The Times Op-Ed: A guide to electionspeak
By David Rowan
There is nothing like a good war to reinvigorate the language. Sure enough, the battle for No 10 is already carpet-bombing political discourse with lexical missiles. Decode the neologisms and euphemisms and you gain a rare insight into the strategists' true intentions. That is why, over the next month, this column will be filtering their linguistic creations to guide you through this war of words.
One firm theme has already emerged in this first official week of campaigning: the spin machines would rather keep us troublesome journalists out of the loop. For Labour's strategists, the buzzword is direct communication - cosy meetings between candidates and "ordinary voters", ideally captured by television cameras and with no opportunities for hacks to ask questions.
If some of those photogenic voters seem familiar from earlier drop-ins, as the chats are known, that is because they are endorsers - "a cross-section of the local community", as a Labour press officer asserts, but also pre-screened party supporters who may travel from event to event. After all, no one at Labour HQ wants another Sharon Storer moment, as they refer to Tony Blair's 2001 confrontation with a woman concerned about hospital standards.
It also explains Mr Blair's preference for soft sofa media - interviewers, when he must face them, as tough and probing as Little Ant and Dec.
Thanks to their lively Australian strategist, Lynton Crosby, the Conservatives are at least ahead in the battle for colourful jargon. Mr Crosby's obsession with dog-whistle issues explains Michael Howard's repetition of key phrases such as "so-called human rights" and "yob culture".
As with a high-pitched dog whistle, these messages are designed to rouse a specific audience without disturbing the wider electorate. The best the Liberal Democrats can do, by comparison, is cast the word decapitation into wider political usage. Sadly, this refers only to their strategy of targeting Conservative seats such as Mr Howard's, rather than a more physically vigorous battle plan that would guarantee coverage on prime-time television.
It does seem that election-related technology is having a disproportionate linguistic impact on the campaign. We have had blogjackings - the hacking of a candidate's weblog, as happened this week to the Conservative standing in North Norfolk. The swingometer, meanwhile, has been surpassed by on-screen worm polls, tracking audience reaction to speeches in real time.
All that's missing are the policy buzzwords. Let's hope we hear some next week.
A Glossary for the Nineties by David Rowan is published by Prion Books
(The Times Comment page, April 9 2005)
There is nothing like a good war to reinvigorate the language. Sure enough, the battle for No 10 is already carpet-bombing political discourse with lexical missiles. Decode the neologisms and euphemisms and you gain a rare insight into the strategists' true intentions. That is why, over the next month, this column will be filtering their linguistic creations to guide you through this war of words.
One firm theme has already emerged in this first official week of campaigning: the spin machines would rather keep us troublesome journalists out of the loop. For Labour's strategists, the buzzword is direct communication - cosy meetings between candidates and "ordinary voters", ideally captured by television cameras and with no opportunities for hacks to ask questions.
If some of those photogenic voters seem familiar from earlier drop-ins, as the chats are known, that is because they are endorsers - "a cross-section of the local community", as a Labour press officer asserts, but also pre-screened party supporters who may travel from event to event. After all, no one at Labour HQ wants another Sharon Storer moment, as they refer to Tony Blair's 2001 confrontation with a woman concerned about hospital standards.
It also explains Mr Blair's preference for soft sofa media - interviewers, when he must face them, as tough and probing as Little Ant and Dec.
Thanks to their lively Australian strategist, Lynton Crosby, the Conservatives are at least ahead in the battle for colourful jargon. Mr Crosby's obsession with dog-whistle issues explains Michael Howard's repetition of key phrases such as "so-called human rights" and "yob culture".
As with a high-pitched dog whistle, these messages are designed to rouse a specific audience without disturbing the wider electorate. The best the Liberal Democrats can do, by comparison, is cast the word decapitation into wider political usage. Sadly, this refers only to their strategy of targeting Conservative seats such as Mr Howard's, rather than a more physically vigorous battle plan that would guarantee coverage on prime-time television.
It does seem that election-related technology is having a disproportionate linguistic impact on the campaign. We have had blogjackings - the hacking of a candidate's weblog, as happened this week to the Conservative standing in North Norfolk. The swingometer, meanwhile, has been surpassed by on-screen worm polls, tracking audience reaction to speeches in real time.
All that's missing are the policy buzzwords. Let's hope we hear some next week.
A Glossary for the Nineties by David Rowan is published by Prion Books
(The Times Comment page, April 9 2005)
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