I’ve a word or two to say about real star of Theresa May’s performance

TOM UTLEY: As the grandson of the Queen’s speechwriter, I’ve a word or two to say about the real star of Theresa May’s performance

By common consent, this was the best speech of Theresa May’s career. It was the speech in which she struck all the right notes to unite the warring factions in her party.

At the same time, the Prime Minister displayed a human side and a self-deprecating sense of humour that endeared her to an audience previously inclined to write her off as a hard-to-love automaton and a bit of a bore.

If the pundits are to be believed, it was also the speech that changed the political landscape. 

For not only did it put Boris Johnson in his place and make other challengers for the leadership think again (for the moment, at least). 

By common consent, this was the best speech of Theresa May’s career, writes Tom Utley

It also set out perhaps the clearest appeal in the Conservatives’ history for the support of people who would hitherto never have dreamed of voting anything but Labour.

Her message was unmistakable: if you’re appalled by Jeremy Corbyn’s ugly and destructive extremism, and searching for a party that’s ‘decent, moderate and patriotic’, then the Conservatives under her leadership are the party for you.

Now, far be it from me to rain on the Prime Minister’s parade, as she soaks up the praise for her eloquence in Birmingham on Wednesday, but I hope I can be forgiven for highlighting one salient fact.

Bloodiest

The truth is that it wasn’t Mrs May herself who found the right words to send her party faithful home with a spring in their step, after a conference that had looked like developing into the bloodiest battle yet in the Conservatives’ civil war.

Most of the credit for that must surely go to her speechwriter, who turns out to be a man called Keelan Carr, of whom I’d never heard before yesterday.

Described as softly spoken and unassuming — ‘one of the nicest and most modest people’, according to a Downing Street insider — he was born in Wakefield and went to a Yorkshire comprehensive before going up to Oxford to study English in 2003 (which I guess puts him in his mid-30s).

Otherwise, all I know about him (because Andrew Pierce informed Mail readers yesterday) is that he is paid £65,000 a year and wrote a blog in March detailing his struggle to come out as gay. ‘It is now something about myself which makes me happy and I want to share it,’ he said.

Of course, Mrs May would have had a great deal of input into her speech. She would have sketched out the points she wanted to make — and when the draft was prepared, I dare say she crossed out passages she didn’t like and added others that she did.

Her message was unmistakable: if you’re appalled by Jeremy Corbyn’s ugly and destructive extremism, and searching for a party that’s ‘decent, moderate and patriotic’, then the Conservatives under her leadership are the party for you

Nor do I doubt her aides’ assurances that it was her idea, and hers alone, to dance as she came on to the stage — by far the most memorable part of her performance, which will be remembered long after anything she said is forgotten.

But while I admire many of the Prime Minister’s qualities — not least, her dogged refusal to be bullied or beaten —let’s just say that crafting speeches and cracking jokes have never struck me as her forte. 

I reckon that left to her own devices, she could never in a month of Sundays have found the words to pull off the landscape-changing trick she achieved on Wednesday.

Take the joke that raised the biggest laugh in her speech, when she alluded to the recent BBC hit series in which the fictional Home Secretary had a torrid affair with her police minder.

‘I’ve seen the trailers for Bodyguard,’ said this former real-life Home Secretary, ‘and let me tell you — it wasn’t like that in my day!’

I can’t deny that she delivered the line pitch-perfectly, and for all I know she wrote it herself. 

But somehow I doubt it. It’s only a hunch, but I reckon her single contribution was the word ‘trailers’ (an odd thing to say, since the series is over), which I suspect she inserted because she didn’t want to pretend she’d seen the whole thing.

Nervous

If my guess is right, she refused to say ‘I’ve seen Bodyguard’ partly because her innate caution made her nervous of being questioned later about the plot (though having seen the whole series myself, I wouldn’t fancy my chances of passing an exam on what the hell was going on). 

But more than that, she was deterred by her natural disinclination to tell lies — not at all a bad quality in a politician.

Similarly, I found it hard to see Mrs May’s hand in her somewhat risque put-down of Mr Johnson, who notoriously used a very rude word to condemn businessmen who bellyache about Brexit.

‘To all businesses, large and small,’ she said, ‘I say you may have heard that there is a four-letter word to describe what we Conservatives want to do to you. It has a single syllable. It is of Anglo-Saxon derivation. It ends in the letter K. BACK business.’


  • ‘Do not add mocked by the president to the injury list of a…


    Caught red handed: The five key steps to catching the…

Share this article

Though the joke went down a storm with her audience, I thought it out of character, coming from this strait-laced vicar’s daughter. Indeed, this was a rare instance in which I felt Mr Carr had got the tone of the speech wrong, momentarily losing sight of the woman he was writing for. 

The humour on which so many have congratulated her was not hers, but his.

Otherwise, I reckon he did a first-class job of catching her personality (at the risk of sounding ungenerous, I would add that this was particularly true in the boring passages of her speech, of which there were plenty).

So, let’s hear it for the humble speechwriters who put words into the mouths of the famous, sometimes changing the course of history with a flourish of their pens, while leaving it to the speakers themselves to take the credit or blame for their work.

Jokes

I write with some feeling, since I come from a dynasty of speechwriters. As I’ve boasted before, my late father was the wordsmith behind some of the more philosophical passages in Margaret Thatcher’s speeches.

It was generally left to others, however, to insert her jokes — no easy task, since they often had to explain them to the great lady before she grasped why they were funny.

Though in my view a brilliant Prime Minister, and the saviour of our country, Lady T was no Joan Rivers — and even less a natural comedienne than Mrs May.

I may also have mentioned more than once that my maternal grandfather, Dermot Morrah, wrote speeches for both George VI and Princess Elizabeth, now the Queen.

It was he who wrote the princess’s 21st birthday broadcast, often quoted to this day, in which she pledged to devote her whole life ‘whether it be long or short’ to the service of every one of us.

No doubt my grandfather included those words because he felt they had a nice ring to them. 

Little can he have guessed that in penning them, he was condemning that poor, dutiful young princess — who would never break her word — to carry on slogging away, opening motorways and social centres well into her 93rd year, and counting.

In that small way, he may have set his stamp on history. But though his words will be remembered, his name will be forgotten centuries before those of the people for whom he wrote.

That’s something he has in common with Ed Sorensen (who wrote for JFK), Jon Favreau (Barack Obama), William Safire (Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew) and speechwriters to the great and good through the ages, including my dear old dad.

 Welcome to the unsung club, Keelan Carr.

Source: Read Full Article