The Sketch: A lesson in linguistics - Demonstrable progress is becoming irreversible
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference."Did anyone tell you the intelligence was withdrawn?" The Hancock question was asked again, and this time Mr Blair gave a straight answer. He said, "No." But what did he mean by that? His lips didn't move as he uttered this unambiguous word. He sounded very tight, very taut and slightly breathless.
"Did anyone tell you the intelligence was withdrawn?" The Hancock question was asked again, and this time Mr Blair gave a straight answer. He said, "No." But what did he mean by that? His lips didn't move as he uttered this unambiguous word. He sounded very tight, very taut and slightly breathless.
Very unlike the Prime Minister we know so well, virtue flowing freely.
Remember, the Foreign Secretary knew the intelligence had been withdrawn; his own personal civil servant knew the intelligence had been withdrawn. His security valet, as it were, knew; his intelligence butler knew. But he said he didn't know. Perhaps when they started to tell him about these things - the 45-minute weapons, for one thing - he'd put his fingers in his ears and sing "La la la la la!" to the tune of "Onward Christian Soldiers".
Perhaps that's why, yesterday, his "No" sounded so strangled. Maybe his conscience was trying to prevent the word emerging, for fear of compromising the prime ministerial progress into eternal paradise, whenever that momentous event has been scheduled on the transcendental grid.
We had a slide show!
The head of the Prime Minister's delivery unit addressed us, laying out graphs, bar charts and bullet point summaries - the best selected statistics concerning health, education, crime (but not, alas, crimes in health and education statistics).
His conclusion? "Demonstrable progress is becoming irreversible".
This should be in a dictionary of quotations. It sounds like a Zen koan. Try saying it inthat angry Japanese officer way we're used to hearing from Pearl Harbour films. And then get everyone around you to hiss through their noses. Don't swipe anyone's head off.
Perhaps it has a linguistic affinity with Maoist revolutionary dialectic: "The progress is irreversible! But is it demonstrable? For without demonstrability, irreversibility will be questionable!"
No, even that is too rational, too content-rich. To extract its full, delicious flavour it needs to be issued from the voice box of something hardly human. "Maintain low tones when addressing parental unit," the father in Coneheads would chide his daughter, and as she obeyed he might say: "Irreversible progress is demonstrable."
Government data is routinely twisted and tortured by experts to deliver whatever meanings are necessary. This isn't a controversial idea. There have doubtless been improvements of some sort in health and education (it's hard, as my interior decorator has proved, to spend an extra hundred billion a year without some sort of improvement). But the Delivery Unit's slide show should be poked with a bargepole before it is approached.
The literacy level of 11-year-olds has stopped improving, we learn. This level of pass has been going up phenomenally over the last seven years. But the pass mark for the standard was steadily reduced over the same period. The bet is that each of these sunny graphs and bar charts has a dark side. We really must look into it more closely.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments