« Conrad Black on Today
An ABC Of The Night »

Not my words, Mr Speaker

December 2nd, 2007 by Roo Reynolds

The current Matthew d'Ancona Sunday Supplement reminds me of another one, the best bit of thoughtful commentary on modern political bullshit I've recently heard, and I'm glad to see it's still online. Not My Words, Mr Speaker by Matthew Parris was broadcast a couple of months ago.

Matthew Parris takes a canter through the arid badlands of political language and asks why politicians drape their speeches in the tired glad-rags of stale phrases.

Matthew Parris was an MP before he was a political commentator, and understands this world as well as anyone. He seems to delight in highlighting the clichés which litter political life in Britain. At one point Parris suggests a "ticking time-bomb" as an example of a well-worn phrase to Norman Tebbit. Tebbit, you'll remember, was injured in the 1984 bomb attack of the Tory party conference in Brighton. Much as I love Matthew Parris, it's also rather fun to hear him blush at that point.

Part one (MP3, Real) covers

  1. Grabbing attention by dramatising with sensational language (holed beneath the waterline)
  2. Padding (year on year on year)
  3. Make a question sound like an answer (we need a debate...)

Some brilliant examples, including "Rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic", "Hearts and minds" and "I'll take no lectures". In part two (Real) we hear more modern examples of post New Labour bullshit bingo, including "rolling out", "we must be seen to walk the talk" and the latest favourite, "across the piece".

Presenter: Matthew Parris
Listen: [MP3] [Real]

This entry was posted by by roo on Sunday, December 2nd, 2007 at 12:19 pm . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Not my words, Mr Speaker”

  1. Roo Reynolds - Exploring the UK Government online - They Work For You and the Public Whip Says:
    December 2nd, 2007 at 2:13 pm

    [...] TheyWorkForYou search facility is great too. Inspired by a Matthew Parris documentary on parliamentary clichés, I wondered which MPs and Lords are guilty of using the well-worn phrase [...]

  2. WIIIAI Says:
    December 2nd, 2007 at 9:34 pm

    The MP3 link for part 1 worked, neither Real Player link did.

  3. WIIIAI Says:
    December 2nd, 2007 at 9:35 pm

    Nor, I should have said, do the links on the BBC page.

  4. Roo Says:
    December 2nd, 2007 at 9:41 pm

    That’s strange. Just checked them here, and both .ram URLs work for me. If the links on the programme page don’t work for you then either you, or the BBC (or, to keep things vague, something in between) clearly has problems. :-(

Leave a Reply

(You can do this safely while listening; thanks to Internet Magic you can add a comment here without causing the page to refresh and reloading the programme you are listening to. Try it.)