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    The Art of Persuasion

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    • Wednesday, 11 March, 2020
      Sam Leith
      Rishi Sunak casts himself as Santa Claus in a hazmat suit

      The chancellor’s Budget speech was positively surging with animal spirits

    • Monday, 20 January, 2020
      Sam Leith
      A speech by Prince Harry designed to say: ‘I’m an ordinary bloke’

      The address does its work deftly. It presents the Sussexes as a united front

    • Tuesday, 7 January, 2020
      Sam Leith
      Ricky Gervais makes a clever appeal to non-celebrity viewers

      Golden Globes speech ‘roasted’ the audience in the room to connect directly with the public

    • Thursday, 28 November, 2019
      Sam Leith
      Why apologising is such a tricky thing to do

      If you are in a situation where an interviewer asks you to say sorry, you are already half-sunk

    • Wednesday, 30 October, 2019
      Sam Leith
      When history is more important than domestic politics

      Ronald Reagan’s Berlin Wall speech was one of his finest moments

    • Monday, 9 September, 2019
      Sam Leith
      Mugabe’s independence speech was one of conciliation and inclusion

      The strongman failed to deliver the promises of that 1980 speech

    • Thursday, 18 July, 2019
      Sam Leith
      One of Kennedy’s finest speeches helped launch the lunar mission

      There’s no obvious reason to go to the moon. We went there because of an idea

    • Wednesday, 3 July, 2019
      Sam Leith
      When it’s not all about the music at a festival

      Crowd emotion can be whipped up faster by a song than by bare speech

    • Wednesday, 19 June, 2019
      Sam Leith
      Tim Cook’s speech at Stanford remembers Jobs and urges responsibility

      The Apple chief drew on the co-founder’s celebrated address to students in 2005

    • Tuesday, 4 June, 2019
      Sam Leith
      No disrespect in the Queen’s speech for Donald Trump

      Comparing the address with rhetoric for the Obamas highlights her scrupulous fairness

    • Thursday, 23 May, 2019
      Sam Leith
      Game of Thrones saved its grandest rhetoric for last

      Daenerys’s speech lost none of its power for being delivered in two fictional languages

    • Tuesday, 7 May, 2019
      Sam Leith
      A speech designed for reconciliation and nation-building

      Nelson Mandela’s inauguration address was concise and concentrated in its rhetorical charge

    • Wednesday, 24 April, 2019
      Sam Leith
      The Remain campaign sets out its rhetorical style

      Ethos-wise, Change UK candidate Gavin Esler has an advantage: he is not a politician

    • Thursday, 11 April, 2019
      Sam Leith
      When a politician uses linguistic fluidity it can backfire

      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s code-switching is simply a feature of all human language

    • Wednesday, 20 March, 2019
      Sam Leith
      The power in depriving someone of their name

      Jacinda Ardern’s vow never to say the mosque gunman’s name is a bold response

    • Monday, 18 February, 2019
      Sam Leith
      What does it mean to have a child deliver a serious message?

      Teenage activist Greta Thunberg used fear as a motivator to spur action on climate change

    • Thursday, 31 January, 2019
      Sam Leith
      Kamala Harris offers a winningly simple sense of vocation

      In announcing her presidential candidacy, the senator reclaims the idea of ‘our America’

    • Wednesday, 16 January, 2019
      Sam Leith
      Theresa May’s speech could not persuade the unpersuadable

      The prime minister deployed clever rhetorical tricks but her appeal to MPs was doomed

    • Tuesday, 11 December, 2018
      Sam Leith
      When parody makes a powerful rhetorical point

      Andy Serkis played the prime minister as Gollum, cooing over a ‘precioussss’ Brexit

    • Thursday, 29 November, 2018
      Sam Leith
      In a divided world, ‘commonplaces’ have become distorted

      Shared wisdom once united us but culture wars have changed that

    • Wednesday, 14 November, 2018
      Sam Leith
      Women’s oratory makes an impact at last

      After millennia of being silenced and excluded, they are speaking up — and going viral

    • Wednesday, 31 October, 2018
      Sam Leith
      Frankenstein’s monster makes a logical and emotional appeal

      A lesson in public speaking for Halloween

    • Monday, 29 October, 2018
      Sam Leith
      A confident and surprisingly jolly speech

      Chancellor’s words evoked generosity, while leaving plenty of wriggle room

    • Wednesday, 17 October, 2018
      Sam Leith
      Natalie Portman delivers a steely speech in the age of Time’s Up

      The actor’s address to Variety’s Women of Power event borrows from classical techniques

    • Wednesday, 3 October, 2018
      Sam Leith
      Theresa May hits her critics with carefully projected confidence

      Her pitch included deft digs at opponents both inside and outside the Tory party

    Previous page You are on page 1 Next page

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