The Use of Language

Further to my words of utter contempt about the Guardian, another example surfaces today, like a fetid turd floating to the top of a steaming, feculent cesspit.

Okay, so the Groan is a partisan paper – I’ve no problem with this and certainly have no beef with them having a go at the Tories. It isn’t that, so much as the method used – or, more precisely, the language used:

Tory parliamentary candidates have undergone training by a rightwing group whose leadership has described the NHS as “the biggest waste of money in the UK”, claimed global warming is “a scam” and suggested that the waterboarding of prisoners can be justified.

At least 11 prospective Tory candidates, an estimated seven of whom have a reasonable chance of winning their seats, have been delegates or speakers at training conferences run by the Young Britons’ Foundation, which claims to have trained 2,500 Conservative party activists.

Note the use of the term rightwing as a pejorative. Actually, anyone who disagrees with the Guardiansitas is “rightwing” – or racist, homophobic, islamophobic or whatever… Note also the conflation between this group and Donal Blaney’s personal views.

I neither know nor care what went on at this event. But the term “radicalising” and another, favoured to describe dissenters from the Guardianista dogma, trotted out by Jon Cruddas later in the piece is what immediately caught my attention:

Jon Cruddas, a Labour MP who is heading a campaign against rightwing extremism in the election, said: “It beggars belief that the Conservative party should be so reliant for the training of some of its candidates and thousands of its young activists on an organisation headed by people with such extremist views.”

Ah, yes, “extremism”. In one swoop, new parliamentary candidates are likened to Islamic fundamentalist suicide bombers and Holocaust deniers. Okay, it does sound as if Blaney is a twat, but his views aren’t that extreme or unusual, frankly. Go down to your local pub and I suspect that they are fairly mainstream…

What struck me about this piece is the use of language to plant seeds in the reader’s mind – just as they use the term “denier” to liken anyone who disagrees with the AGW religion to Holocaust deniers, they use terms such as “extreme rightwing groups” (usually used to describe the BNP – see what I did there?) and “radicalising” to suggest that the Tories are something that they are not. And extreme, they most certainly are not. Frankly, a little healthy extremism would be a welcome kick up the jacksie.