The Three Conference Speech Wordle Comparison

So David Cameron has just completed the cycle of leaders' conference speeches. So how do they compare as far as key words go here are the comparative Wordles

Nick Clegg

Main words

• people
• economy
• right
• Labour
• easy
• government
• every

Ed Miliband

Main words

• people
• values
• Britain
• country
• right
• change
• economy
• work

David Cameron

Main words

• people
• country
• get
• know
• back
• economy
• one

How to summate in a debate #ldconf

Last Sunday morning at about 8:50 I entered the conference hall in Birmingham and was asked by Gareth Epps if I could summate on amendment 2 on the Accreditation for Conference Motion. I did have a card in to speak on the motion, but knew that being asked to do this I would be throwing out a lot of what I had to say and dealing with arguments raised by a lot of people during the debate.

I was shocked by the number of people who said well done, either in person, on twitter or text. Yes my pocket kept vibrating as soon as I sat down after leaving the podium. One thing that even some respected speakers said was how well I had done in raising points from everyone in the debate, and naming them by name, something that Geoff Payne summating on the other amendment failed to do referring only to the first time speaker from Cambridge. On the right is page one of my notes from that morning. Here is what I was doing.

At the top are the main points that I would have made if I were speaking in the motion itself. These were the main points of my speech. One of them the Transgender element was so well covered by Rachel Coleman-Finch (that first time speaker from Cambridge) and Jenny Barnes that I only mentioned them in passing, but the issue that LGBT+ Lib Dems (Delga as was at the time known) had been consulted was something that I did speak on, and got the new less than 14 hour old renamed organisation its first mention from the platform.

As each speaker was called, I took a quick note of their name on the right hand side of the page. Then any point that they made that need commenting on either rebutting or praising was written on the left. There are heiroglyphs and scribbles as I try and link together speakers and create a flow to what I am about to say. If you notice from the top and recall all of my points as intended were raised in my summation of the amendment.

I also over the page have just one comment next to Chris White "being blown to pieces" this made me start with my current party positions as part of the Northern Ireland party. I had to lay out just what authority I had on the terrorism issue. At the point that was brought into the debate with both the speakers before me, my grand opening line got cut and and my speech took on a whole different structure.

These notes are but an aide memoire, most of what had been said was still fresh in my mind. I never even transcribed my speech from BBC iPlayer and it is too late to do so now. But I hope this may be helpful if you ever find yourself required to summate on a motion or an amendment. Although one final word of advise, don't try and do this unless you are able to improvise on the spur of the moment and have some idea where you want to go to anyway.

Update Thanks to Zoe O'Connell I managed to upload the speech unto my YouTube channel so you can watch it there.

The Speech That Never Was Take 2: Equal Marriage #LDConf

Just about now if things are going to schedule item number F35 Equal Marriage in the United Kingdom is being debated at Liberal Democrat conference. Here, slightly modified, is the speech that I am not able to present for a second time (the first at Scottish because I moved the transgender amendment, now because I am absent).

Conference, it is with great delight that I am able to dust of this speech that I didn't make at Scottish Conference this Spring, on this very matter. Especially because lines 4-5 and 29-31 look very happily familiar to the Transgender amendment I moved there. But I stand before you today to commend the motion as a whole. a

Whilst the coalition government is making moves to allow ceremonies for LGBT couples to be performed in religious buildings. The Prime Minister has said that these will be civil partnerships.

That means that these will not have the appearance of a Church marriage ceremony that you or I would attend for our heterosexual friends, because a civil partnership is not allowed to contain any religious elements. It is just that a civil ceremony. Yet at present if our heterosexual friends want a civil marriage they can do so at the local registry office alongside those self same civil partnerships.

This assumes that I and other gay Christians or members of other faiths are happy just to have a civil partnership in a location that we feel is like home. That is why like our own leader has said we shouldn't me so hung up with the word marriage.

There are some who say that allowing people of the same-sex to have the right to marry will debase the sanctity of marriage. That would be the same sanctity as Britney Spears 24 hour marriage in Vegas.

Love is a many splendoured thing and when I find the man I wish to spend the rest of my life with I want to have the option of marrying him in a church and having our friends sings the hymns we have chosen and the readings we want. That is of course if he says yes and also wants a religious ceremony.

To misquote the bard of Stratford

I am gay! Hath not a Gay man eyes?
Hath not a gay man hands, organs, dimensions,
senses, affections, passions?
Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,
subject to the same diseases, healed by the same
means, warmed and cooled by the same winter
and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we
not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you
poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall
we not speak out? If we are like you in the rest, we
will resemble you in that.

You know something conference, as a gay christian I'd love to settle down with the man of my dreams. I'd love to enter the house of my God and join that man in union. But I want the words in the presence of God to be part of that ceremony. Not as a civil partnership in a religious building seems to me, sneaking in when the lights are out and God isn't home.

I want the choice.

I have the choice to be with the man I love.
I have to choice to be partnered with them.
I'd love to have to choice to invite God to the wedding.

And conference you know something else. As a Northern Irish man if the biggest dilemma is whether to have a ceremony that is protestant or catholic or some combination of the two I wouldn't mind. I'd be very happy just as long as I had that choice.

Conference, support this motion and I'll let you know when you can start shopping for hats.

UPDATE: There are some other blogs about speechs. This one from Sarah that similarly was never made about the issue of Gender recognition. Then there is the speech that Sara Bedford actually made yeah if you've read the above you can tell I was that Northern Irish friend.