[lg policy] Linguistic Hygiene

[Harold Schiffman]

 Another senior Labour MP uses colourful language to dismiss Labour policy
Written by Dods staff on 10 April 2018 in Diary

Barry Gardiner avoids the sack after suggesting that one of Labour’s key
Brexit tests is ‘bollocks’
[image: Barry Gardiner]

Angela Rayner recently caused a stir when she described Labour’s economic
plans for major increases in state spending as a high-risk “shit-or-bust
strategy”. But it turns out that she is not the only shadow cabinet member
with a penchant for using colourful language to dismiss a key plank of
Labour policy.

Having already got in trouble for describing the Good Friday Agreement as a
"shibboleth", Barry Gardiner has now been caught criticising one of his
party’s Brexit tests.
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Speaking during a question-and-answer session at a thinktank in Brussels
last month, he said: “Well let’s just take one test – the exact same
benefits. Bollocks. Always has been bollocks and it remains it.

“We know very well that we cannot have the exact same benefits and actually
it would have made sense – because it was the Tories that said they were
going to secure the exact same benefits – and our position should have been
to say they have said they are going to secure the exact same benefits and
we are going to hold them to that standard.”

But asked about the row, Jeremy Corbyn said: "Barry Gardiner does not
denounce our Brexit policies. We have had a conversation with him. It's
quite clear he does support our strategy of holding the Government to
account on the tests that have been put forward."

And in a further silver lining for Barry, as one wag pointed out
<https://twitter.com/thhamilton/status/983670693744300032> on Twitter,
neither his ‘bollocks’ quote or Rayner’s ‘shit or bust’ line is likely to
be deployed by vicar's daughter Theresa May at PMQs - because the language
is unparliamentary.


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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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