One reason why I suggested last week that Gordon Brown should give up trying to emulate David Cameron's walkabout style of delivery and return to the lectern was that it would make the embattled P.M. look more statesmanlike.
So what does Cameron do when he wants to appear statesmanlike in the middle of today's financial mayhem? Well, it was back to the lectern, back to a script and hardly any movement at all, let alone any walking about.
And making this unscheduled emergency intervention at his party conference on the day before his big speech was probably a very smart move. Otherwise, the risk was that both he and the Conservative conference would have been completely wiped off the front pages and prime-time news programmes by all the reports of financial crisis.
But doing what he did paid off and got him to the top of tonight's BBC 10 o'clock television news.
His dilemma now is how to play it tomorrow? Will we see another 'unscripted' walkabout or a carefully scripted statesman speaking at a lectern?
1 comment:
I thought Cameron's 'no notes' performances were pretty dull. I fell asleep last year.
With any luck this crisis will mean that politicians will have more to say and it will improve the quality of their speeches.
I'd like to see the politicians use more stories. They are so much more effective than dreary soundbytes.
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