A guide to speaking like a Reform UK supporter

 Once you follow the utterances of Farage and his fellow Reform politicians, you realise two things. First, his political language and ideas are lifted directly from those of Donald Trump with hardly any adaptation for British circumstances. So Reform speak enthusiastically about abolishing what they call ‘DEI hires’, although DEI is a term used in the USA that has no meaning in UK law. They also propose to implement a ‘DOGE Team’ (named after the US department briefly headed by Elon Musk) to reduce expenditure in the local authorities they control, although almost all this is determined by statutory obligations. Farage’s most recent statements on ‘law and order’ go even further down this road, with pledges to send criminals to El Salvador (the destination chosen by Trump for deportees from the USA), and to loosen gun controls. 

The second striking feature of Reform politicians is that, like Trump, they have changed the meaning of words with the aim of making racism acceptable. So here is a guide to two revised definitions:
▸    Immigrant. This word traditionally means a person who comes to a country to become one of its residents. But the revised Trump/Reform meaning is ‘a dark-skinned person, irrespective of their place of birth’. A corollary of this definition is that white people are never defined as immigrants. This redefinition provides a means of bypassing legal prohibitions on racist language. So when Trump accuses ‘immigrants’ of being genetically violent, he does not include the white South Africans he welcomed to the USA, nor of course his own mother and grandfather. Instead, he means blacks, browns and even first nation Americans. He believes all should be deported whether or not they are US citizens because he believes the USA is a country for white people, to be run by white men. 

▸    Free speech. Legal restrictions on using racist language are keenly resented by Reform and the rest of the far right, who look back with nostalgia on the days when they were able to use derogatory racist epithets in everyday speech. They therefore demand ‘free speech’, which for them would restore the days when they could use the might of the media to smear and bully ethic minorities, women, gays, or whichever of ther many groups they feel contempt for. ‘Free speech’ in this sense does not apply to their opponents. In the USA, critics of Trump are threatened with costly legal action and an army of lawyers. Farage expresses outrage that by opposing legislation to protect children using on online media places him on the side of sexual abusers like Jimmy Savile.

This way of speaking, for all its absurdities, convinces a great many people. It taps the basic tribal fear of the other, of people unlike ourselves, who the fearful believe threaten our lives, our children and our identity. By stoking this fear, unscrupulous politicians are able to rob and cheat the public, and be free to carry out the many crimes of which they accuse the immigrants.

A new dictionary of bad politics

Politics is the art of persuasion, building coalitions of support for particular policies or for people seeking office. Politics can take place in an open arena (such as in Parliament) or by a secret backstairs conspiracy. At its best, politics involves argument and debate which can identify the strengths and weaknesses of a particular policy or person. At its worst, politics becomes a shouting match or a parade of devious ways to avoid honest debate. Here are some new terms which categorise bad politics of this sort.

Avoidism
‘Avoidism’ is a pretence that a preferred policy is devoid of shortcomings. Most public policies involve a complex balance of gains and losses and require a detailed consideration of evidence. But this does not make for the drama beloved by many commentators, while members of the public (and many journalists) lack the time and skill to assess anything longer than half a page of information. One way to manage this complexity is to pretend that there are only gains from the policies you support and only losses from the those you oppose. An outstanding example is how supporters of Brexit used the phrase ‘Project Doom’ to designate any opposing arguments. Sadly, Brexiteers came to believe their own arguments, which meant that the Government was utterly unprepared to meet the numerous problems this country encountered after leaving the EU.

Betrayalism
This the belief that the leaders of one’s party or political movement are always about to betray the cause, taking any of their statements as irrefutable ‘evidence’ that this is so. Betrayalists typically have their own idea of what the ‘cause’ truly comprises, and this may radically differ from the preferences of a party’s voters.  Betrayalism has always been an integral element of the culture of the Left in British politics, but is now also common among Conservatives. One result is that betrayalists prefer leaders (such as Jeremy Corbyn and Liz Truss) who concentrate on re-stating banalities to the faithful.

