Stand and Deliver Your Speech

Here's a question. Do the modern jet-setting international politicians actually write their own speeches? Well, wonder no longer. Because the clear and evident answer was there for all to see in New York at the United Nations (UN). Since it was there that Britain's current Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, gave a speech at the Security Council. And if you wondered if your job at the UN was to stand and deliver your speech, then wonder no more. Because it doesn't work like that at these meetings. For example the recent Gilad Erdan speech that we featured earlier was given from a sitting position.

The incumbent Foreign Secretary gave his speech, or was it a statement, at the Security Council meeting on 24 September. Once again it was very much a narrative speech that confirmed all the usual positioning statements of His Majesty's government. Putin bad. Zelenskyy good. That level of detail.

No Standing Start for the Foreign Secretary's Delivery

But it was his body language that caught our attention. Or was it his body position? Because he was sitting down quite comfortably as he gave his United Nations (UN) speech. Indeed, sitting down facing his audience of other Security Council members and their hangers-on. And of course he had his own hangers-on, all sitting comfortably behind him, including the current British ambassador to the UN.

And the sitting down didn't end there. Because we heard about it as well.

Russia sits on this Council. But its actions tear up the UN Charter.

Russia sits on this Council. But over the weekend we saw it put forward amendments designed to wreck the UN’s future.

Russia claims to stand for the Global South. But it runs roughshod over international law

So much sitting. And standing, too. But it didn't end there.

But I say to the Russian representative, on his phone as I speak, that I stand here also as a black man whose ancestors were taken in chains from Africa, at the barrel of a gun to be enslaved, whose ancestors rose up and fought in a great rebellion of the enslaved.

So the Foreign Secretary said he was standing as he was sitting. Strange stuff.

My suspicion is that Mr Lammy's speech was either written by a very inexperienced civil servant in the department. Or by one of his socialist special advisers. Certainly the fluff about Russian imperialism smacks of a social science graduate. And not a very good one at that. And the fact that Security Council speeches, or statements, are given sitting down should be known to any speech writer with a bit of experience.

Thus, the impact of the Foreign Secretary's admonishment to Russia was largely lost as a global audience struggled to contain their mirth. And that was a shame because this was another solid narrative speech.

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