18 May 2018

Kate Osamor quoted Obama – here’s how MPs should copy other famous speeches

The Labour MP for Edmonton quoted the former US president’s 2008 acceptance speech when she was re-elected last year.

“If there is anyone out there who doubts that Edmonton is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of hope is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer,” said Kate Osamor, in her speech after being re-elected in the north London borough of Edmonton in last year’s general election.

“It’s the answer told by the lines of people stretching around polling stations, schools, and churches,” she continued.

Sound familiar?

That’s because she was quoting a passage from former US president Barack Obama’s 2008 acceptance speech. She told PoliticsHome that she figured the speech was so famous, her audience would get the reference.

This got your mole thinking other UK politicians could shoe-horn their constituencies incongruously into famous addresses. Here are some ideas they should feel free to lift:

Gordon, 2017 general election

Friends, Gordonians, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Salmond, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Salmond. The Tory Colin

Hath told you Salmond was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Salmond answer’d it.

Croydon Central, 2017 general election

At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the trams sleep, Croydon Central will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when the age of Gavin Barwell ends, and when the soul of a constituency, long marginal, finds utterance.

Morley and Outwood, 2015 general election

One small step for a Tory. One giant leap for reality TV.

Richmond Park, 2016 by-election

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in Remainia,

We shall fight on the river and the pond,

We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Richmond, whatever the cost may be,

We shall fight in the gastropubs,

We shall fight in the National Trust properties,

We shall fight in the deer park and the cycle paths,

We shall fight in the tearooms;

We shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, Richmond or a large part of it were subjugated again by Zac Goldsmith, then our Lib Dem canvassers across the country, armed and guarded by the Remain elite, would carry on the struggle, until, in Vince’s good time, the Second Referendum, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the liberal.”

Hayes and Harlington, 2017 general election

Everything in Hayes and Harlington is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent.

Great Grimsby, 2016 EU referendum

From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land.

From this moment on, it’s going to be Great Grimsby First.

Every decision on trade, on fishing, on immigration, on rubbish bin collection, will be made to benefit Great Grimsby workers and Great Grimsby families.

We must protect our borders from the ravages of Cleethorpes making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.

I will fight for you with every breath in my body – and I will never, ever let you down.

Great Grimsby will start winning again, winning like never before.

Momentum, Unseat Campaign

I would say to the Labour supporters of Hastings and Rye, as I said to those who have joined Momentum: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.

You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to unseat Tories, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that Jeremy Corbyn can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny (Amber Rudd) never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. This is our policy. You ask, what is our aim?

I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all recounts, victory, however long and hard Owen Jones may speak, for without victory, there is no survival.