Christofascism
Christofascism combines a simplified version of Christianity with support for authoritarian government. The Christian component is usually reduced to a few simple ideas asserting male dominance and hence denigrating female autonomy. These include opposition to abortion and birth control. Homosexuality is also opposed because it is regarded not only as a symptom of liberalism, but also because it is seen as a feminisation of masculinity. Although ostensibly Christian, christofascism actually involves the worship not of God but of an authoritarian leader, to whom supernatural powers are attributed. These include a belief that the leader can communicate spiritually with the nation, and thus has no need for intermediary institutions such as political parties or parliaments.

Racialisation
Racialisation involves regarding every political issue as an example of racism, even in the absence of any evidence. Politicians in the past spoke of the superiority of the ‘British (or other) race’ over foreigners. This has now been reversed, so that any criticism of a black person for any reason is deemed an example of (white) racism. Criticisms of the Duchess of Sussex for bullying her staff and her narcissistic behaviour are thereby discounted as ‘racism’ because she has some African ancestry. Where no black people are involved in a dispute, all arguments can be discounted by mentioning the Atlantic slave trade. Racialisation is a specific example of victimism, which is a belief that a particular group of people are perpetual victims and another group their perpetual oppressors. Members of the ‘victim’ group who do well for themselves are denounced as having betrayed their identity. Thus Kwasi Kwarteng (who is wealthy and was in high office) was said to not really be black.

Re-nameism
Re-namism involves campaigning to rename a disadvantaged group of people. This can become a cyclical process, with some groups (currently known internationally as ‘people with intellectual disabilities’) being renamed every generation. The most prominent re-namist campaign at the moment concerns people who are uncertain of their gender or wish to change it. Re-nameism is popular because it is an alternative to actually taking action to resolve the fundamental problems and the inequalities suffered by a disadvantaged group.

Whataboutery
This involves countering an argument by asserting some unrelated issue associated with your opponent. This can be seen in most developed form in Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister at times responds to criticism of the failures of his Government by pointing to some error of the Leader of the Opposition (usually that he was formerly part of Jeremy Corbyn’s frontbench team).

Wokehysteria
One response to re-nameism is to regard any unwelcome change in public policy as ‘wokeism’. This has recently become a major theme among right-wingers and seems to be based on a belief that minor changes to names are a major threat to the order of society. This implies a belief that society is so fragile that any small change will result in disintegration and chaos. The term ‘wokehysteria’ is justified because of the disproportionate anger generated by what most would see as trivial matters.



 

How not to learn Spanish

At some point in the 1970s, I decided to learn Spanish. So I signed up for a weekly evening course at my local college, which at that time was in Livingstone in Scotland. The class was small, the set text (Teach Yourself Spanish) was awful, and the teacher was a Spaniard who grew increasingly frustrated with his students. His frustration was reasonable, because, between us, we demonstrated several ways how not to learn a foreign language.

I suspect that Spanish is probably the easiest language for an English-speaker to learn. Unlike French, spelling is phonetic - you can almost always say the word correctly if you understand the rules for pronunciation. There are few sounds that do not occur in English. The two main exceptions are the gutteral sound of the letter ‘j’ (or ‘g’ before ‘i’ or ‘e’) and the trilled ‘r’. Also unlike French (but like English), Spanish clearly stresses one syllable in each word. Once again, there are clear rules determined by which letters end a word, with exceptions indicated by an accent over the stressed syllable.

So it must have been particularly irritating for the teacher to find that several of his students utterly failed to follow these rules, however many times he explained them. Why did this happen? I observed three reasons:

1.    One man pronounced every Spanish word exactly as if it was English. The idea that different languages have their own system for pronunciation was clearly one he could not adapt to.

2.    Two young women pronounced Spanish exactly as if it was French. They must have learnt French at school, and decided that it was typical of all foreign languages, from Swahili to Lithuanian.

3.    One very respectable middle-aged woman refused to pronounce the Spanish ‘a’ sound (like a short ‘a’ in English) and insisted in pronouncing it ‘ah’. She had obviously learnt as a child that it was vulgar to take a bath, and that you should instead take a ‘baarth’. She simply could not demean herself to sound (as she would have regarded it) common.

