The Bloglabour party conferenceharriet harmancaroline flint

Are Labour's Leading Women Better Speakers Than Labour's Leading men?

Are Labour's Leading Women Better Speakers Than Labour's Leading men?
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Freelance researcher and consultant who runs courses, coaches, writes books and blogs on public speaking, presentation and speechwriting

Freelance researcher and consultant who runs courses, coaches, writes books and blogs on public speaking, presentation and speechwriting

I know that some of my Twitter friends, like @Marion Chapsal, have an interest in collecting examples of powerful women speakers and leaders.

Having kept an eye out on both male and female speakers at this week's Labour Party conference, I thought that they and other readers might like to see three good efforts from women who spoke at this week's Labour Party conference.

For what it's worth, my general impression is that some of the party's leading women are way ahead of their male brethren when it comes to effective public speaking.
Why?
Is this, I wonder, because oratory is a dying art among males in a party that has seen former trades unionists, trained at the factory gates, give way to a new class of of Oxbridge educated young men trained as backroom boys for older MPs (and with little or no experience of having done anything much outside professional politics)?Or is it simply that, even in a party so lacking in charismatic male speakers, women still have to be far better than average to get noticed and rise within the party?
YVETTE COOPER, Shadow Home Secretary:
CAROLINE FLINT, Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government:
HARRIET HARMAN, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party: