I believe it's the first time that Ed Miliband has done it.
Anne Widdecombe was the first to abandon the script for a speech and wander around a platform wired to a radio mike. David Cameron followed impressively. Ed Miliband did it at the Welsh conference today. He was passionate, confident and convincing. It was by far the best speech I have ever heard him make.
The technique is not as difficult as it appears. The secret of good public speaking is not to change the words but to change the audience. Words and phrases used may have had dozens of previous outings. Find a form of words that work, polish them, commit them to memory and keep repeating them. To make a great un-scripted speech a path is required. A big bang start and a rousing finale can be committed to memory. To get from one to the other the pattern should flow logically with connected links of perhaps a dozen subjects. The words will spring to memory.
Easy really.
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