Justin Webb’s great blog about his experiences as North America editor for the BBC alerted me to renewed efforts to have bills in some US states written in ‘plain English’.
Yes please. I used to hate trawling through arcane language to find out which bit of a particular Bill we disagreed with; how on earth any normal person understands what is actually being legislated on is beyond me.
I got very excited when googling to find out more about this to see that Nick Palmer MP had introduced a Private Members Bill last year that had been supported by the Plain English campaign, but sadly it was only to do with the size of the font.
I have a suggestion for the new Speaker as well – perhaps they could look at removing some of the mad conventions of the language used in the House of Commons? It’s all very well requiring politeness and mutual respect but there are ways of doing that without confusing everyone.
One of the things I hate about politician-speak is the way that they use long words when short ones would do. Another thing is that they use five sentences when one would do. And frankly if I hate it, I can’t see how voters appreciate it. Shorter, simpler answers might allow voters and interviewers to hold them to account better.
An exemplary model of this is the clip of Charles Clarke being doorstepped last week. I can’t find a link, but he was asked, “Would you like to comment on Gordon Brown?” and responded simply, “no”.
Brilliant. If a little disappointing as I suspect we’d find it interesting…
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There is an old Scottish saying: short, to the point and profitable.
I think there’s been QUITE enough profitability in MPs’ lives for now…