These students had paid their own money and devoted time to come out on a cold Scottish winter evening to learn a language. They were failing despite their own best efforts and the best efforts of their teacher. What their failure shows is that before you can learn, you must first forget. Adopting a new skill or any kind requires the abandonment of the way you carried out this task before. This is particularly difficult when learning a foreign language because the dialogue in the class is still in your mother tongue and you cannot but help thinking in that language. This is why immersion in a foreign country away from people who speak your own language is usually the most effective way of learning. You then hear nothing but your new language, and are forced  to speak it to engage with daily activities like buying food and asking directions.

There is another, quite different, reason for failure to learn a foreign language: impatience. I became irritated by my fellow-students and gave up the course. I might study Spanish again one day.

Gratitude inflation? Absolutely!

Once upon a time, English people expressed their gratitude by saying ‘Thanks’. As a child, I would also sometimes say ‘Thank you’ on more formal accessions, such as when my brother and I were paraded in front of relatives to express our gratitude for the Christmas presents they had given us. Over time, ‘Thank you’ completely replaced its abbreviated version, and was eventually replaced by ‘Thank you very much’. This in turn gave way to ‘Thank you very much indeed’. As English people frequently express their thanks (even when receiving change in a shop!), this all became very tiring. But lo! The last year has now seen the arrival of the phrase ‘Thank you so much’. This usually has a stress on the ‘so’, but some people contrive to also add a stress on the word ‘much’.

These changes do not mean that English people are more grateful than they were in the past. Instead, they can be seen as examples of verbal inflation. This is when words are added to our speech like barnacles to the hull of a ship, perhaps to impress or possibly for no reason at all. For instance, we now live in an era in which all tragedies are ‘Greek’, and in which all opportunities come equipped with windows. There has more recently been the trend to add ‘up with’ to the word ‘meet’. It is no longer possible to meet a friend, one now has to ‘meet up with’ him or her.

Even the word ‘Yes’ has been replaced - in this case by the unnecessarily affirmative word ‘Absolutely’. Whole conversations take place in which each participant exchanges their absolute agreement with each other. This is of course after they have met up with each other.

Thanks for reading this blog.

See also: A cliche rears its ugly head

Dampened spirits

Last Saturday, I helped man the Parish Council stall at the Village Fete (called the ‘Horticultural Show’ in our village). Both the day before and the day after were warm and sunny, but on Saturday there was a cold wind and a hint of rain. Our stall comprised a collapsible gazebo with a banner tied to it. The banner acted as a mainsail, and the gazebo was soon blown over. Large tent pegs and lines were then used to hold it in place. A gazebo, unlike a tent, has no side panels and so gave us little protection against the weather. We sat at our table, hunched against the wind, trying to stop our paperwork blowing across the field. The gazebo, bought for the occasion, began to tear and buckle. One metal rod snapped after a particularly fierce gust.

Elsewhere on the field, there were stalls organised by the Women’s Institute (cakes), the Horticultural Society (plants), the Geological Society (rocks), the local history society (old photographs), as well as horse-riding, community games, old vehicles, a car boot sale, a dog handling show, music, a barbecue, second-hand books, hand-made jewellery, and a little tourist train. Inside the village hall, there was tea and sandwiches. The whole event was a sign of the remarkable ability of people in English villages to organise themselves, and their determination to carry on in adverse weather. Nevertheless, we all agreed that attendance was lower than last year, and that the predominant mood was one of endurance rather than enjoyment.

It was therefore irritating to read in the local paper that “Despite gloomy weather on Saturday, spirits were not dampened in Martley, near Worcester, when villagers turned out in their hordes to enjoy this year’s village show”. The ‘spirits not dampened’ cliché was used over and over again in the dreadful BBC commentary on the Royal Jubilee procession along the Thames last year. It was an insult to our intelligence then and it remains so now. Of course our ‘spirits’ were ‘dampened’, but we carried on stoically and made the best we could of the experience. In my case, this included several interesting discussions with the people who visited our gazebo, and eating a really good cake from the Women’s Institute.

