Ministers told to jettison gobbledegook
Ministers talk “b*******”, according to Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell.
In an interview with The Financial Times, Ms Jowell said she wanted MPs to “cut the crap” and excise “absurd” jargon from the vocabulary used to convey New Labour’s message to voters.
Ms Jowell told the paper she kept a diary detailing the language used by ministers at meetings.
She cited “reprofiling expenditure”, “sustainable eating in schools”, “regional cultural data feedback” and “weaning the profile” as examples of unintelligible gobbledegook.
Although admitting she was at times far from innocent in succumbing to the temptations of jargon, Ms Jowell told colleagues there was a need to reconnect with “real people” ahead of the next general election.
She called on ministers to talk directly to people and face their “anger, their optimism, their frustration, their enthusiasm.”
“I have what I call a b******* list where I just sit in meetings and I write down some of the absurd language we use – and we are all guilty of this, myself included,” she said.
“The risk is when you have been in government for eight years you begin to talk the language which is not the language of the real world.” She added.
