Mea Culpa: like Arnie, we badly needed a total recall

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

Painful memories: Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1990 sci-fi thriller ‘Total Recall’ (StudioCanal/Shutterstock)

Once I notice an unnecessary phrase, it seems to crop up everywhere. We reported that Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, trying to convince people that he is battling bravely and relentlessly against fraud in Covid-19 support schemes, claimed that “a total of 80 arrests have been made so far”. We were borrowing his words, which were reported in full later in the article, but we did not need “a total of”.

It was only then that I noticed that we said in our report of the rebellion against Keir Starmer’s refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza: “A total of 10 members of the Labour leader’s front bench resigned or were sacked…” Elsewhere we said that, “according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza” (a correct and scrupulous qualification about the source of the information), “a total of 32 patients have died since al-Shifa’s emergency generator ran out of fuel on Saturday”. And finally, we said: “The National Police Chiefs’ Council revealed that London’s police force will be bolstered by a total of 1,000 extra officers across the weekend…”

In each case, we could have simply deleted “a total of”. It may be that we didn’t want to start a sentence with a number, but our style is to spell those out. “Ten members of the front bench…” would have been fine.