A few words about snow

The Eskimoes, it is reported in urban myth, have lots of words for snow. But English is sparse indeed when it comes to describing the white stuff. The media usually only distinguishes between a ‘blanket’ of snow and a ‘light dusting’. Both of these terms are ‘dead metaphors’, which must at one time have required some imagination to devise. A similar dead metaphor is used to describe ice, which is always referred to as ‘treacherous’. To the literally-minded, this would suggests that journalists believe that ice is sentient, that it aims to falsely reassure us of its safety, and then without warning and with devious malevolence becomes cold and slippy just as we choose to walk or drive on it.

The main consequence of snow, according to the media is ‘chaos’. This term, originally meaning a chasm in Greek, was later adapted by philosophers to designate the formless void that they believe preceded the act of creation (now renamed the ‘big bang’ by scientists). However, when used in the media, ‘chaos’ simply means any disruption, large or small, to transport timetables. Cars and trains are then said the ‘grind to a halt’. Of course, lines of cars lined up motionless on motorways are the very opposite of a formless void, but they still represent ‘chaos’ to journalists and the general public.

In Britain, transport disruption at the first heavy snowfall of the winter is regarded as a uniquely British phenomenon, not found in more organised countries. It thus becomes an opportunity for an intensive episode of national self-denigration. Yet, at the time of writing, cold weather and snow in much of Europe has disrupted transport and caused many deaths from accidents and exposure. This is true even in Germany (the most efficient country in the World as far as the British media are concerned). Still, it would be a pity to inject some evidence and fresh thinking into the accustomed narratives and dead metaphors. Otherwise, the pages of our newspapers would be empty and newsreaders on television would stand mute before us.

What we ate and what we called it

In Jack Vance’s wonderful science fiction story The Killing Machine, his hero Kerth Gerson visits an area of a city inhabited by a people called the ‘Sandusk’, notorious for their cuisine:

The air of Ard Court smelled richly indeed, with a heavy sweet-sour organic reek that distended the nostrils. Gersen grimaced and went to the shop from which the odours seemed to emanate. Taking a deep breath and bowing his head, he entered. To right and left were wooden tubs, containing pastes, liquids, and submerged solids; overhead hung rows of withered blue-green objects the size of a man's fist. At the rear, behind a counter stacked with limp pink sausages stood a clown-faced youth of twenty, wearing a patterned black and brown smock, a black velvet headkerchief. He leaned upon the counter without spirit or vitality, and without expression watched Gersen sidle past the tubs.

"You're a Sandusker?" asked Gersen.

"What else?" This was spoken in a tone Gersen could not identify, a complex mood of many discords: sad pride, whimsical malice, insolent humility. The youth asked, "You wish to eat?"

Gersen shook his head. "I am not of your religion."

"Ha ho!" said the youth. "You know Sandusk then?"

"Only at second-hand."

The youth smiled. "You must not believe that old foolish story, that we Sanduskers are religious fanatics who eat vile food rather than flagellate ourselves. It is quite incorrect. Come now. Are you a fair man?"

Gersen considered. "Not unusually so."

The youth went to one of the tubs, dipped up a wad of glistening black-crusted maroon paste. "Taste! Judge for yourself! Use your mouth rather than your nose!"

Gersen gave a fatalistic shrug, tasted. The inside of his mouth seemed first to tingle, then expand. His tongue coiled back in his throat.

"Well?" asked the youth.

"If anything," said Gersen at last, "it tastes worse than it smells."

The youth sighed. "Such is the general consensus."
The general consensus is that English food was in the past not far removed from that of the Sanduskers, although things are thought to have improved in recent decades with food introduced by South Asians, Europeans and others. My memories of food from the 1950s are different - there was certainly a lack of variety, but the food (at least that cooked by my mother) was tasty and nourishing. When I was at primary school, each day began with porridge and milk. At lunchtime, I would walk home and have dinner, which usually comprised meat and two veg, followed by a pudding such as apple pie and custard. I would then walk back to school. After school, I would have tea, which might be poached eggs on toast. A bit later, my father would cycle home from work, and would sit in the kitchen having his dinner (the main course of which he flavoured heavily with brown sauce). We would all eat supper together. This was a snack just before bedtime, and always comprised toast and a cup of tea.

