The world is of course full of people saying nothing at all, at great length. In fact, some jobs explicitly require the ability to keep on speaking, no matter what, whilst keeping the import and meaning of language to an absolute minimum. Academic bureaucracy is full of deliberately weightless waffle. The 1997 1700 page Dearing Report is a case in point. The report could simply have read: proposal 1: 'We want to charge students fees and increase the links between universities and business, as well as giving lecturers so much bureaucracy they won't have enough time to do anything as recherché as teach'. But perhaps that might have upset people with its bluntness. But let us be clear: this kind of waffle is dangerous, and serves a very real purpose, whether in academia, world politics or business.* By not quite saying what you mean, you can do almost anything you want. Meetings in which people

Orwell was wrong about Newspeak - language doesn't need to 'shrink' in order to curtail thought. On the contrary, the more hollow and baroque the prose, the more likely you are to have a Nu-job, which consists entirely in poking language with the random paragraph generator of your linguistic capacity.

Baroque jobs go alongside : consultancy, curator,

words: networks,

The rise of verbose non-speak

Nu-Labour, as well as the Nu-Academy, is full of this kind of speak, of course, and in the wake of Blair's departure (funny how the seemingly eternal transforms itself into the finite in the blink of eye), I have been thinking about one of his favourite ever formulations. The phrase 'I would say to you' prefaced so many of Blair's claims, its hard not to imagine that it wasn't a deliberate linguistic strategy ('well, he didn't say he was actually saying so, only that he would say'!). The conditional here plays an ambivalent role. On the one hand, it implies a context in which what Blair says might have a meaning, so the silent half-sentence before would read: '[If I had any power]...I would say to you', as if Blair is just another bloke down the pub speculating on what he would do 'if he were Prime Minister'. On the other, 'I would say to you' is also oddly haughty, implying that '[if you were important or worth discussing this with]...I would say to you.' The vague hint of religious pomposity is hardly coincidental, either.

The curious thing about Blair's favoured sentence formulation is its lack of counterpart. The conditional often makes explicit the circumstances (which is what makes Bartleby's blanket statement so startling - 'I would prefer not to', yes, but why, Bartleby?). So, if Blair might have said instead, 'If we had more time, I would say to you' or 'If I had that information to hand, I would say to you'. But he doesn't, so he leaves his sentences hanging, at once formally authoritative and yet completely depthless. Here are some examples:

1. In response to a question after a major foreign policy speech on the Middle East to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, in which he called for a "complete renaissance" on foreign policy to combat "Reactionary Islam", August 2006.

'Actually I would say to you that I think the United Nations can, in certain circumstances, be absolutely essential to solving the world's problems, and there are situations that have arisen in which the United Nations has come together and made a real difference, and indeed some of the things that we were talking about earlier in relation to some of the disputes in Africa and so on indicate that very, very clearly too.'

The 'I would say to you here' is redundant. He is of course precisely saying that he thinks the United Nations 'can...be absolutely essential' (notice the conflict between the 'would' and the 'can', where 'could' would have made more sense). The half-conditional here tempers the otherwise assertive terminology ('absolutely essential', 'real difference', 'very, very clearly'). Blair is attempting to have his commitment-free cake and eat it. Did Blair say that he thought the UN was necessary? No, only that he would have said that it was...this is linguistic frictionless spinning in the void.

2. British Prime Minister and Pakistani President Press Conference, Aired October 5, 2001

'Now, the second thing I would say to you, however, is that it is absolutely clear that if the Taliban, the current Taliban regime does fall, then it is important that any successive regime is broadbased, involves all ethnic groups, obviously has to include the Pushtun, which is very important, indeed, and has to take account of the fact that Pakistan has a valid interest in close involvement with the arrangements for any such successor regime.'

Just as in the first example, Blair launches in with an authoritative word: 'Now', 'actually', before shielding himself from the accusation that he has said anything at all. And again the 'I would say to you' (in a hundred years time, when everyone has died, when Martians take the planet over) contrasts heavily with the affirmative 'absolutely clear' in the same sentence.

3. Parliament Questions, 22 November 2005

'What I would say to you is that, for example in respect of schools reform, this is building on reform that is already there, in respect of the National Health Service likewise and the idea is to get to a situation where people feel that the money that is going into the additional public services, because we have uplifted the investment very significantly, is matched by change and reform.'

Here the phrase is used as a kind of fait accompli; 'I would say to you...oh, but hang on! The reform is already there. Nothing to do but keep on keeping on...'


*
The report is full of statements such as: 'individuals will increasingly need to develop new capabilities and to manage their own development and learning throughout life.'

The idea of 'developing new capabilities' is a curious one, but clearly not one that the reader of the report is supposed to think about for any period of time. Can one teach these capabilities? Are they latent? How many can any one student develop?