Preparing to speak

Am sat in the Conference Centre preparing notes for a speech that I am due to deliver summating for an amendment in the Middle East debate this afternoon (was also interviewed yesterday about my general views on Lib Dem foreign policy by the BBC World Service, which was great - have to see what goes out today or tomorrow from that). Writing these speech notes, I am reminded of a story about the late Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens, when he was first seeking selection as a Tory Parliamentary candidate. He once showed a colleague his notes for his speech to a selection committee, with the notes in their entirety comprising: 1) Twenty years of ceaseless fight against socialism; 2) Hanging and flogging; 3) Mrs Thatcher. I wonder what he'd have made of David Cameron?!