The Observer: A short guide to New Labour-speak
Look, I have always believed ... New Labour, new language. By David Rowan
It was so much easier talking politics in the Eighties. As long as you knew about handbagging, kebabbing and cricket tests, you were ready for pretty much any conversation the political classes could engage you in.
How things have changed. With New Labour has come a whole New Vocabulary: a way of speaking that suggests the spinmeisters want to control not merely our perception of politics, but the very words we use to describe it. And to judge by the new words gaining broad circulation since 'the project' - what used to be called an election campaign - they appear to be succeeding.
We all now need to understand the perils of straying off message, avoiding personal opinions that stray from the party line. If not, we risk the humiliation of rapid rebuttal or, in that latest version, prebuttal, which involves having our arguments demolished even before we have put them. The underlying theme is that late-Nineties obsession with image control that led to the folletting of candidates' appearances (after Barbara Follett's frock-doctor sessions) and our very nation's rebranding. The effect has been to add so many new words to our language, or to redefine so many old ones, that you need a phrase book if you're going to keep up. So here are a few entries intended to help.
You need to know that Labour's first act on winning the election was to promulgate 'new' as the official new adjective. As the Press Association's political editor put it: '1997's been New Everything. New Labour, New Britain, New Monarchy, New Prince Charles, New Car. . .'
Its favourite euphemism is 'to respond positively to'. You need to learn about blind trusts, those secret trust funds that helped get the politicians elected in the first place (though it's highly off-message to mention their existence). And you ought to know about connexity, which that influential wonk Geoff Mulgan defines as the idea that we are all inter-dependent in modern society as we move away from traditional hierarchies.
If you do want to master the language of millennial politics, try our mix-and-match instant Blairism template and you too can deliver speeches just like our great leader. Begin with: 'I have been absolutely clear when I have said that the. . .' Then choose any one word from each of the first and second columns, which '. . .will be constructed with. . .' a word from the third column:
Modern / People / Opportunity
New / Family / Responsibility
Peoples / Contract / A will to win
Key / Modernisation / Trust
Decent / Community / Humility
Young / Enterprise / Decency
Reborn / Citizen / Aspiration
Core / Millennium / Vision
'A Glossary for the 90s' by David Rowan is published by Prion at Pounds 6.99.
(The Guardian, September 13 1998)
It was so much easier talking politics in the Eighties. As long as you knew about handbagging, kebabbing and cricket tests, you were ready for pretty much any conversation the political classes could engage you in.
How things have changed. With New Labour has come a whole New Vocabulary: a way of speaking that suggests the spinmeisters want to control not merely our perception of politics, but the very words we use to describe it. And to judge by the new words gaining broad circulation since 'the project' - what used to be called an election campaign - they appear to be succeeding.
We all now need to understand the perils of straying off message, avoiding personal opinions that stray from the party line. If not, we risk the humiliation of rapid rebuttal or, in that latest version, prebuttal, which involves having our arguments demolished even before we have put them. The underlying theme is that late-Nineties obsession with image control that led to the folletting of candidates' appearances (after Barbara Follett's frock-doctor sessions) and our very nation's rebranding. The effect has been to add so many new words to our language, or to redefine so many old ones, that you need a phrase book if you're going to keep up. So here are a few entries intended to help.
You need to know that Labour's first act on winning the election was to promulgate 'new' as the official new adjective. As the Press Association's political editor put it: '1997's been New Everything. New Labour, New Britain, New Monarchy, New Prince Charles, New Car. . .'
Its favourite euphemism is 'to respond positively to'. You need to learn about blind trusts, those secret trust funds that helped get the politicians elected in the first place (though it's highly off-message to mention their existence). And you ought to know about connexity, which that influential wonk Geoff Mulgan defines as the idea that we are all inter-dependent in modern society as we move away from traditional hierarchies.
If you do want to master the language of millennial politics, try our mix-and-match instant Blairism template and you too can deliver speeches just like our great leader. Begin with: 'I have been absolutely clear when I have said that the. . .' Then choose any one word from each of the first and second columns, which '. . .will be constructed with. . .' a word from the third column:
Modern / People / Opportunity
New / Family / Responsibility
Peoples / Contract / A will to win
Key / Modernisation / Trust
Decent / Community / Humility
Young / Enterprise / Decency
Reborn / Citizen / Aspiration
Core / Millennium / Vision
'A Glossary for the 90s' by David Rowan is published by Prion at Pounds 6.99.
(The Guardian, September 13 1998)
posted by David Rowan at Sunday, September 13, 1998
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