Liverpool Town Hall

POLITICAL language, said George Orwell, is designed to “give an appearance of solidity to pure wind”, and it appears the great author’s words of 1946 are as relevant today, writes political reporter Marc Waddington.

Anyone who has tried to read any of the reams of council committee reports, agendas and minutes would be forgiven for thinking someone at the town hall had shares in a paper mill, and a closer look reveals most of the waste is surely down to the verbose language in which politicians and bureaucrats write and speak.

For politicians, who must make sure people understand them, there really is no excuse for using made-up words such as “beaconicity” (being beacon-like, apparently) or “upward direction of travel” when they mean they haven’t managed to meet their targets – which are no longer targets, by the way, but “key performance indicators”.

But to some extent, officers can be forgiven for becoming jargonauts, casting aside the artful simplicity of the English language and instead talking and writing in this elaborate code. Perhaps it is the case that they feel straight talking, no-nonsense language might reveal too much to too many, or maybe it is simply the case that they want to show off how clever they are?

Words like “beaconicity” and “citizen empowerment” are a form of spin – in the sense they sound meaningful to the extent we assume they must have meaning.

Let’s hope Liverpool council leads the way in jettisoning this sterile, inaccessible language once and for all and become a “beacon” to help “facilitate linguistic economising” across all its “strategic partners”.

Oh dear. There we go again.