Talking bollocks

In media training courses, people are too often coached on how to talk bollocks. Decoding spokesperson-speak should be compulsory in all media studies curricula.

So, enjoy this Q&A from the BBC’s Today programme, when Evan Davis was questioning our glistening new Foreign Secretary after his first trip to Afghanistan.

Evan Davis: “People whose only contact with the Afghanistan government, the government we're supporting, is when their men come and mow down their only source of income.”

OK, it’s not a question, but neither is what follows an answer.

David Miliband: “Well that if I may say so is a bit of a caricature of what's happening.

This means ”Yes this is what’s happening but you’ve described it rather vividly”, but gives the impression of meaning “this is not what's happening”.

Actually the attack is often that there's not enough eradication going on rather than that there's too much …

That’s a different attack.

… and I think I have got to be very careful not to do a rah-rah for what's going on in Afghanistan. It's difficult, it's dangerous and I don't do a rah-rah, there's no point in pretending otherwise ...

OK, we promise not to pretend that he’s doing a rah-rah.

… Equally though it's important that from a distance we don't fall in to a fatalism that says these people would prefer to grow poppy, they'd prefer to live under the Taliban it's all lost because I was only there for forty eight hours so it's wrong for me to pretend I'm the world expert after 48 hours …

This much is clear.

… But I did talk to Provincial Council, elected Provincial Council in Helmand Province. They don't want to go back to 2001 when women couldn't go to school …

They also probably don’t want their mountains painted blue, but that too is irrelevant here.

… There were three women counsellors out of the seven that I met and they were absolutely clear that good government is basic for them …

And the other four?

… and it means moving forward from the Taliban not moving backward …

Time-wasting.

… and it's the Taliban who are driving the drug, who are pushing the drugs not the international forces or our forces.”

Well I didn’t really think the UN had moved into the smack trade, but is he saying that without the Taliban Afghan farmers would settle down to coaxing asparagus from the soil?

Feeble-minded thinking expressed in meaningless drivel like Miliband’s is much of the problem. There’s a global shortage of opiates yet our policy in Afghanistan is to destroy the raw material. Legalise it, buy it, ship it to where it’s needed (ie right here where listening to this stuff demands serious painkillers in major quantities).

Your media studies homework for tonight: Do a rah-rah.