Publisher's Synopsis
In the present study, the author has analyzed four leadership speeches in Britain in order to show how politics is depicted by leaders, and vice versa, in a non-presidential polity where the cult of the heroic individual is not strong, and where, until the 1980s, collective leadership, whether in the Cabinet, in Parliament or in the political parties, was the norm. The party conference is the moment of political life when leaders face their party and the public simultaneously. The leader's conference speech is, therefore, revealing of both the constraints upon and possibilities for the national presentation of personalized political leadership in Britain.
