In Competition No. 2561 you were invited to continue in verse or prose the statement ‘The gentleman in Whitehall knows better…’
Another exercise in spleen-venting, this attracted a weighty postbag. The quotation is from Douglas Jay’s The Socialist Case written in 1939. In full it reads, ‘In the case of nutrition, just as in the case of education, the gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for people than the people know themselves’ (probably the only words for which that gentleman is remembered). His pronunciamento marks the birth of the nanny state, though luckily Jerry came along and put things off for a few years….
The entries below get £20 each while the bonus tenner goes to Basil Ransome-Davies.
The gentleman in Whitehall knows better
Than to dictate and sign a letter
Unless its meaning is at least ambiguous
And possibly exiguous.
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