Of leaders and speeches

Tweet In an attempt to sow discord where there is none, Peter Black suggests that what has been widely acknowledged as a superb speech by Adam Price at the Conference is in some way irritating or embarrassing for others in the party. (As an aside, it's interesting that his authority for criticising the speech by Ieuan Wyn was – er, another Lib Dem blogger…). Let me say clearly that I'm not in the least embarrassed or irritated by the fact that he's a better speaker than myself and most of my colleagues. Au contraire.

Adam is a powerful and effective speaker – probably the best we currently have in the party. It's a talent which he deployed to great effect on Saturday, and there's no doubt that the party benefited greatly from his performance. When a party has a talent like that, making the best use of it is absolutely the right thing to do. The alternative, of not allowing him to perform at his best in case he is compared with someone else, would be a pretty stupid way of proceeding.

In a more thoughtful, and considerably less partisan, piece on Wales Home last week, a former Labour spin doctor talked about how Labour in particular could learn from the way which Plaid uses different people with different talents to perform different roles. Working as a team is generally more effective, in any organisation, than expecting the leader to be the best at everything. And you don't choose a leader solely on the basis of his or her ability to deliver the best speech.