Conference and Other Set-piece Speeches

Abstract

This chapter will examine how Thatcher’s keynote speeches, most notably to the annual Party Conference, were received and how these contributed to her persona. The analysis focuses in on conference speeches and notes how Thatcher was addressing two audiences. On the one hand she was trying to convince the party faithful of the political and economic value of Thatcherism. On the other hand, the chapter will emphasise how her conference speeches involved her communicating over the heads of the rank and file in the conference hall, and to the electorate watching the ‘sound bite’ for the news. In the conference speeches section of the chapter emphasis is placed on two speeches: the infamous ‘you turn if you want to’ 1980 speech and the 1984 speech in the aftermath of the Brighton bombing. From an extensive number of set-piece speeches that Thatcher delivered the chapter focuses in on speeches central to the construction of her narrative of Thatcherism.