Nobody makes stirring speeches any more

DOUBT stalks the land. Irish people are using sterling to blow their nose. There’s talk of Britain’s corporation tax being lowered to a level where it could cause foreign multinationals to disregard the ABSOLUTE CRAIC they have here.

We need calming and where are our leaders? A stirring speech might calm our fears. It was Roosevelt who first said: We have nothing to fear but fear itself. We owe FDR a great debt, not only for fighting the Great Depression and tyranny but for making it easier for us columnists to write a first line. Which as any writer will tell you is their biggest fear — fear of a blank page.

But one thing people like him could do was coin a phrase and give a speech. Nobody makes stirring speeches any more. If you look for great speeches of history, very few are from modern times.