Nu Labour - Nu Verbiage

Rather than really challenging the many inequalities and the different forms of racism and discrimination that abound in our society, New Labour merely prefers to change the words we are allowed to use to describe them. It wouldn't be so bad if this was just seen by them as the cheap verbal conjuring trick that it is, what's worse is that they manage to con themselves into thinking that by changing the word they have somehow changed the world. I have pointed out elsewhere in this blog how they will use phrases like "social exclusion" so as to avoid having to talk about poverty, "community cohesion" so as to avoid talking about class and discrimination. I have shown in some detail how they use fuzzy but feel good terms like "Community" so as to avoid having to confront the real relations, the real tensions and the real inequalities that scar our society.
Doreen Lawrence points out beautifully today (Guardian "Police failing us still") how Government and the Police have started using the term "diversity" so as to avoid having to talk about race and racism and thus confronting their own complacency on the issue. As she says: "Race is just wiped out of all the vocabulary, they use the word diversity, they seem to be more comfortable with it. I would not say they have given up caring about race, I just feel they believe they have addressed it" . She has rightly identified classic New Labour doublespeak in action!