Pseudospeak

‘What we have to facilitate is a bottom-up approach.’

In Competition No. 2464 you were invited to provide a specimen of ministerial waffle.

‘What we have to facilitate is a bottom-up approach.’ When I heard those words come out of the mouth of Ruth Kelly (could she really have been Secretary of State for Education?), I knew we had a competition. I am grateful to Virginia Price Evans for drawing my attention to ‘bafflegab’, defined in Chambers as ‘the professional logorrhoea of many politicians, officials and salespeople, characterised by prolix, abstract circumlocution and/or a profusion of abstruse technical terminology used as a means of persuasion, pacification or obfuscation.’ Dr Johnson rides again! The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bonus fiver goes to Peter Gasson for a nice piece of balderdash.