Where are the great orators of today?

are there any? if so, who are they?

There don't seem to be any on either Front Bench of the UK House of Commons, for example. I have heard both Cameron and Milliband, E. criticized for their shortcomings in public speaking.

Is there a reason for this? Perhaps that we view the ability to speak with great passion and rouse an audience with suspicion because of the ability of dictators (and bigots generally) to do it in the past? If it is this, has there been a conscious move away from addressing an audience in a certain way, or maybe a subconscious one?

Who was the last good one in the Commons? Robin Cook?

... if you could understand what he was saying that is!

we've got pat rabbitte, joe higgins and michael mcdowell, i don't know how they rate but they're a sight better than anyone else off the top of my head

Other side of the world but Barack Obama can give a good speech when he's not conspiring with Dr. Morbius to disillusion the country's progressive youth.

I suspect that for a lot of pols there just isn't as much call for public debate and swaying a (constituency, party, union) crowd on the way up, so oratory isn't cultivated by practice. Also, maybe trad speechifying comes across badly in mass media - TV plausibility important now.

thesis: speech-writing and delivery is as subject to fashion and evolution as song-writing and delivery

Well, there's the Oxford Union style of speaking which a lot of pols obviously are very good at. This just happens to be orthogonal to aspects like "getting a reasoned point across" or "meaning what you say".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgAUCbYIqTQ

Thesis sounds sound to me. Wasn't E powell often praised as the last great parliamentary orator? (like ppl trying to be polite reached for that after his death - 'a great orator and profound classical scholar'). Anything I've seen of him – content aside – seems unnatural, mannered, borderline nutty.

blair's stopstart hands speakingmanner wasjust anothergoodreason to have thecuntshot

when most of us think of "great orators" we think of that pre-TV technique of big swooping drama and volume that could reach the back rows, but stuff that works well live doesn't come across so well on TV (cf every filmed theatrical event, ever)

perhaps we're still waiting for the first real frank sinatra of political speechifyin, who can use the closeness of the microphone to convey intimacy with no loss of drama?

good point

Sinatra-style is vitiated by the micro-sample though: so if s/he didn't emerge yet, s/he won't now.

I always liked the story of Lincoln following Edward Everett's three-hour barnstorm epic with a speech that lasted two-and-a half minutes, so short the official photographer missed his chance of a picture. Lincoln's speech was the Gettysburg address, of course, and we remember all about it, and can maybe even quote it all: it brought oratory into the age of the telegraph, and curtailed speed.

/ virilio and garry wills

I think we'll be unlikely to see a Sinatra at this point: that rhetorical drama is managed over time, & most speeches are cut to a few moments on the news now.

(oh, xp)

Cameron's a dreadful orator, he always sounds like he's either condescending to the audience or giving them a stern telling off. The less said about Miliband the better.

Most political speeches tend to be preaching to the converted these days so they only burst into the popular consciousness at key moments. Ken Livingstone's in July 2005 was a great speech but he's obviously not a great orator.

Other public speech traditions: Blair-speech-style there in sermons too – Nicky Gumbel, the Alpha Course guy, is prob the most widely distributed English preacher at the moment, and his mannerisms are extremely close to Blair's.

Well, there's the Oxford Union style of speaking which a lot of pols obviously are very good at. This just happens to be orthogonal to aspects like "getting a reasoned point across" or "meaning what you say".

yes: every time i watch PMQs, say, it looks less like impressive ~parliamentary theatre~ and more just like dumb, irrelevant pantomime that barely need exist

blair's stopstart hands speakingmanner wasjust anothergoodreason to have thecuntshot

OH GOD YES - such a fucking am dram ham, this did my head in throughout his premiership and i could never understand why people seemed to love it so

my favourite blair moment in this vein was when, in hushed tones (and i can't even remember what event it was in relation to) he began: "this is NOT, the time for sound bites...

"but today we feel the hand of history on our shoulder."

the hand of history is feeling his collar

was that NI?

uh northern ireland not news int

I'd like to think I'm a great orater

yeah think probably good friday agreement, but not sure.

in his biography blair tells a horrible story about the hand of history attempting to molest him one evening.

only to find it was his own hand...

Great oratory isn't just about style and flourish; it requires having something of great import to say. Most of the issues addressed by politicians at present are either trivial, or else they are deliberately trivialized.