Creative use of language… or meaningless twaddle?

I was listening to an interview with a politician, an MP, on the radio this afternoon. I know all politicians put a spin on things and come out with meaningless nonsense, trying to baffle us with silly analogies, ludicrous slogans and buzz words, but this person, and I won’t say who or which party, just issued a flood of nonsense. If the actual interview was analysed and what was actually said in answer to the question was stripped of all the hyperbole it would probably last about thirty seconds – and then no doubt it would be meaningful and of interst.

Here is just a selection which I managed to jot down:

• a timely corrective
• an internal conversation
• focus in and drill in
• (… the party should) fully own the defeat… regroup and try and own what happened
• a very similar drumbeat to what we see
• our economic bona fides (note the plural)
• increasingly toxic in the south
• they sound self-evident in hindsight
• we didn’t paint the bigger vision
• wrestle with utopianism
• we need to chart a vision
• an easy route map through this wholly authentic response
• internally focussed,inwardly focussed
• compelling story
• incumbent on us to navigate through
• the age we live in as opposed to one we inhabited in the past

I’m not doubting the sincerity or the commitment, or the desire to do the best for the country, but all this faffle just annoyed and irritated me… but did also amuse me too!

You can catch the actual interview for the next twenty-eight days; you need to go to about 23 minutes into the programme:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06wd7dr#play