A great speech depends on the sense of drama it creates, not just the power of its language or the force of its rhetoric. By this token, Robin Cook made a great speech. Tony Blair, bidding for the support of the House of Commons yesterday, made an effective one. George Bush, setting a deadline for Saddam, did neither. His was a declaration of American intent rather than a plea for understanding. It was delivered from a bare office, behind a podium, straight to camera. It lacked the one context essential to oratory — a live audience, and an audience which needs to be persuaded.

Memorable speeches must convey urgency or passion. The best combine both. In Mr Cook’s case, the language was simple and restrained, the arguments clearly spelt out. He made an intellectual case. But he also spoke from the heart. Here was a man sacrificing his political future for his principles. Hence the unprecedented and spontaneous applause he drew from his colleagues. His speech had two other ingredients vital in debate — humour and a direct appeal to the interests of his audience. He got both into his first two sentences: “This is the first time for 20 years that I have addressed the House from the back benches. I must confess that I had forgotten how much better the view is from here.” John Denham, who also announced his resignation, did much the same when, in the course of a speech of genuine passion, he asked a heckler, “Do you mind if I finish? I’ve never made a resignation speech before and I would like to get to the end of this one.”

You can imagine what Winston Churchill would have made of moments like that. Although it is his use of the English language that colours his speeches today, it was his delivery that struck most listeners at the time. Harold Nicolson recalled Churchill’s address to the Commons in February 1943, when he described the Allies as a collection of warrior nations “walking in fear of the Lord, very heavily armed, and with an increasingly clear view of their salvation”. Nicolson noted, in particular, his body language: “Till then [the need for the enemy’s unconditional surrender] he had kept his hands to his breast in that characteristic gesture, as if patting his breast-pocket to see whether he has forgotten his letter-case. When he gets to this stage he drops his hands and makes a sweeping gesture with flat palms, as if smoothing out a tea-cloth.” He sagged at the knees when he mentioned the Turks. He rose to attention when he described British troops. He was, in the chamber, an actor as well as an orator.

By contrast, there was nothing Churchillian about Mr Blair’s speech. This was a dogged attempt to change the minds of dissenting backbenchers, an attempt made against the headwind of the popular mood. It was a speech to admire for its willpower and its moral conviction rather than the elegance of its prose. Blair too used body language — the chopping action of the open hand, the prodded finger that threatened to go right through the dispatch box, the imperious sweep of the arms that allowed an intervention. And he also used humour, though of the bitter kind. “Ah, yes, the Liberal Democrats,” he said with that tight smile of his, “unified as ever in opportunism and error.”

But the fascination of his speech lay more in the drama it conveyed than in its content — the argument, after all, is by now deeply familiar. Here was a leader putting his case in the one forum that had the capacity to destroy him. We knew that by the end of this day his fate might be decided — not tomorrow or the day after that, but as surely as the clock on the wall that ticked on towards war and away from peace.

And that is the difference between adequacy and greatness — the fate of the speaker may be determined by their words. Cicero’s speech attacking the Catiline conspiracy — held to be the cynosure of oratory — sounds dusty these days, but it was, at the time, a matter of life or death. Sir Thomas More’s defence against the charge of treason remains powerful because we know his fate depended on it. Nothing could be more moving than the recantation of Thomas Cranmer, who was dragged to his death even as he spoke. The words are hardly the point — it was the courage that mattered.

Yesterday’s debate reminded us, as Mr Cook pointed out, that for all the derision it attracts, there is still nothing quite like the House of Commons when its members are debating a matter on which they hold passionate views, and in which they can, if they wish, make a difference to world events. In those circumstances, courage and conviction make powerful allies. They may even allow politicians to aspire to Wordsworth’s definition: Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach of ordinary men; a stately speech.

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