Mea Culpa: Move to access a one-stop experience with your loved ones

Questions of style and language in last week’s Independent, by John Rentoul

The heat may be rising... but where’s the mercury? (AP)

We got our headline in a tangle when we reported that Crispin Blunt, the Conservative MP, had announced he would not be standing again at the next election: “Tory MP in row over colleague’s conviction to quit parliament.” That almost reads as if his colleague is quitting parliament, which he is, but that is not the point of the story. Blunt had upset his local Tory association by defending Imran Ahmad Khan, his fellow MP who had been convicted of sexual assault on a 15-year-old boy.

At least we didn’t use “amid” – the headline could easily have been: “Tory MP to quit parliament amid row over colleague’s conviction.” What we really needed was something like: “Tory MP to quit parliament after defending disgraced colleague.”

More than one stop: We used a Press Association story last week that said: “The Post Office is launching an in-branch money transfer service under an agreement with Western Union from autumn … The move will help to offer customers a ‘one-stop’ experience, where they can access cash, transfer money overseas to loved ones, and at the same time send letters and parcels to relatives and friends abroad.” We could at least have translated it into English before publishing it.