PEOPLE
THE dialogue INTERVIEW
“Public Speaking and debating
have a key role in combatting
disadvantage and promoting
educational achievement
and excellence”
WITH A WIDESPREAD AND WELL-DESERVED REPUTATION AS AN ELOQUENT, PASSIONATE AND
PERSUASIVE PUBLIC SPEAKER, IT’S LITTLE SURPRISE THAT THE RT. HON. LORD PAUL BOATENG OF
AKYEM AND WEMBLEY IS A STRONG SUPPORTER OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING UNION. HIS 30-YEAR
CAREER IN PUBLIC LIFE, FROM THE LAW COURTS TO THE CUT AND THRUST OF POLITICS AND THE
MORE MEASURED APPROACH OF INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY, HAS BEEN BUILT ON HIS ABILITY FOR
EFFECTIVE VERBAL COMMUNICATION, A SKILL WHICH HE HAS WORKED HARD TO PROMOTE AS A
GOVERNOR OF THE ESU.
WORDS MICHAEL PRYKE | KEITH POTTER PICTURES GIGI GIANNELLA
W
hat is perhaps more surprising is the
essential role that the ESU played in Lord
Boateng’s own early life. Having fled
Ghana when his father (a cabinet minister and lawyer)
was thrown into jail without trial during a coup against
President Nkrumah, 15-year-old Paul Boateng arrived in
the UK with his mother, sister and two suitcases to start a
new life on a council estate in Hemel Hempstead. “It was a
major culture shock,” he admits, “one moment to be living
the life of a cabinet minister’s child in Ghana, and then
suddenly to find myself in very different circumstances in
Hertfordshire. That was quite a challenge.”
Even at that age, however, he had come to appreciate
the Ghanaian tradition of spirited public speaking. While
he may have disappointed his new headmaster with a
lack of cricketing prowess – “I think he somehow mistook
Ghana for Guyana” – Lord Boateng was soon excelling
in debates.
“I became very quickly the captain of the debating
team, and the competition organised by the local branch
of the ESU in Hertfordshire was really my first opportunity
to shine,” he explains. “It was hugely significant. When
that sort of thing happens to you as a child it hits you,
yet through that debating competition, and the fact that
we were able to win the trophy, I got my first sense of
belonging to an academic community, and to a county.
It was also my first sense tha Ё