Now, armed with an understanding of forum, style, ethos, pathos and logos, the speechwriter confronts morality and the question: should the arts of oratory really be used at all?

The question of whether oratory is a force for good or evil has been debated since the birth of trained oratory itself.

In 423 bc, only 4 years after Gorgias brought the craze of stylised speechmaking to Athens, the playwright Aristophanes memorably satirised its exponents.

His play Clouds opens with Strepsiades taking his loose-spending playboy son Pheidippides for awalk through Athens,with the intention of telling him it’s time to settle down, give up gambling and horse-racing and repay his debts. Father’s well-chosen route takes them past the headquarters of the sophists.

1. STREPSIADES: Look over this way. You see that nice little door and that nice little house?

2. PHEIDIPPIDES: Yes. What is it, actually, father?

3. STREPSIADES: It is a Thinkery for intellectual souls . . . And if you pay them well, they can teach you how to win a case whether you’re in the right or not.

4. PHEIDIPPIDES: Who are these people?

5. STREPSIADES: I don’t quite remember their name. They’re very fine reflective intellectuals.

6. PHEIDIPPIDES: Yecch! I know the villains. You mean those pale-faced bare-footed quacks such as that wretched Socrates and Chaerephon . . .

7. STREPSIADES: [desperately]: My most beloved son – I beg of you – do go and study with them!

8. PHEIDIPPIDES: What do you want me to learn?

9. STREPSIADES: They say they have two Arguments in there – Right and Wrong they call them – and one of them, Wrong, can always win its case even when justice is against it. Well, if you can learn this Wrongful Argument, then of all these debts I’ve run into because of you, I needn’t pay anyone an obol of them ever.