Speeches are important. They define you as a politician.

They define who you are as a politician. They let people know what you believe. What you want to achieve. They are important – so they should be written well, prepared in advance, practiced and practiced and practiced.

How to deliver of a speech well – practice it.

The speaker should know what is coming and not fluff the words. The words, the sentences and, above all, any jokes, should be like old familiar friends.

Ed Balls is speaking right now to Labour Party conference – delivering a speech someone else wrote that he didn’t prepare. He stumbled on the word dither and often approaches sentences like you approach someone in the street that you sort of recognise and that you think you may have gone to school with.

Being likeable and liked by your audience helps when giving a speech.

Ed does have an issue here. The Labour Party don’t like him. I have seen him a lot around parliament and – shhh – putting politics and the nonsense he speaks when being a politician, I actually quite like him. I have seen him drinking in the Strangers bar – he is the sort of guy that you could imagine having a drink or three with at the bar after a rugby match. I have left parliament behind him via the underground exit several times – he always says goodnight, pleasantly and invisibly, to the policeman on guard. But he needs to work on being in 2012, moving on from his past and being more popular with his target audience.

Speech delivery and confidence is key.

Both on the radio this morning and during his speech he sounded squeaky and as if he needed to clear his throat. He sounded nervous. I do not know why this was – I know he is fighting a stutter which is immensely hard – but was it something else?

I wonder – was this speech written by him? It felt and sounded too clumsy and copy and paste for me to believe that. I am not even sure that he believed it all. I dounbt he wrote it all or that he practiced it enough. Of course, he could have over-practiced it until the words sounded funny in his mouth, which was why it sounded so reminiscent of The Office – particularly in the beginning.

How did Ed Balls’ speech go? Others will talk about the content and the fact checking. I just think he could have done better technically. But then, I am a Conservative speech writer. 🙂