Speaking out  

On Thursday evening I headed straight from Parliament to Edmonton County School to take part in the judging of the Jack Petchey Speak Out Enfield final.Let me take a minute to scrape my jaw off the floor! These kids, or should I say young people, were good, and I mean GOOD.Speak Out, as the title suggests is a public speaking competition. The final I helped judge included those who had been whittled down from a group of 800 pupils from 17 state schools in Enfield.I - and a number of other judges, including the Mayor, Christiana During - was tasked with ranking the finalists into the final finalists after hearing them speak on interesting and challenging topics.I was impressed.If, at that age, you'd have asked me to speak for two minutes to a huge number of my peers and others in an interesting and engaging manner on any topic, I would have hid under my seat. I've made up for it since, but...