13 OCTOBER 2007, Page 20

The quality of a political speech is a symptom of popularity not a cause

MATTI-IFW D, PI Epiphenomenalism is, as 16-letter words go, not an obvious hook with which, dear reader, to draw you to this column; but let me explain; because I think I may be an epiphenomenalist.

My dictionary defines this as the doctrine that consciousness is merely a by-product of physiological processes and has no power to affect them: that we do not weep because we're sad, but rather that we are sad because we're weeping.

The idea is not quite as crazy as it sounds. Tony Blair did not sound passionately sincere because he was passionately sincere. He mastered the knack of delivering his lines with such passionate sincerity that he became spellbound by his own performance, and believed in it. And only last week in Blackpool the Times's political sketchwriter, Ann Treneman, said to me, 'I think an election may be approaching because I've started eating crisps.' In the same way, one cow might observe to another, 'I think it's going to rain because I'm lying down.'

And I think the Conservative party may have won Britain over. The reason? David Cameron is making good speeches. The excellence of his speeches is not the cause of his new popularity. His new popularity is the cause of his good speeches. We rate them because we rate him not the other way round.

Ever since I started attending party conferences 30 years ago I've been puzzled by the violence with which press and public opinion seem to swing for or against key platform performances by important politicians. One speech is declared a triumph, another a disaster; one interview is lauded as masterly, another a toecurling flop; a self-deprecating remark from one speaker is wit; from another an embarrassing gaffe. Yet for me such speeches, interviews or remarks have rarely seemed exceptional.

In Brighton this year at the Liberal Democrat conference, Sandi Toksvig bantered with Sir Menzies Campbell, who had told her that he was always nervous before any big performance. Sandi replied that she usually was too, but that Sir Menzies didn't make her nervous. 'Gosh, I'm a failure,' he replied — a light, quick-witted response, I thought. But GAFFE! yelled the media, 'Ming admits he's a failure.'

Imagine Tony Blair at the height of his popularity giving the same response. Would we have called it an embarrassing stumble? Not at all. In fact Mr Blair had a particularly winning way with jokey self-deprecation and everybody called it cool. Sir Menzies wasn't considered accident-prone because he dropped a danger; he was said to have dropped a danger because he was considered accident-prone.

Then at Bournemouth the following week came Gordon Brown's big speech. You cannot expect me to swoon over a speech by the (in my view) hugely oversold Mr Brown; but I was there and tried to listen objectively; and the fact is that this was one of the best speeches he has ever made. It was not a very good speech — I doubt Brown will ever make one — but it was a tremendous improvement on his dreary, table-banging performances of the past. He spoke pleasantly, with an engaging tone and more light and shade than I've heard him command before. He was coherent and fluent and managed to smile. The speech had a statist flavour, but then that's Brown: he has always been a fidgeting improver of mankind We knew that — didn't we?

I did not, immediately afterwards, hear anybody calling the speech a disaster, and many liked it. Yet within days it was being pronounced a chilling socialist dirge, delivered with neither charm nor narrative skill. Anyone would have thought we had been addressed by Enver Hoxha. Even as I write, that speech is entering British political folklore as Brown's first big failure to live up to national expectations. But the world didn't turn against Mr Brown because it heard a bad speech. It heard a bad speech because it had begun to turn against Mr Brown.

Finally came that speech by David Cameron in Blackpool. It was pretty good — that's all. It wasn't the greatest speech ever made; there were some rather dull stretches, it rose to no great heights, and some of it was trite. At times Mr Cameron looked and sounded a little too earnest and anxious; at others he was quite winning and thoughtful. It was impressive to do it all without notes, however, and as he reached the end I thought he'd done well enough to please those who already approved of him and persuade doubters that he was at least up to the job. Yet within hours I was hearing news of a bravura performance, a tour de force, a magnificent climax to a successful week, and a triumphant personal success. I conclude that millions of people, including much of the news media, have decided that David Cameron's star is rising. They therefore heard the speech of a rising star.

Instructive — because I felt the same about the speech Cameron made in Blackpool two years ago, the speech that projected him into the leader's job. It was quite good too. But the speech of his rival, David Davis, hadn't been nearly as bad as the media and many of his own colleagues immediately pronounced it. Mr Davis is not a brilliant speaker but his speeches are pretty solid and never less than serviceable. His party didn't turn away from him because his speech had flopped. His speech flopped because his party was turning away from him.

Margaret Thatcher was often monotonous on the public platform: her oratory had the quality of an electric drill and I never once heard her say anything interesting, original or uplifting. But because she stood for big things and did big things, her speeches resonated.

Now you may reasonably object that when people are winning battles and dominating events, what they say is inherently interesting because it has consequences. That is true, and to conclude that their speeches are required reading is not irrational. Required reading, however, can be pedestrian, and an audience can be painfully aware of it even while listening dutifully. The process I am describing is different. Beyond realising that what a person says matters, the audience actually hears — or thinks it does — exceptional eloquence, fluency and rhetorical command, because we are unconsciously persuaded that the speaker is exceptional. Or we actually hear a stumbling performance because we have decided the performer is stumbling in other ways.

For party leaders, the consequence is humbling. There are very few performances which are in themselves 'make or break', whatever the newspapers may say. But there are performances which are likely to take the colour of whatever opinion of you is already forming in the public mind. There are occasions, therefore, when you cannot win; and occasions when it will be hard to fail. Brown's platform debacle, and Cameron's platform triumph, were epiphenomena.