Did the Tories spin or just plain lie about Cameron's "unscripted" speech

Already covered here and here, but this needs to be distributed more widely around the web. The Conservatives have claimed Cameron's big conference speech was unscripted. But Kevin Maguire's blog comes up with a different story:

"If David Cameron's audition to be a cable TV daytime host was unscripted, a line swallowed by many newspapers and broadcasters, can anyone explain why the "speech writer" was last night having his hand shaken by fellow Tories?

A lawyer acquaintance waiting in a Euston station taxi queue at about 7.45 watched as a well spoken man enjoyed the plaudits of fellow Cons fresh off the train from Blackpool.

Anyone know him? He looked in his 30s, fairish hair, dark suit. chequed shirt and a tie with an emblem or motif from a university or club.

Reading a London Evening Standard headline hailing "1 hour 10 mins without a script", he laughed and claimed he wrote the address  before boasting "they believe he extemporised!" Another Tory laughed too then grabbed his hand before saying: "Seriously though, great speech. Congratulations."

That Cameron somehow made it up as he went along, apart from a few notes, is the best piece of spin for years."

More evidence of the spin/lies from the comments at Bloggerheads:

Well, at least according to Tara Hamilton-Miller writing for the New Statesman... :

--'On Sunday evening, Cameron's speechwriting team of Steve Hilton and Danny Kruger were ensconced in the leader's suite at the Imperial. The first draft was too long at 12,000 words, so they were up into the early hours meticulously slashing it. "The danger is you have to cover everything without making it look like a shopping list, but you don't want to lose the theme," said an aide.'

Posted by: Jherad at October  5, 2007  2:35 PM 

Comments

[Parburypolitica]

I don't get why people where so impressed with the speech it's not like he said anything new in it and the only line he put any passion into was the last.