Sundays were different. We would start the day with a vast fried breakfast. This would be followed in mid-morning with coffee (the only coffee we had all week). This was made from instant coffee with milk. At about 1pm, we would have our dinner, which was usually roast meat with roast potatoes and sundry boiled vegetables in season. My father would have sausages instead because he disliked the appearance of meat. Pudding might be a sponge or apple pie with custard. In the evening, tea would be a salad. This was never chopped or dressed, although there might be a sweet salad cream available. Supper was as usual.

Despite considerable amounts of food, we did not become obese or otherwise unhealthy. This was probably because we walked everywhere, played in the street until it got dark, and watched very little television. The state rations of orange juice and cod liver oil probably also helped.

Since those days, I have led a less healthy lifestyle. I do, however, eat food from many different cuisines, much of it frozen, processed, or transported long distances. I have, like many English people, also become utterly confused about what to call the meals I eat. Words like ‘dinner’, ‘supper’, ‘tea’ (including its ‘high’ or ‘afternoon’ variants), ‘lunch’ and ‘luncheon’ seem to mean different things to different people.‘Dinner’ now seems to be any sizeable meal whenever it is eaten, although this rule does not apply to Sundays, when local pubs advertise a ‘Sunday lunch’ of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. In despair, I now use the phrases ‘midday meal’ and ‘evening meal’ in conversations to enhance mutual understanding. Everybody seems to understand what a breakfast is, although what we eat at that meal varies greatly. Still, on Sundays I still eat a big fried breakfast with a roast dinner later. Some traditions never die.   

Vance J (1967) The Killing Machine. Glasgow: Grafton Books.

See also Dining in Yuppieland

The Chaos in our High Streets

English high streets have become places of nomenclatural chaos. Visitors to this pleasant but damp island will have noticed that although the high streets of our cities and towns bear the marks of a varied history, they all contain much the same shops. The only exceptions are the small market towns not yet captured by the armies of Marks & Spencers, WH Smith, River Island, Greggs etc, as well as the specialist areas of large cities such as the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham. Small local shops are usually explicit in what they sell (with the exception of hairdressers who usually use punning names like ‘Headmasters’, ‘Hair Today’, ‘Headstrong’ and so on). The real problem lies with the multiples. Here are some examples of misleading names:

▸ Currys. Despite my persistent demands at our local branch for a chicken tikka marsala, they insist that they only supply electrical goods.

▸ Boots. A series of mysterious stores which sell make-up, medicines, domestic goods and lots of other things, but no footwear.

▸ Thomas Cooks. The name suggests that these are either restaurants (staffed by people called Thomas), or shops selling kitchenware. All they seem to sell are holidays and foreign currency.

▸ Office. A recent arrival in my local high street in Worcester. Demands for stationery were not welcome, and all they stocked were women’s shoes.

▸ Bank. The most confusing of all. No savings facilities, loans or credit cards, just piles of clothes on sale.

This trend to name shops after things they do not sell must come to an end. Our government must act in the name of health and safety, security, or any of the other reasons they usually summon up to order people around.

My life as a steam engine

Each old person is a living museum. They remember old ways of dressing, cooking and eating, old words and old ways of thinking. Some try and continue to live in the old way, but others adapt while being aware of what has changed. Technological and social change is now so fast that people in early middle age can feel outdated and hence ‘old’. They watch bewildered at things that are day-to-day and commonplace for younger people, like Facebook, text messaging, and music downloads. Even stranger are fundamental changes in patterns of thought, like the transition from being a steam engine to being a car.

