Kew Gardens Narrative Speech Has the Foreign Secretary on Message

A narrative speech is one that does nothing other than reinforce a narrative, a view or an opinion. And, because of that, they're very popular with politicians of all persuasions. Typically the narrative speech is also a fact-free zone. And so…politicians are very keen on them too. In the corporate media, you'd liken it to a puff piece.

We mention this because the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, gave a such a speech at Kew Gardens last week. And it was a perfect example of a British government narrative. In fact we knew it was the political equivalent of a puff piece as soon as we heard his opening remarks.

Conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have dominated my time in office so far. But I was very clear in Opposition that, in this job, I would focus on the most profound and universal source of global disorder – the climate and nature emergency.

It's patently not true. Yet that's the narrative in action.

Foreign Secretary's Speech Lays out the Narrative

Mr Lammy is a good, solid and reliable speaker. We spotted him in resourceful mode when he spoke at the Fabian Society earlier this year. At Kew he proved equally resourceful with his government speech writer's material on both autocue and apparently on the lectern in front of him. Like many speakers he does tend to lean in to the lectern, rather than stand straight. But he'll sort that eventually.

However, Lammy's Kew Gardens speech remained shockingly devoid of fact or substance beyond the narrative of climate crisis. If we wanted to know what was the ideal temperature for life on earth, then we weren't going to hear this from Britain's Foreign Secretary. And we certainly weren't going to hear how Mr Lammy knew this to be the case.

Yet this was a perfect narrative speech. A broad sweep through the prevailing story lines, some scary scenarios and finally a summary that explains how government will save the day. Right.

The threat may not feel as urgent as a terrorist or an imperialist autocrat. But it is more fundamental. It is systemic. It’s pervasive. And accelerating towards us at pace. 

and then scary modelling got into the speech.

Let’s take migration. We are already seeing that climate change is uprooting communities across the world. And by 2050, the World Bank’s worst-case estimate is that climate change could drive 200 million people to leave their homes. 

And his conclusion was equally meticulous in its narrative setting.

That is our goal. Ultimately, there will be no global stability, without climate stability. 

And there will be no climate stability, without a more equal partnership between the Global North and the Global South.

For Britain to play its part, we must reset here at home, and reconnect abroad. That is what this Government will deliver. So that, together, we can build a better future for all.

Ah yes, the Brandt Report is still open on the Whitehall speech writer's desk.

You won't learn anything new from a narrative speech. Because they don't have that purpose. They simply don't aim for an audience to know something they didn't know beforehand. No, their task is to affirm a position. They are positioning statements. And after they're given, their words, motifs and slogans are delivered ad infinitum, until the next new thing.

When you're ready to discover more public speaking tips, then you'll find more than 100 top tips for speakers, podcasts and videos on Time to Market. And when you're on course to give your next speech, or indeed a narrative speech, why not enroll on the online course, How to Master the Public Speaking Basics.