Oration station: GREAT political speeches (final) - Part 2

Hugh Gaitskell, 1960

Hugh Gaitskell, speech on nuclear disarmament, Labour party conference, October 1960. 

 

Hugh Gaitskell gave this speech at the 1960 Labour party conference as leader of the opposition. In it, he attempted to prevent the party from calling for unilateral nuclear disarmament, and see off critics within Labour who sought to get rid of him for being too right-wing.

The party was deeply divided over the issue, and in this case, Gaitskell lost the vote against the neutralist, pacifist wing of the party. Although he accepted that the battle was lost, Gaitskell put all his energy into this tour de force, in which he roused his supporters to "fight, and fight, and fight again, to save the party we love". The visible exertion he put into speaking left him sweating profusely.

The speech was met with a mixture of boos and cheers from the crowd. Although he lost the vote this time, the decision was reversed the following year.

Andrew Neil identifies the speech as "one of the great moments of modern British politics". Gaitskell -- a figure who commanded huge respect within the party as well as outside it -- died three years later, leaving the leadership open for Harold Wilson.

"We may lose the vote today, and the result may deal this party a grave blow. It may not be possible to prevent this, but there are some of us, I think many of us, who will not accept that this blow need be mortal: who will not believe that such an end is inevitable. There are some of us, Mr Chairman, who will fight, and fight, and fight again, to save the party we love. We will fight, and fight, and fight again, to bring back sanity and honesty and dignity, so that our party -- with its great past -- may retain its glory and its greatness."

Vernon Bogdanor chose this as his favourite speech: "Gaitskell lost the vote but won the argument, impressing himself on the country as a leader of courage and honesty. He would have become prime minister in 1964, probably with a majority larger than Harold Wilson's, but for his untimely death in January 1963.
"Gaitskell was a revisionist and a precursor of New Labour. He sought a party in thrall neither to ancient doctrines of public ownership nor to modern doctrines of unregulated markets."

Margaret Thatcher, 1984

Margaret Thatcher, Brighton bomb speech, Conservative party conference, October 1984. 

 

Margaret Thatcher was actually awake, working on her speech to conference the following day, when an IRA bomb went off at the Grand Hotel in Brighton at 2.54am on 12 October 1984. The intention was to assassinate the prime minister and her government as they gathered for their party conference. Five people died, included the Conservative MP Sir Anthony Berry; 34 others were injured.

Thatcher and her husband, Denis, escaped unhurt. Living up to her "Iron Lady" reputation, she gave an impromptu interview to the BBC at around 4am, as she was escorted from the building, in which she insisted that the conference would go ahead as usual. Marks & Spencer was persuaded to open early to allow those who had lost their clothes in the blast to get new ones, and the conference went ahead at 9.30am as scheduled.

She rewrote her speech and delivered an impassioned and heavily revised version on 12 October, the day before her 59th birthday. Her defiant delivery received a rapturous reception in the conference hall, and a poll that month found her personal approval rating up from 40 per cent to 50 per cent. The Tory lead over Labour grew from 1 per cent to 12 per cent.

Her defiant message was thus:

"The fact that we are gathered here, now -- shocked but composed and determined -- is a sign not only that this attack has failed but that all attempts to destroy democracy will fail."

Neil Kinnock, 1985

Neil Kinnock, Militant speech, Labour party conference, October 1985. 

 

In the early 1980s, the Militant movement's influence on the Labour Party was at its peak. Believing its influence to be growing and thus damaging Labour's attempts to oust Margaret Thatcher, Neil Kinnock launched a stinging attack on fellow party members at this conference.

Without actually referring to the Militant movement by name, Kinnock attacked the far left, and principally Liverpool City Council, for causing "grotesque chaos". He went on to emphasise that this was "a Labour council -- a Labour council".

His successor John Smith called it "one of the most superb political performances I've ever seen". Kinnock had already made a reputation as an orator before becoming Labour leader with his "I warn you" speech on the eve of the 1983 election.

"I'll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, outdated, misplaced, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council -- a Labour council -- hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers . . .
I am telling you, no matter how entertaining, how fulfilling to short-term egos -- you can't play politics with people's jobs and with people's services or with their homes."

Anthony Howard says of the speech: "He was presenting himself as a figure willing to sacrifice his popularity among his party's left wing in favour of the national interest. Although Labour lost the next election, Kinnock's speech altered the lay of the land in British politics; David Owen later told me that he knew the SDP was done for after watching this speech."

Peter Jay says: "The speech profoundly influenced perceptions of Kinnock by those outside the political bubble, making a much wider audience aware that he had the courage and determination to stand up to the loony left, whereas so many Labour leaders had been beholden to it."