Welcome to The Political Thesaurus

Contrary to popular belief, ‘Roget’s Thesaurus’ is not, in fact, a delightfully charming story about a French speaking dinosaur, but a studiously and painstakingly compiled list of synonyms and antonyms, providing invaluable assistance for those what want to write words good, and that!!

Even less well-known, believe it or not, is the fact that a very special, very specific version of this ‘tool for budding lexicographers’ has been available to “Politicos”, for aeons, allowing them to distract and mislead, and then, if necessary, subsequently justify language that those of us not in possession of said book would clearly consider lies – providing hitherto unknown definitions of their words and phrases.

Examples of usage can be found as far back as Nero (‘Fire?, nah, don’t know what you’re on about mate – now, how’s this for a choon!!’), traced through Nixon (‘I am not a crook’ – where a crook is a shepherds staff, obviously), and more recently made a massive comeback during the reign of Messrs Tony and George (anything to do with ‘mass destruction’ or indeed the very fabric of “time” being the most obvious examples!).

And it’s not just those paragons of virtue actually elected to public office that have access to this book. Oh no!! Journalists seem to have managed to blag a copy too (unconfirmed reports suggest that it came free with ‘how to misinterpret statistics and extrapolate from stuff like nobody’s fucking business’).

So anyways, this being the age of the internet, and, more recently, leaky-leaky type shenanigans, we here at ‘The Political Thesaurus’ have decided to get in on the act. At great risk to our own personal safety (paper cuts and the like!), we have managed to obtain a copy of this top-secret tome (which, to be fair, somebody helpfully left in the lavatory of the 18:03 from Euston St.).

As and when we feel we are safe to do so, we shall endeavour to highlight and dissect the messages given us, the general public, by the politicians, be it directly, or via the interpretive medium of ‘journalism’.

Make no mistake, this will, undoubtedly, see us the target of some vicious and co-ordinated attacks from those who just don’t want you to know this shit, yet undaunted, we will persevere, against all enemies to truth, all agents of lies and misrepresentation, and against those who wish to damage and denigrate the good name of we who seek only transparency and justice.

(That said, allow me to pre-emptively declare that any allegations involving any TPT staff members, a pot noodle and copy of Smash Hits are a bunch of fucking lies...)

That, good people, is our mission statement - Our call to arms, and our invitation to you, lovers of truth, to join us. Welcome to The Political Thesaurus!!

Saturday 18 December 2010

Ed is *definitely* the right man for the job!!

Finally for today, we here at TPT would like to pre-empt any accusations of partisanship (we’re very much equal opportunity haters here, actually), so here is one example of the opposition employing, to spectacular effect, The Political Thesaurus.

Back when he was a-campaigning to finally and conclusively “learn his big brother for dead-arming him loads and that”, and, almost incidentally, become the new, New Labour Leader, Ed MiliVanilli was asked if he would be attending the protest rally due to be held by unions and, according to The Daily Mail, ‘other raging Commies’ on the 19th October 2010.

His answer was short, sharp, and some would say, definitive:

“I’ll attend the rally, definitely”

Subsequently, given that use of the word ‘definitely’, many amongst us were left somewhat mystified when said rally came, and then went, without so much as a token drive-by from Eddie ‘The Edster’ Miliband. Some scrabbled around in the dirt, amongst their broken dreams and sense of abandonment, for obvious explanations, and cries of ‘it’s an apolitical thing, innit!’, and ‘he wasn’t invited anyway’ were put forth in a vain attempt to mask the sickening sound of breaking hearts.

Amidst such confusion and devastation, however, we kept our heads, and we began to look for clues in the TPT, and, as is often the case, our results proved interesting.

Turns out, you see, that when a politician says ‘definitely’, particularly when they’re “pre-election”, it actually has fuck-all basis in the reality land that we all know and love.

What it actually means, is:

right now, because I’ve calculated my answer to suit my particular audience, and knowing that all you chumps will shortly be drawing crosses on a paper with your stubby, malformed hands, I’m going to say what you want to hear, but, after that, after you’ve taxed your little brains voting for ME, I’m going to fuck right off and do whatever the hell I likes.....


Or, in some cases, simply:


‘Yeah, whatevs....



Wow – who knew.....?

But there you go folks. Even with a simple word like ‘definitely’, it’s fucking mental out there!!

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