Top 10 Soundbites that Sound Good on First Hearing but When Thought About are Revealed to be Total Nonsense

A collection of fine-sounding, meaningless sayings

‘A rising tide lifts all boats’ (Getty)

This list was Patrick O’Flynn’s idea when I took issue on Twitter with No 1. Thank you all for many excellent nominations.

1. “None of us is safe until all of us are safe.” Sounds great until you think about it: vaccinated people are pretty safe; others less so.

2. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Franklin D Roosevelt’s rallying cry in the depth of the Great Depression in his 1933 inaugural address. Nominated by Conor Downey, Alasdair McGowan and Sander Cortenraad.

3. “He digs deepest who deepest digs.” Christopher Hitchens, Arguably: “In the old days at the New Statesman, we once ran a celebrated weekend competition that asked readers to submit made-up gems of cretinous bucolic wisdom.” Another, he recalled, was: “An owl in a sack bothers no man.” Thanks to Mark Ogilvie, Ian Leslie and Twlldun.

4. “Brexit means Brexit.” Nominated by Jo-Anne Burrow, Alastair Duncan, Elliot Kane, James Johnson and Robert Corbishley. I thought it was regarded as meaningless from the moment Theresa May said it, but recollections may vary.

5. The Ministerial Code. Excellent nomination from Chris Yapp.

6. “All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure.” Enoch Powell, nominated by Norrie MacQueen.

7. “He was the future once.” David Cameron to Tony Blair. Thanks to Richard Nabavi.

8. “The war to end war.” Description of the Great War from The War That Will End War, H G Wells, 1914. Nominated by Lawrence Freedman.

9. “People not profit.” Thanks to Rory Meakin.

10. “A rising tide lifts all boats.” Slogan lifted from New England chamber of commerce by Ted Sorenson, John F Kennedy’s speechwriter. Nominated by Blair McDougall.

No room, then, for “Zero Covid”, which briefly tempted Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland, and which held a rather longer grip on New Zealand and Australia, until the Omicron variant made its impossibility obvious, or “climate justice”, which can mean anything the advocate wants it to, from changing the entire political system to using less plastic (both nominated by Paul T Horgan); “Standards, not structures” – Tony Blair later conceded, correctly, that the latter begat the former (Jonathan Simons); or David Cameron’s “big society” (Sean Rogers).

Ruled out of order: “We today in our country have economic stability not boom and bust,” Gordon Brown, 28 March 2002. It was ill-advised to tempt fate, but it was not meaningless. “Build Back Better”, used by Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, also means something. Similarly, some people don’t like it, but “Take back control” is not nonsensical. Someone (mentioning no names, Richard Nabavi) tried to nominate “tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime”. Like as if.

Several nominations, including from Lewis Baston and Stefan Stern, for John Major: “When your back is against the wall, there is only one thing to do, and that is turn around and fight.” As Paul T Horgan said, the amount of thought required is not much.

Finally, honourable mentions for Stig Abell and Ian Rapley, who nominated an example of the opposite: Donald Rumsfeld’s saying about “known unknowns”: it sounds like nonsense, but when you think about it is sensible.

Next week: Political meals, after Boris Johnson flew back from the Cop26 climate summit for dinner at the Garrick private members’ club with Charles Moore, who persuaded him that Owen Paterson must be saved.

Coming soon: Times a language other than English was used in the Commons, after Boris Johnson replied in Chinese to Ed Davey.

Your suggestions please, and ideas for future Top 10s, to me on Twitter, or by email to top10@independent.co.uk