Michael Portillo’s Who Dares Wins speech in 1995 has often since been characterised as an embarrassing failure. But was it? This critique is lifted from the December ’11 Auracle Newsletter.
In the mid-nineties I did some work with MORI (now Ipsos MORI); and one day I was having a meeting with their then chairman, Bob (now Sir Robert) Worcester, doyen of pollsters in the UK. A telephone call came through from some press person who was important enough for Bob to interrupt the meeting and answer questions – though he was quite relaxed about my remaining the other side of his desk, ears inevitably flapping. The gist was that the Conservatives stood not a chance at the next election. Since so-called Black Wednesday (September ’92) their stock had fallen so far with the electorate that not even contriving the Second Coming (I’m sure I particularly remember that reference, but my memory could be tricking me) could save them.
This then was the political climate in which Michael Portillo, Defence Minister at the time, made his Who Dares Wins speech at the Conservative Party Conference in 1995. I never saw it or any excerpts on television – I was far too busy. My memory is that it was regarded as an embarrassment. But then most of the main-stream media at the time were running with the anti-Major-government tide. Also any form of expressed patriotism was deeply unfashionable; so this speech never stood a chance in the press.
Now, more than sixteen years later and thanks to YouTube, I am able to watch it and make my own judgement – as are you.
One of the first things to notice is that there are two versions on YouTube. The other is nearly twice as long as this one; so what’s missing in this one? Answer: most of the applause. Yes, gentle reader, Portillo – true to my exhortation in Cardinal Two of The Face & Tripod – positioned the speech brilliantly. He hit the audience’s G-Spot, and they gave him three minutes of ecstatic standing ovation. There’s also another conspicuous success staring us in the face (pun intended), and I’ll return to that in a while.
Let’s go through the speech, cherry picking in the process –
- We don’t appear to have the beginning (nor does the other version) but as we join it he launches into an overt triad (see the relevant chapter in The Face & Tripod) which he immediately expands. This is greeted with about 9 seconds of applause. [N.B. 8 seconds is par for any mid-speech applause: 12% improvement on par is very good, particularly this early.]
- 0:28 another triad – “war is messy, brutal and violent”
- 0:46 an attributed quote which introduces a sustained reflection on the evils of war
- 1:55 a lengthy triad which builds in intensity. He makes a small error here inasmuch as he gets too loud too early, thus squeezing his room for manoeuvre – it’s a widespread mistake, caused partly by eagerness outweighing technical prowess, partly by the limitations of an untrained voice and partly by the widely-held fallacy that volume is the only way to convey intensity. This error notwithstanding – and he covers it very well – he is greeted with an outstanding 19 seconds of applause.
- 2:58 triad – Nelson, Wellington, Churchill
- 3:25 another triad
- 3:47 he sets the stage for quoting the SAS motto – and then delivers it.
- 3:57 the audience goes berserk and, though he has sat down, they are on their feet and forcing him repeatedly to return to his feet to acknowledge their adulation.
I said earlier that I would return to highlighting a conspicuous success staring us in the face (pun intended). I had never seen this speech till I searched on YouTube; but I knew that if it were there I’d find it in seconds. I was right. I searched “Portillo who dares wins” and there it was. He had given the speech a FACE.
More than a decade before it was written he obeyed all three of the cardinal rules in The Face & Tripod in addition to several others of its strictures. This shows that there’s nothing particularly revolutionary about my book: it merely lays out time-tested simple but effective principles that will get anyone at least up to the competent 80% mark.
He appropriated his FACE from the SAS, but so what? JFK stole “Ask not what your country can do for you…&c” from Epictetus. I have the same attitude to this sort of plagiarism as the late, great, sainted Tom Lehrer – just remember why the good Lord made your eyes, and plagiarise.
Mostly with these speeches I prefer not to comment upon the sentiments expressed: my brief is to comment upon how well they are delivered. There’s a saying, popular in investors’ circles, that the market is never wrong. His audience was his market.
Go figure.
Rhetauracle 