'I'm paid to take the p*ss,' sketch-writer Simon Hoggart cheerfully revealed today.
Good to know that he does not take himself too seriously. Simon was helping the Public Administration Committee in our probe into Official Language. It was a great romp of an end-of-term session with the splendid Matthew Parris and Professor David Crystal author of 'It's just a phrase I'm going through.' The appropriately beautifully spoken Marie Clair from the Plain English Campaign provided added lustre. She quoted this gem.
From HMRC ' I will treat your tax return for all purposes as though you sent it in response to a notice from us which required you to deliver it to us by the day we received it.'
She emphasised the danger of official documents that were incomprehensible that meant vulnerable people are put at risk. We heard that Tessa Jowell keeps a 'Bollocks list' of spin, jargon and gobbledegook. 'The trouble is', she confessed. 'you begin to talk that language yourself.'
Simon Hoggart gave an example from the Thatcher years.
The phrase "care in the community" was made up of "two wonderfully warm words", he said. "We're all in favour of care, we're all in favour of community". But although this sounded wonderful, "in fact, as we know, it means poor, mad women exposing themselves in Victoria Gardens".
Simon Hoggart reminded us that often his sketch was the only piece of Parliamentary reporting published in The Guardian. Gordon Prentice said,"People like you who are paid to interpret what we're saying don't often do a very good job".
Simon replied "I'm not paid to interpret what you're saying. I'm paid to take the piss."
David Crystal leapt to the defence of twittering. While most of it is trivial rubbish, the limits it sets could produce 'twits' of high merit. I asked him if he agreed that as the discipline of the sonnet form has created great literature, twitter brevity could lead to polished, concentrated jewels of literature. David waxed eloquent on the possibility of 'twits' of a high literary order.My written contribution to this erudite session was from the Commons Business Plan: 'To ensure a risk-management system is embedded within business processes, allowing for risks to be escalated up and down the organisation as necessary.'
Our chairman Tony Wright quoted the still accurate description of George Orwell of political language.
'...prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.'
One Act of Parliament , the Legislative and Regulatory Act was so stuffed with jargon it was incomprehensible. A second act , the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act had to be drafted to make sense of it.
Reversing roles, MP and wit Stephen Pound attended the meeting to write an 'MPs hit back at sketch-writers' piece. Very exciting. More tomorrow.
http://www.twofourdigital.net/UKParliament/Archive/0000007391.wmv.asx
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