When I saw the Prime Minister’s letter to Sir Gus O’Donnell about the McBride affair I at first thought it was a spoof as it was so oddly drafted.

But it turns out to be real.

What’s odd about it from a literary and substantive point of view? Various things.

First, it’s curiously wordy:

I am writing about the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers, and the proposals I want to make to tighten this up (22 words). Why not instead: I am writing to make proposals to tighten up the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers. (16 words)

Then there is this clunky sentence, weighing in at a massive 71 words:

I am assured that no Minister and no political adviser other than the person involved had any knowledge of or involvement in these private emails that are the subject of current discussion, and I have already taken responsibility for acting on this — first by accepting Mr McBride’s resignation and by making it clear to all concerned that such actions have no part to play in the public life of our country.

The clunkitude of this aside, am I missing something? Since when in senior governance ethics has accepting the resignation of someone who has behaved disgracefully amounted to ‘taking responsibility’? Does not taking responsibility involve taking the initiative and firing that person? Or having something to say about why he was brought into the team and by whom in the first place? Or indeed resigning too?

… Any activity such as this that affects the reputation of our politics is a matter of great regret to me and I am ready to take whatever action is necessary to improve our political system.

Really? Then why have you not brought in proposals for regularising the role of Special Advisers which (says Iain Dale) Labour promised to do in 1997?

Then there is this remarkable piece of prose (a puny 69 word sentence):

I would therefore now like a more explicit assurance included in the special advisers Code of Conduct that not only are the highest standards expected of political advisers but that the preparation or dissemination of inappropriate material or personal attacks have no part to play in the job of being a special adviser, just as it has no part to play in the conduct of all our public life.

The grammar and sense of this are all over the place: "… the preparation or dissemination of X or Y have no part to play in the job of being a special adviser, just as it has no part to play …"  Aaaaargh.

I also think it right to make it a part of the special advisers contract by asking our political advisers to sign such an assurance and to recognise that if they are ever found to be preparing and disseminating inappropriate material they will automatically lose their jobs.

47 word sentence. Should that be special advisers’ contract? Or is the expression special advisers somehow taking the form of an adjective here? What happens if they are not found doing these things? They stay in place! Better if they lose their jobs ‘automatically’ when they are found out – then no need to accept responsibility either for accepting their resignations or for firing them…

Like the overwhelming majority of figures in public life across the political spectrum, I entered politics because of a sense of public duty and to improve the lives and opportunities of those less fortunate than me. My undivided focus as Prime Minister is on acting to make Britain a fairer, safer and more prosperous nation and, in particular, on guiding the country through the current economic difficulties. The public would expect no less and would also expect the highest possible standards from all their politicians and all those who work for them.

I wonder whom he identifies as the small minority who entered politics for other less honourable reasons? Names?

Why the curious subjunctive-style phrasing in the final sentence (the public would expect no less and would also expect …)? Why the highest possible standards? Why not the highest standards?

Which is worse?

The mediocrity of the language used by whichever surviving spin doctor drafted this, or the mediocrity of the Downing Street attitudes that have led us to this dismal state of affairs?