Thursday 17 October 2019

Language Evan!


Let us talk to a couple of MPs: Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen - a Brexiteer, voted against Theresa May's deal three times...I think we call you 'a Spartan', don't we, Andrew?...and the Labour MP Peter Kyle, who is very keen to have a confirmatory referendum.
He's certainly trying - "I think we call you 'a Spartan', don't we, Andrew?" - but the phrase "a confirmatory referendum" didn't come with audible quotation marks, as it should have done.

Then came Evan's question to James Forsyth of The Spectator tonight:
How many of the hardline, so-called Spartans - the ERG, the people who really have always voted against the offers cos they've involved too much compromise - how many of them do you think will remain stubbornly against this?
It was good of him to put quotation marks about "Spartans", but how about putting them around "hardline" too? And what's with the editorially-loaded word "stubbornly"? 

The lad seems to be trying to do the right thing but his language keeps on betraying him.

4 comments:

  1. Yes they were at it on Radio 5 Live going on about "hardline Brexiteers" - no quotation marks. The question is, why are Jo Swinson or Caroline Lucas never referred to as hardline Remainers?

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  2. Another one from Evan was 'has any economic analysis been done on how much poorer we'll all be?'

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    Replies
    1. Well spotted! Appalling bias. We know the Treasury forecasts about the effects of a Brexit vote were wildly wrong and that in fact we got richer. And, moreover, BBC interviewers always let Remainers claim a 6% fall in GDP, as though that will be in one year rather than after 10 years as claimed in the forecasts - even if you believe that, it would only take a 15% fall in house prices, say, to actually make the vast bulk of the population better off, as their rent and mortgage payments would be lower.

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  3. #bbcquotes are a 'news' phenomenon worth an entire degree course.

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