Today’s ‘Positive and Optimistic Sunday’. In this global age, news travels quickly. Even my cyberfriends in Canada know of the disaster that is the Queensland floods. I try, but I can’t imagine how horrific it’s been – and is – for the affected Queenslanders. Though aphorisms including ‘always look on the brighter side of life’, ‘every cloud has a silver lining’ and ‘it’s darkest before the dawn’ apply, I suspect that if you’re a flood victim you’d be hard pushed to see anything but the worst. At such times, what’s needed is real leadership: strong, confident, reassuring, optimistic, inspiring. In a word: Churchillian. As I was born after WWII, I have no first-hand knowledge of Winston Churchill’s famous wartime speeches. But I don’t under-estimate the effect they had in deciding the war’s outcome. I hardly ever watch TV. But as it happened, last Thursday morning I was near a TV set and saw Queensland Premier Anna Bligh (pictured) [1] speaking to Queenslanders. I was transfixed. It was perfect. Precisely the right speech for the moment. Churchillian. To a tee. I even found Bligh’s emotion towards the end, to be heartfelt. And appropriate. crikey.com, a webzine that’s generally critical of politicians, praised Bligh [2]. I couldn’t find footage of the entire speech, but here’s its latter part [3]. Under difficult circumstances indeed, how positive and optimistic is that.
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