Monday 26 March 2012

Cruddas and crud

The resignation speech of the Conservative Treasurer Cruddas uses a technique fashionable among the PR and customer care community

He apologises for an "impression of impropriety".

It is the same formula used by those who write and say "We are sorry that you found our service less than satisfactory"

In both cases it restates the specifics of a charge into an abstraction (e.g. "late train" becomes "service below the standard you had expected" just as "selling access to the Prime Minister" becomes "an impropriety" AND it seems to apologise, because it uses some of the diction of apology, but is in fact expressing regret for the complainant's state of mind.

It distracts you from the crime and from the culprit. The expression of concern for the complainant -- I am sorry that you found our service to be below standard -- is just a mild form of locking up dissenters in the asylum: you disagree with us, therefore you are wrong / mad.

It is a further dishonesty.

Francis Maude's suggestion on Sunday -- some or other radio programme -- that Cruddas resigned because he had boasted and said things were not true is a further dishonesty. He resigned because he was recorded being perfectly honest, though we might well consider his proposal, that about which he spoke with candour, to be dishonest.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If the earth were to be hit by a giant asteroid tomorrow these people would get back up again, straighten their ties and continue to regurgitate the already-represented of political discourse. They are the undead even silver bullets cannot halt, and we are the undead who will allow them to rule the earth for another thousand dead-eyed years.

And just to prove it this robot is asking me to type two words to prove that I'm not a robot. Well excuse me but I am.