At the opening ceremony of the One Young World Summit 2014, held in Dublin in October, Sir Bob Geldof delivered a Keynote Speech.

If you click that link to One Young World you will see that the purpose of it is to address ‘Young Leaders’. My hackles immediately rise, for reasons that I made clear in this posting. I am wearily accustomed to finding such enterprises being vehicles to relay dangerous indoctrination. The first few seconds of this video seem to confirm my fears as one of the organisation’s founders mentions climate change as a ‘systemic challenge’ when in reality it is the most expensive political fraud of this or any age, as well as being a criminal distraction from real problems facing us. The systemic challenge is in the need to stop the nonsense now and then dismantle the appalling damage the scam is inflicting world wide – particularly on the poor. However I am made of stern stuff, and I am here to critique Bob Geldof’s speech, so I stick with it.

Before Geldof we see Kate Robertson beginning his introduction. Leaving aside the climate change nonsense, I can’t believe that Robertson is actually needing to read one little minute of data-light speaking off screens at her feet. She hands over to (I think) her co-founder David Jones. He likewise reads one minute … ditto, ditto, ditto. Come along guys: get a grip. This is pathetic!

Geldof strides purposefully to the lectern, clutching a sheaf of papers. I catch my breath. He mumbles something inconsequential and rather stupid while he fumbles his papers into some order, and then he lifts his face. At that point a transformation happens. It seems his papers are principally there for a light-hearted tour of the celebrities ranged behind him. It’s a good opening, a funny opening, and I forgive him the paper.

Then he launches into the proper part of the speech and that paper is forgotten.

I have been known to tell my trainees that an ounce of passion is worth a ton of technique. Sir Bob has both in abundance. With my rhetor hat on I sit and luxuriate in the quality of his speaking – which even, for heaven’s sake, includes a fleeting use of a Churchillian cadence. This speech, as a masterclass exemplar, could fuel a very long blog posting – and I will almost certainly return to it for that reason when I have more time. For the moment I simply invite you to watch and see how it should be done.

In terms of the content, I may believe him to be profoundly misguided here and there, more in his chosen remedies than in the identity of the problems (some of which are starkly obvious), but I have no doubt of his sincerity – a quality tragically lacking in public life. You can discuss, reason and argue with people who are sincere – and in the process claw your way closer to the truth. You can only walk away in disgust from insincerity.

You have to respect Sir Bob Geldof, both as a speaker and as a man. I cannot begin to tell you how fervently I hope that this forum lived up to the quality that he gave it.