Cuts, or savings?

Politicians are hiding their real values and intentions behind snide, loaded euphemisms While sitting at my desk performing my usual “back-office function” recently, I was struck by a story on the debate over cuts to police budgets and the likely impact on the “frontline”. Warwickshire police officers are being ordered off the beat into civilian roles as the force tries to manage its budget after the 20% cuts imposed by the coalition government. The Home Office response was familiarly blunt: forces should cut back on “bureaucracy” and “wasteful spending” while “increasing efficiency in the back office”. David Cameron weighed in the following day: there is no reason for frontline policing to be affected, he said. Sir Denis O’Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary, hit back in a report stating how important “middle-office” and “back-office” roles were in supporting “frontline” officers. All in this together, if you like. Elsewhere in austerity Britain, Hull council was being lauded by a Times leader for making “substantial savings by rationalising back-office functions and reducing the number of buildings from which it delivers services”. Eulogies were reserved for other local authorities reacting to the big cut in central funding by launching “efficiency” drives. The BBC has been caught up in the fight between government and opposition to win a spin contest over the precise terms to use when covering stories about the cuts. Savings or cuts? Here at the Guardian, we normally use cuts. It’s shorter, to the point and is a shoo-in for headline writers. Oh, and Lord Littlejohn of Maildom rants about its use. For the record, he prefers to talk about “massive waste, non-jobs and vast salaries of senior council officers”. All around us these figurative euphemisms are being trotted out by ministers defending the burden placed on the NHS, local councils and the police to protect the all-important frontline services. Get rid of the back-office staff, the thinking goes. Not quite as “unproductive” as the “feckless workshy”, the unworthy and disposable state employee has the cheek to draw a salary – paid for by “you, the taxpayer” – while easing towards retirement and, yes, a “gold-plated” pension. These invidious phrases aimed at those with lower qualifications and on lower pay are not new. “Deregulation” of the job market and enhanced “labour mobility” have long been phrases associated with the school of economic thought that implies the market will naturally find full employment and equitable wage levels as long as it remains unfettered by state legislation and intervention. Unemployed people must get on their bikes and find work or stay on the dole through “lifestyle choice”. The phrases du jour are rooted in the economic doctrine of the neoclassical orthodoxy of the 1930s – the father of Thatcher’s 1980s monetarist mayhem and grandfather of Cameron and Osborne’s supply-side wild child currently ravaging the public sector and ushering in an era of militant privatisation. They are utterances born of the strict economic theory that sees employees purely as factors of production; not human beings with occasionally irrational urges, needy families, hefty mortgages, complex relationships, myriad emotional commitments and a need for belonging, a place in society, “big” or otherwise. The longest-serving Labour prime minister in history, Tony Blair, set the current trend for euphemistic political buzzwords while masking an ideological drift to the right. “Choice”, “hard-working families”, “fairness”, “prepare for change” and “rights and responsibilities” were all key elements of New Labour’s “reform” policy agenda in health and education. Such fuzzy language was noted by George Orwell in his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language as increasingly used by politicians as a “defence of the indefensible”. For this reason, he went on: “Political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.” Back in coalition Britain 2011, the back-office function is a prime example of Orwell’s target. The implication is that those employed in these jobs are virtually useless and their loss would be no great shame for the organisation; the reality is that unemployment can turn a person’s life upside down. There are, however, members of an organisation who no doubt do meet the criteria of vulnerability and exposure to ruthless market forces. Take the coalition ministers spouting these snide, loaded, euphemistic circumlocutions. As Anne Robinson might ask: “Who’s ‘frontline’ and who’s ‘back-office’ in this government?” Clearly Cameron, Osborne, Hunt, Gove and Pickles are out there flying the flag for “reform” while fighting the big ideological battles. Frontline, maybe. But the three most prominent Lib Dems in the coalition – Nick Clegg, Danny Alexander and Vince Cable – should perhaps think twice before using such inhuman, pejorative and invidious language. Some observers might argue they’re no more than “human shields” for the Tory generals leading the fight. So with the knife-edge AV referendum and the potentially devastating local elections just days away, the Lib Dem high-ups and ward councillors alike may be about to feel like the most disposable of team members. As for the coalition – with its stark divisions on AV increasingly apparent – who knows how the result will play out for the losers facing their party faithful? Even from my “back-office” position, I can see that Thursday’s elections might just unleash the powerful yet precise force of the political “invisible hand” as voter “rationalisation” sweeps through polling stations all around the country. Language Jamie Fahey guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 3, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.