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

"We Are All In This Together!"

To begin with, we here at TPT can think of no better introduction to the inner-sanctum of ‘The Political Thesaurus’ than the current phrase de jourWe Are All In This Together’.

On first reading, or first hearing these near ubiquitous words, for example, it would appear that there isn’t much ‘wiggle room’ in such a short, seemingly simple statement. However, when one runs it through TPT, interesting things happen.

Firstly, ‘We’, when spoken by a politician, actually means you without the generally accepted ‘us’ connotations of the ‘we’, as simpletons like you and I would probably understand it.

(This can be evidenced by the fact that, despite all the ‘tough’ times stuff thrown at us on a daily basis, or the omnipresence of the ‘tightening our belts’ narrative, David Cameron recently hinted that the MP’s expenses watchdog would be abandoned – *bish, bash, bosh*!!).

Therefore – we, in fact, equals “you but not us”.


Secondly, even though most of you out there probably consider ‘All’ to mean ‘wholly or altogether’, or ‘everybody or everything’, again, you’d be stupendously, magnificently wrong. Like, on a total, the earth is flat kind of level. Because, in this context, ‘All’ has a very specific meaning, which, roughly translated, states:


Initially, the poorest, sickest members of our society, those with little-to-no way to oppose measures designed to really fuck them up, before gradually moving upwards and outwards to anyone else who really didn’t have anything to do with our current mess, but stopping before it affects bankers, who did, politicians, who did, or billionaire business men, tax dodgers, or party donors, who continue to do so!!’


And finally, yet in a similar vein, ‘Together’, far from actually meaning ‘in collaboration’, or ‘simultaneously’, or even ‘as a group’, once again means quite the opposite.

In reality, this ‘Together’ can be read as meaning:

“you lot fight it out amongst yourselves (and if it helps, blame someone, anyone, else), and while you’re distracted, we’ll use the time to filter away more and more of the money that you could all be using for such luxuries as putting a roof over your head, or feeding your families, you fucking plebbos”.

So there you have it, dear reader, ‘We Are All In This Together’, re-imagined, re-jigged and re-donkulated, with a little help from our copy of The Political Thesaurus.

Have a nice day.....

5 comments:

  1. Sarah Palin:
    "But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies." =
    "Yes, I really am that thick."

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mark Thompson, BBC Director General:
    "Why shouldn't the public be able to see and hear, as well as read, a range of opinionated journalism and then make up their own mind what they think about it?"
    or "Please Mr Murdoch, can I have a job?"

    ReplyDelete
  3. Haha Habib,

    Was just looking at the Thompson thing!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I particularly like "re-donukulated" James and it will be my phrase of choice when translating the mendacious declarations of the political class. If thats alright with you

    ReplyDelete
  5. Knock yourself out, Sheff!

    It does have a nice ring to it, doesn't it!?

    ReplyDelete