Derek Mooney

I've seen about two or three events live.

And he is very, very good.

He can ad lib.

Now, this goes back to his own familiarity, particularly with comedy.

So he always liked The Goon, Spike Milligan in particular.

His father was also kind of, Prince Philip, was famously kind of hung around with comedians and made a great line in terms of, I think, his advice to speechwriters and to people giving speeches is what the backside can't endure, the brain can't absorb.

So there's, I think, therefore, Charles knew just exactly how to pace it.

And he also knew something a lot of politicians don't seem to know is how not to talk across your own laugh lines.

When you have a reaction, let it play out.

For a political speech, it's normally around 100, 110 words per minute.

And that's to allow for applause lines, etc.

In Ireland, we're really bad at that.

I think I've done a couple of analysis of various speeches from Micheál Martin, Simon Harris and Mary Lou MacDonald at their Ardèche speeches.

And at one stage, Micheál Martin was going at 150 words a minute.

And what's clear this happened is somebody has written a speech and haven't worked out.

You've only got 23 minutes to deliver it.

So then you start to gabble.

Then you start to rush it.

And it becomes like a mad advert for OMO.

You're just throwing lines out very, very quickly.