Many years ago, the journalist Claude Cockburn suggested that widely used journalists’ cliches should be translated to enable us to understand what they really meant. For example, he pointed out that the phrase ‘the country as a whole’ (as in ‘the deregulation of the banks/the construction of yet another runway at Heathrow/the closure of some more factories, is in the interests of the nation as a whole’) could be better understood when translated as ‘the rich and their hangers-on’. Ever helpful as I am, I thought I would follow in his footsteps in preparing a useful glossary of some current phrases and their real meanings to assist in understanding what politicians and the commentariat are actually saying.
Regeneration – demolishing council estates
Building vibrant communities – social cleansing
Hard choices – cuts
Brave decisions – cuts
Value for money – cuts
Reforms – privatisation and cuts
Deceptively large – small
Luxurious – small with an en-suite
Hard working families – middle class people with children
Problem families – poor people with children
Scroungers – poor people without jobs
Royal Family – scroungers
Something for nothing – benefits that we all pay for
Loony Left – socialist
Unelectable – socialist in the Labour Party
Extremist – a member of Unite
Dinosaur – anyone who can recognise a quote from Nye Bevan
Centre Left – regretfully right wing
Centre – right wing
Centre Right – really right wing
Migrant – human being
Refugee – frightened human being
Asylum seeker – refugee