When I was young, absolutely no-one reported that they were experiencing ‘stress’. The common metaphor of the time was the steam engine, which still dominated rail transport. Like a steam engine, people said they were ‘under pressure’ when life became difficult, the answer to which was ‘to let off steam’. This involved some physical activity or other form of release such as drinking and socialising. By the 1970s, however, steam engines and rail transport had largely been replaced in people’s minds by motor transport, and people came to regard themselves as being a type of car. Cars and other fast-moving machines suffer from metal fatigue and stress, and this became the dominant metaphor for the emotional state experienced when people face adversity. The conventional answer to being ‘under stress’ or ‘stressed out’ is inactivity, or possibly handing over responsibility for their condition to a therapist. There is no shortage of these, all promoting their services as helping people avoid the sad fact that life includes a fair share of loss, pain and grief.

As for me, I still think of myself as more of a steam engine than a car. When life gets difficult, I prefer to become more active. Of course, it is still helpful to unburden myself on my wife and others, even if it does make them feel stressed.

A cliche rears its ugly head

And now for a review of current clichés. By definition, there is no such thing as a new cliché, but some rise and fall in popularity - a bit like a roller-coaster ride.

‘It’s been a roller-coaster ride’: this is used for any event in which a person’s emotions are engaged, the idea being that expectations, fear etc rise and fall to an extreme degree. Or perhaps, it simply means that the person has been excited a lot. The problem with this cliché is that roller-coasters always return to where they started, so in the end no progress has been achieved. In other words, it's not been a journey.

‘It’s been a journey’: this cliché is uttered by every losing contestant on a talent show. It means that they are aware of changes in their life resulting from taking part in dancing, singing, ice-skating etc. The trouble with this cliché is that most journeys (such as the daily travel to work) are tedious and involve no process of self-enhancement. In other words, they do not involve a learning curve.

‘We’re on a steep learning curve’: learning curves are now always ‘steep’, meaning that there’s a lot to learn in a short time. No-one ever says ‘We’re on a learning curve with an easy gradient’. The trouble with steep learning curves is that they reflect on the speaker: other people might think “They find the learning curve steep because they are a bit thick?” In other words, it does not help them going forward.

‘Going forward’: this is a phrase often added by managers to the end of a (or indeed any) sentence. Examples are: “We need to upscale our marketing strategy going forward”, and “I am about to go the bathroom going forward”. Management speak exists to signal membership of the management tribe, and to conceal the frightening lack of skills of many managers (usually concealed beneath an equally frightening self-confidence). See The Apprentice on television. But what do I know: I am from a sleepy village.

‘Sleepy village’: I heard this old favourite during the meeting of G20 finance ministers, who, according to BBC News reports, met in the ‘sleepy village’ of Horsham. Horsham is actually a sizeable town not far from London, and the meeting took place in a village near Horsham. Was the village ‘sleepy’? If it was like my own village, most of the inhabitants get up early to commute or work locally. As a result, there are not a lot of people around during the day, and journalists therefore assume they are all a-bed. But then, most BBC newsreaders nowadays are not interested in the news: they instead aspire to appear on Strictly Come Dancing and other talent shows where they will face their moment of truth.

Moment of truth: this dreary phrase is now used for any kind of crisis (or even a question in a quiz show). It is probably a translation of ‘el momento de la verdad’, which is used in Spain for the time at which the bullfighter plunges the sword into the bull. People who use the phrase in English should therefore consider who in their crisis is the bull and who is the bullfighter. Otherwise, they should adopt a zero-tolerance policy towards this cliché.

Zero-tolerance: this is sometimes coupled with its cliché predecessor ‘get tough’, as in ‘We should support a get-tough zero-tolerance’ policy towards...’ This phrase derives from the supposition (unsupported by evidence) that arresting people for minor infractions of the law will reduce overall crime rates. It thus part of the ‘war on crime’ which has produced more clichés than any other field of human endeavour (eg ‘crack-down’, ‘bring back the bobby on the beat’ etc). Why is this? Crime is difficult to deal with, and effective policing involves discretion when to ignore, when to caution, and when to respond. How much easier for the public and its politicians to pretend that all problems can be solved by militarising the police and treating the rest of society as its potential enemies. How much easier to use a cliché than to think for yourself.