Ten days ago, Britain watched a Labour leadership handover play out live. Keir Starmer delivered his leaving speech outside 10 Downing Street, while Andy Burnham was declared the party's new leader at Congress House, the TUC's headquarters in central London (and a solid conference venue), during Labour's Special Conference on 17 July 2026. Outside No.10, the backdrop was unusually quiet — no loudhailer protesters, no shouting match competing for the microphone. That's rare. And it worked: the visuals were clean, the audio was clear, and the moment played well everywhere it was seen.
Your Speech Background Matters when You Speak in Public
A Red Background makes the Perfect Image for Burnham
Burnham's backdrop told a different story. Delivering his leadership acceptance speech to MPs, activists and trade union leaders, he stood in front of a wall of party red — bold, on-brand, unmissable on camera. Follow that red a few feet in either direction, though, and it gave way to standard conference beige. The colour wasn't the room. It was a few feet of set dressing, built for the cameras and framed precisely for the press pack and podcast crews waiting beyond the podium.
Two speeches, two very different backgrounds, and the same lesson underneath: what's behind you when you speak matters almost as much as what you say. Here are five reasons why.
Top Tips for Your Speech Background
1. Your Concentration
Background noise doesn't just annoy your audience — it costs you. A shouting protester, a rattling air conditioning unit, feedback from a nearby mic: each one pulls a fraction of your attention away from your material and onto managing the disruption. The quieter and calmer your background, the more of your own focus you get to keep for the job in hand.
2. Your Local Audience
For the people in the room, background noise isn't a distraction — it's a threat to comprehension. Loudhailer protesters outside Number 10 could easily have drowned out the speeches entirely; instead, the rare quiet meant every word reached the crowd. If your local audience can't hear you over the din, nothing else about your speech — content, delivery, structure — gets the chance to land.
3. Your Frame
What sits behind you tells your audience who you are before you've said a word. Burnham's red backdrop said "Labour" as loudly as anything in his script. A branded pull-up banner, a flag, a plain wall — each frames you differently, whether you intend it to or not. Choose your backdrop the way you'd choose your opening line: on purpose.
4. Your Further Afield Audience
Most of your audience isn't in the room. It's the viewer scrolling a clip on their phone, the journalist cropping a still for tomorrow's paper, the podcast listener with no visual cues at all. That audience sees only what the camera sees — which is exactly why Burnham's team built a few feet of red rather than repainting the hall. Ask what your background says to someone who wasn't there.
5. Your Record
The image outlives the moment. Long after the speech itself is forgotten, the photograph remains — reused as a thumbnail, repurposed in a retrospective, referenced years later as "the speech where...". Starmer's quiet Downing Street backdrop and Burnham's red wall will likely outlast most memories of what either man actually said. Plan your background as carefully as you plan your closing line, because it's the part most likely to be seen again.
Not every speaker gets a No. 10 press pen or a party-red feature wall. But every speaker chooses, or fails to choose, what's behind them — and that choice is heard, seen and remembered almost as much as anything said. We saw a related lesson the last time a Labour leader was unveiled at a party conference: in 2010, where Ed Miliband's win was announced with a PowerPoint presentation, walking delegates through a complicated alternative-vote count. Different tool, same principle — what surrounds your big moment shapes how it lands. Whatever your platform, walk the room in advance and ask what your background is doing for you.
In Summary: Five Reasons Why Your Speech Background Really Does Matter
There's no doubt that your choice of speech background really does matter when you give a speech. When you want your audience to listen to you and engage with your material, then these factors are important.
- 1Your concentration — a quiet background keeps your attention on your material, not the disruption.
- 2Your local audience — they can't engage with what they can't hear.
- 3Your frame — your backdrop signals who you are before you speak.
- 4Your further-afield audience — most viewers only ever see what the camera sees.
- 5Your Record — the image of your speech often outlasts the words.
For more public speaking and presentation tips, you'll find our full series here. And when you're ready to sharpen your own public speaking skills, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
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