Here is my piece at Telegraph Blogs looking at the resignation letter of Baroness Warsi who left the government today because of UK policy on Gaza:
… our approach and language during the current crisis in Gaza is morally indefensible, is not in Britain’s national interest and will have a long term detrimental impact on our reputation internationally and domestically.
The basic grammar and language were poor. I don’t know what is more depressing: the thought that no-one senior from the FCO helped her write this, or the thought that someone senior did help her.
Plus the policy thinking is banal:
Where is the sense of urgency from the Foreign Office or indeed Western governments and media on the civilisational disaster for the Arab world (and maybe in due course for the rest of us) which Isis represents? Where are UN/EU human rights industrialists frothing up UN resolutions and declarations and war crimes denunciations on ISIS and Hamas atrocities?
Nowhere.
One vital thing Ministers are paid to do (perhaps the most important role they have) is keep a sense of perspective when things are tough. Baroness Warsi’s embarrassing resignation letter showed that she was not up to the job.
Read the whole thing, if only for the link to and quoted language from the spectacularly horrendous Hamas Charter, a vile document that needs far greater coverage than it gets.
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I'd be dismayed if any official at any level in the FCO had any part in drafting Baroness Warsi's letter. It's not their job. Their role should have been strictly limited to not encouraging her to stay a moment longer.
Perhaps the most important task the Prime Minister has is to appoint the right people. In Baroness Warsi he chose someone for what she was, rather than what she could do. In the case of Andy Coulson it was exactly the other way around: Coulson was appointed purely for his capabilities, and any awkward questions about his past went unasked.
Warsi and Coulson between them suggest truly dismal judgement on the part of the PM.
Maybe. But in such circs I'm sure a solicitous Private Secretary would want to lend a hand to get things just right, and that's fine by me.
Good point: always give people jobs because of what they can do, not because of what they are. Anything else leads to trouble!
I suppose it’s legitimate to lampoon the grammatical and stylistic shortcomings of the Warsi resignation letter. But who can claim to be a paragon of virtue in such matters? In your Telegraph Blog you write:
– “The Israel/Palestine issue is morally grim.” The phrase “morally grim” is one of those phrases which sound good but no one really knows what it means. Do you mean that the issue offends our sense of morality or is morally repugnant? Or perhaps simply that that the situation is extremely grim? Or that the issue raises moral dilemmas (this appears to be so, from the context)? Verdict: an imprecise choice of words (like sofa government).
-“Israel’s very right to exist” – as someone who dislikes superfluous words, can you explain the difference between “right to exist” and “very right to exist”? Is the former any less complete than the latter? Verdict: ugh.
-“It (ie supporters of Israel pointing back at the statements and actions of Hamas?) seems to leave Israel in a dismal position that does not impress a teacher in a well-run school playground…” You do not of course intend to say that the criticism of Hamas by supporters of Israel leaves Israel in a dismal position. But that is one way in which this sentence can be read. You rely on the reader to discern what he means. Verdict: poor syntax.
– “Pointing back” (at Hamas) “seems” to leave Israel in a dismal position”. Why only “seems”? It either does or it doesn’t. Or aren’t you sure? Verdict: loose drafting.
-“Dismal position.” I suppose you use “dismal” because you cannot immediately think of a better word to convey precisely what you mean. Adjectives such as uncomfortable, awkward, indefensible, etc. come to mind. I guess that you probably wish to say that Israel’s defence of its actions by comparing them with those of Hamas and by blaming Hamas for starting the conflict is inadequate and unconvincing. Verdict: loose drafting.
-“Well-run school playground.” Whilst the overall metaphor is comprehensible, there is nothing the present situation, I would suggest, which merits the adjective “well-run.” Verdict: infelicitous choice of words.
-“The numbers of Palestinians killed by Israeli military action in Palestine in the past weeks pales into insignificance…” Grammatical error. It’s either “number” (singular) or the verb should be “pale” (third person plural). Verdict: ugh.
Finally, are you being ironic when you praise Baroness Warsi’s “bold step” in setting up an Advisory Group to “talk very hard” about an "active approach" towards promoting and protecting the right to freedom of religion or belief worldwide? I wish you were. Similarly, I fear you have a straight face when you call for “UN/EU human rights ‘industrialists’ to ‘froth up’ UN resolutions and declarations and war crimes denunciations on (sic, ugh) ISIS and Hamas atrocities”. Classic FCO inspired diplo-speak! I doubt if threats of “very hard talk” and “frothed up” diplomatic verbiage would leave Hamas and ISIS quaking in their boots. Verdict: unintended humour!
One(!) good point here, namely my grammatical mistake (numbers … pales). Ooops. So easily done.
You miss the issue that matters. Baroness Warsi is writing an important public document that is supposed to carry extra political and moral authority. She fails to do that for all the reasons and more I described.
I by contrast am writing a blog post for the Daily Telegraph. Not the same as writing something similar for the Sun or Daily Mail or FT or LRB. The style I use for this purpose is just that – a style. Some like it. Others don't. But in either case it's easy to find loose expressions that don't quite work or fail to be laser-beam precise. So what?
By contrast, had I been writing a high-profile resignation letter likely to be reproduced in newspapers/websites round the Planet, I would have taken a lot of trouble to get the substance and tone just right for that purpose.
Moral? Pick the right tool for the job.
I did not miss the issue you are concerned about, and was even able to bring myself to acknowledge, in the (very) first sentence of my comment, that criticism of the drafting of the resignation letter was legitimate. But I am not sure I agree that the political and moral authority of the letter would have been enhanced if Warsi’s English had been up to your standards, or had been refined and polished by an FCO wordsmith. Indeed, the more I think about it, the more I feel that the impact of the letter was all the greater because it bore the authentic personal stamp of Warsi herself, warts and all.
Let’s get all this into proportion. The fact of her resignation counts a lot more than the resignation letter which accompanied it; and the substance of the letter, giving her reasons, counts a lot more than the mode of expression. That’s why going to such lengths to dissect the letter, as if it were the work of a junior Desk Officer or Third Secretary in need of on-the-job training, seems to focus unnecessarily on the quality of the icing, rather than on the cake itself.
Yes, a Daily Telegraph news blog post, the purpose of which is to stimulate and entertain, as well as to inform and analyze, is different from a ministerial resignation letter. The latter makes the news; the former comments on it. You feel, therefore, that it does not matter if the writer of a news blog commentary adopts a style that is looser and less precise, or fails to get the substance and tone just right, as long as it’s the “right tool for the job”. It may be true that the majority of busy blog readers, while enjoying the linguistic pyrotechnics, would barely notice the bluntness of the tool or any failure to hit the nail exactly on the head. But good commentary and analysis require clarity and precision. Those who are capable of the highest standards of writing, and criticize others for falling short, should be wary of leaving their best tools in the toolbox, whatever the job they are working on.
Elegantly put.
See also Cook v Warsi, the Battle of the Resignation Letters: http://charlescrawford.biz/2014/08/06/baroness-wa…