A nervous new leader recruited extra help for her first speech to the Tory Party conference. Just before she rose to her feet, her presentation coach leant forward with an encouraging murmur: “Piece of cake!”
“Good heavens! Not now!” Margaret Thatcher retorted to Ronnie Millar. Or so he said.
Thatcher found doing it once a year an ordeal. In today’s turbulent times the UK’s two most powerful politicians — Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon — had to bookend their annual party conferences by speaking twice.
By pre-empting debate and possible disagreement on policy in their opening addresses, they successfully cleared the path for a partisan rallying call at the end.
While May inaugurated Brexit Year Zero, Sturgeon cannily entangled “Indyref2” with the implications of Brexit