Speechwriting for The Prime Minister of Sri Lanka

Case Study – An Address to the United Nations

I spent ten days polishing and streamlining the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka’s speech to the United Nations in 2003 and working on the delivery. On his return to Sri Lanka, The Prime Minister took over 8 hours to complete the 30 km drive from Bandaranaike International Airport to the capital Colombo due to the crowds who had come out to greet him.

Speechwriting is always reasonably high pressure because it is often forgotten about by the person giving the speech until very late in the day, and then they panic and pass the pressure on to the person selected to write the speech. This man was different. He understands the need for good speechwriting and for an external speechwriter and gave me personal time as his speechwriter to ‘get into his head’ so that I was able to do my job of speechwriting for him effectively. Because we had never met, he gave me full access to most of his meetings in the ten days we were in New York together. This helped me understand his way of speaking and his preferred vocabulary. I learnt his voice and wrote his speech for him in his voice. He also understood that having a speechwriter who ‘gets it’ is still not enough. He allocated time to practice his speech with me. It was always late at night in his corner suite after all his meetings were finished, but it was valuable time that was essential for the success of his speech.

Speechwriting

Prime Minister David Cameron

Read about the time I briefly worked with Prime Minister David Cameron on a vox-pop speech for the No2AV campaign.

Spoiler, he wasn’t like all Prime Ministers; he was incredibly quick to “get it”, and had great short-term memory, with instant delivery, before he got onto the next task. Take a look

Being in the zone – working with David Cameron, the then UK Prime Minister