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News and Comment February 2015

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12 February (Part 2) - The importance of precise wording

Writing for the web is a risky business. I try very hard to be absolutely accurate with what is written here and pedantically correct to avoid ambiguities. I feel that sometimes the language becomes rather stilted as a result, just as legal stuff does, but so far it has kept me out of trouble. I except Teresa O’Neill’s invented stories of course.

On Monday, UKIP Bexley posted the following Tweet after their councillor Lynn Smith put in an appearance at the News Shopper’s park closure demo in Danson Park.


TweetTaken ultra literally it says only one person turned up at Danson Park to support the hard core of protestors and she was a UKIP councillor. Given that the Tweet links to a picture of about 30 supporters in the park you’d have to be a world class pedant to think that was the case. Obviously it should have said “Only councillor to turn up was UKIP”, but does it really matter?

Well, to the UKIP haters and their political opponents it evidently did. It was a lie they said and cobbled together a vitriolic argument for no sensible reason I could fathom.

When I interjected that electors like me make up their minds about which way to vote based on political exchanges such as this, I was asked why I was commenting. Not supposed to comment on Twitter, now that’s a novel concept!

Lynn Smith’s appearance at the Danson Park demo was mentioned at the scrutiny meeting this week. There has been no time to check the recording yet but from memory it was councillor Sharon Massey who was critical of UKIP councillor Lynn Smith. It would appear that a councillor representing the people in unofficial ways is somehow letting the side down. Words fail me. If the weekend presents any spare time I’ll search the tape and post a section in a later blog.

 

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