Friday 22 August 2008
The Importance of Being Worthy
I'm unsure whether this post should be a postscript to my earlier one on "The Language of New Labour", or a introduction. Let's just say that there's something about the "worthiness" of The New Labour Project which brings out the Bad Arse in me ! New Tories please take note !
The Language of New Labour (or "We've been Shagged !"
A while ago someone asked me what I meant by "De-constructing the New Labour Project", meanwhile looking at me gravely as if I should consider myself unworthy of such a task. Now, as it happens, many of this gentleman's favourite expressions have at their root the verb "To Shag". Incidentally, he is an extremely clever man - Mathematician, Psychologist (interested in language), Lawyer, Politician, Teacher - but likes to appeal to the popular vote and also to the passing phraseology of younger people, in particular.
Since this conversation - and, indeed, for some time before - New Labour has been in something of a self-destructive state, so being something of a "Do Minimum" person (masterly inaction and all that), I've been holding back on this blog. However, I now feel it's time to resume my "de-construction" with a short examination of the language of New Labour.
Now my educational and professional background is rather different from that my learned friend, and includes Masters Degrees in English Language and Literature, and Urban and Regional Planning, as well as formal training as a Management Consultant. I'm also a fairly proficient Animal Communicator (Horses and Cats !), and, as any human who's had a full-on face-to-face argument with me will know, have ready battalion of popular expressions to hand.
Incidentally, I'm more Jaw-Jaw, than War-War.
One of my basic problems with New Labour is in "its" deployment of language, and, in particular, the "Newspeak" (think George Orwell, 1984) which has inveigled itself into my areas of work : regeneration and planning. Indeed, on one occasion, it was suggested to me that I would need to acquire a whole "new terminology". No thanks, being deficient in foreign languages, if it comes down to being unable to communicate in my own, I think that I'll move abroad (perhaps to Russia) and learn another.
Now what "Newspeak" (and its related "Groupspeak/think") has enabled New Labour to achieve , above all else, is to to give senior politicians s and "big time" bureaucrats (whether in the public or private sectors) charged with delivering government policy an overwhelming sense of self-importance. Moreover, this overwhelming sense of self-importance has also - to give Credit where it's due - "cascaded down" (please note my mastery of McSpeak or management consultancy jargon !) to middle and lower level "operatives" ie people who do the work, or not.
Here, however, comes "The Crunch", the consumers of government policy, including public services, but also many other "goods" which do not fall under these, no longer feel that things can only get better. Indeed, many people, myself included, now feel that things could become considerably worse, and, more especially, that they will have to pay the price for the follies of, first, Tony's Cronies, and then Gordon's Gang. In short, and as onetime spin doctor supremo, Alastair Campbell, might have put it himself : "We've been shagged !".
Since this conversation - and, indeed, for some time before - New Labour has been in something of a self-destructive state, so being something of a "Do Minimum" person (masterly inaction and all that), I've been holding back on this blog. However, I now feel it's time to resume my "de-construction" with a short examination of the language of New Labour.
Now my educational and professional background is rather different from that my learned friend, and includes Masters Degrees in English Language and Literature, and Urban and Regional Planning, as well as formal training as a Management Consultant. I'm also a fairly proficient Animal Communicator (Horses and Cats !), and, as any human who's had a full-on face-to-face argument with me will know, have ready battalion of popular expressions to hand.
Incidentally, I'm more Jaw-Jaw, than War-War.
One of my basic problems with New Labour is in "its" deployment of language, and, in particular, the "Newspeak" (think George Orwell, 1984) which has inveigled itself into my areas of work : regeneration and planning. Indeed, on one occasion, it was suggested to me that I would need to acquire a whole "new terminology". No thanks, being deficient in foreign languages, if it comes down to being unable to communicate in my own, I think that I'll move abroad (perhaps to Russia) and learn another.
Now what "Newspeak" (and its related "Groupspeak/think") has enabled New Labour to achieve , above all else, is to to give senior politicians s and "big time" bureaucrats (whether in the public or private sectors) charged with delivering government policy an overwhelming sense of self-importance. Moreover, this overwhelming sense of self-importance has also - to give Credit where it's due - "cascaded down" (please note my mastery of McSpeak or management consultancy jargon !) to middle and lower level "operatives" ie people who do the work, or not.
Here, however, comes "The Crunch", the consumers of government policy, including public services, but also many other "goods" which do not fall under these, no longer feel that things can only get better. Indeed, many people, myself included, now feel that things could become considerably worse, and, more especially, that they will have to pay the price for the follies of, first, Tony's Cronies, and then Gordon's Gang. In short, and as onetime spin doctor supremo, Alastair Campbell, might have put it himself : "We've been shagged !".
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