a major player in the process, getting everyone talking. The Guardian seems to agree as well.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/may/11/tonyblair.labour4

 

Like all politicians - full of ********.</p>

I don't trust this man any more than I would any politician - they all speak with forked tongue.
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We haven't had a politician with that much appeal or charisma for quite some time

Whatever the opinion of Obama is - and I personally think there is some time to be taken to stand back and watch what he actually achieves - he is a brilliantly charismatic individual, and that speech is a classic example. It contrasts against the bumbling, at times comedic presentation of George Bush, and the cold statistical personality of Gordon Brown - Obama seems to have warmth and emotional intelligence. As I was watching it I was thinking - there's a little bit of Richard Prior in there - I've never seen that kind of 'stand up' style from a politician (maybe a little bit from Bill Clinton - but Obama takes it forward a long way). I've seen politicians do jokes, and I've seen them do the old take off your jacket, roll up the sleeves, loosen the tie thing - but this was more subtle, it seemed more natural, it didn't feel pointed or sharp, or confrontational BUT at the same time it delivered a point very well. I reckon if that was Gordon Brown he'd be clinging onto a list of performance quotas, annual returns, percentages, subscription numbers, positive trend lines etc etc AND he'd keep doing that guppy fish mouth thing that he does where he kind of gulps for air at the end of his sentence.

At the moment I really feel that we're in a bit of a political wilderness. We have politicians arguing over who the centre ground belongs to - when both are actually probably centre-right. Neither of the main party leaders are really any good at inspiring the electorate, both appear quite flawed and two dimensional (Brown because he seems robot like and hard faced, Cameron because he comes across a little bit like a bewildered toff or the cringe-worthy mouth piece of the old Etonian establishment). There is nobody out there right now with the vigor or the enthusiasm or the energy to sincerely deliver a speach which culminates in people chanting 'Fired Up! Ready to Go!'.

My mind actually went back to that dreadful speech by Neil Kinnock where he took the stand just saying over and over again 'We're alright! We're alright!' in that American style pre-election party that doomed Labour to defeat in 1992. It's one extreme to the other.

 

RE: Excellent speech.........but Clinton was also good and no one gets near Blair

Think that's a bit of an exaggeration. No-one gets near Blair suggests that he's the best public speaker of modern times. I went to a political presentation in Westminster in 1995 where a number of Conservatives and Labour politicians stood to speak to students - there was Margaret Beckett, Norman Lamont, Peter Mandelson, Tony Benn, Peter Snow did a piece on the media in politics too, and one or two others. The general mood was fairly hostile towards Lamont, perhaps sceptical of Mandelson, Beckett came across as bland. Tony Benn, however, in contrast to his peers, turned up almost pipe and slippers. He was literally wearing a cardigan. He blew everyone away - completely won the rooom, had it in his back pocket for the entirety of his speech. Took questions at the end. Left to a very sincere standing ovation. There was no stage management, no props, no smoke and mirrors - he didn't choose the audience - the man lit up the room. For me Tony Blair is not in that class of old school soap box politcians - and Blair would probably be the first to doff his cap in that direction I reckon. There's no doubt who was the more successful politician - no doubt at all - but still Tony Benn was the better public speaker.

In fact I wouldn't even have Blair at number two on my list for public speaking. I think we've had a lot better, and on the international stage I think we've seen a lot better from abroad too.