From Cicero to Castro: history’s greatest orators

Complaints about the decline and fall of political oratory are nothing new. Back in 1865 a British reporter branded the Gettysburg Address ‘dull and commonplace’ and, as this joy of a book points out, even Cicero had to put up with the Neo-Attics sniggering from behind their togas at his overwrought and outdated speaking style. The poor Roman must have felt rather like Harry Kane when a bunch of pub footballers take to Twitter to bemoan his inability to find the target.

In rhetorical terms, Philip Collins is a long way from a Sunday League layabout. With three years as Tony Blair’s principal speechwriter/verb-remover, followed by a successful career as a leader writer and columnist for the Times, he is certainly no stranger to the art of persuasion. This experience regularly comes to the fore in his analyses of contemporary political speeches for the Times, and it’s a format that he uses here to run the rule over 25 great and influential speeches from the past 2,500 years.