The worst political word of our time is ‘delivery’. Starmer and Sunak talked about what they would “deliver” in 2024. Johnson talked about what he would “deliver” in 2020. May talked about what she would deliver in 2017. I have made critical noises about this before: my standard line being that postmen deliver things (‘deliver’ is a transitive verb: it requires an object) while politicians do something else: in fact they don’t deliver things and don’t just deliver, period, either. The word ‘delivery’ is curiously insubstantial. Then we have the fact that delivery, in relation to speech, is not what one says, but how one says it. “He has good delivery” means he speaks well, not that the words are good, or that he composed them, or that they serve any serious purpose. You know, Jeremy Irons, Richard Burton: they had good delivery. They were voice men. All this makes the current political use of the word very odd. Especially when the new Prime Minister has such poor delivery.
Isn’t ‘delivery’ part of the smoke and mirrors of modern political language? It is as if by the word ‘delivery’ politicians are trying to substitute doing something intermediary (delivering an envelope while know nothing about the contents) for doing something original (like writing a letter).
To read the rest of this article, you need to donate at least £5/month or £50/year to the Daily Sceptic, then create an account on this website. The easiest way to create an account after you’ve made a donation is to click on the ‘Log In’ button on the main menu bar, click ‘Register’ underneath the sign-in box, then create an account, making sure you enter the same email address as the one you used when making a donation. Once you’re logged in, you can then read all our paywalled content, including this article. Being a donor will also entitle you to comment below the line, discuss articles with our contributors and editors in a members-only Discord forum and access the premium content in the Sceptic, our weekly podcast. A one-off donation of at least £5 will also entitle you to the same benefits for one month. You can donate here.
There are more details about how to create an account, and a number of things you can try if you’re already a donor – and have an account – but cannot access the above perks on our Premium page.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
“Government is, minimally understood, about maintaining law and order.” If that includes defending our borders then yes, and if “maintaining law and order” includes providing a legal framework and mechanisms to regulate commerce, then yes.
There are a few other obvious things that it makes sense for the state to be involved in – road networks, the national grid seem like obvious candidates. I expect there are others.
The whole thing just becomes more gargantuan with each passing year, regardless of who is in charge – not surprising as otherwise politicians would be turkeys voting for Christmas.
Off-T
“The poor chap who died at the Trump rally, has had $2 million raised for his family already.”
BTL comment from Guido. It doesn’t bring the poor fellow back.
“The poor chap who
diedwas murdered at the Trump rally…”I agree but I simply took the quote from Guido.
Yes – I did spot the quotation marks and am not having a go at you… language matters.
If Trump had been murdered it would have been called assassination. As though the (presumed) political motivation makes it a lesser or greater crime than murdering this guy and grievously wounding the others. If this guy had died of natural causes at the rally it would be correct to say he had died there. This poor chap didn’t just die he was murdered.
I completely agree.
Using the word “assassination” is a bit like trying to polish a turd.
I think “deliverism” is probably best understood fiscally: “Stand and deliver – your money and your life.”
“Deliverism” is also symptomatic of the way our language is being abused in support of nefarious ends.
The idea of delivering on his promises (LOL) or on a manifesto has been around long enough that it seems to me to be an acceptable if not pretty neologism.
Bullshit. This is one of those ideas socialists have turned into supposedly unquestionable truths. It’s very convenient for justifying their wealth redistribution.
Actually everyone except the most wealthy live with “economic insecurity”. It’s part of life.
Populism is fueled by politicians lying and lying and promising shit they never ever intend on fulfilling and generally ignoring what people care about, like their towns not turning into Muslim ghettos.
THAT’S what fuels “populism”, which isn’t btw far right ideology. Populism is the belief that elected politicians should represent the general majority not narrow interests groups.
Populism is an Awakening.
It is the growing realisation amongst the taxpaying masses that they are being “mugged off.” The same masses that just want to be left alone to get on with their lives without too much interference, who don’t really care much for politics so long as it doesn’t intrude.
As the fake tories found out as the immigration issue grew and grew with no attempts to stop it and as the rest of our country could be seen collapsing around us, people had had enough. All our services corrupted – police, judiciary, NHS, roads, local councils, schools and mad Alphabet indoctrination, and the rest – and people are saying “enough.”
There is no question this country is being run by other than our nominally elected politicians but for the vast majority these are the people regarded as ‘our leaders’ and to whom citizen anger is directed.
On the face if it Nigel Farage is aware of all this and he is tapping in to the issues which are stimulating the populist rise, best summed up in Lee Anderson’s words…
“We just want our country back.”
And yet as TOF mentions enough, most people voted for Leftist parties, Greens, Lib/Lab/Con/SNP. Now they got a fight on their hands those in the villages fighting the zealots handing out solar & wind contracts.
Does not Farage see the WEF as a threat? considering he was fighting the EU for over 20 years!
“Does not Farage see the WEF as a threat?”
A lot of what Farage says suggests to me that he is aware of the Globalist agenda but for fear of scaring the masses he watches what he says. He is on dangerous ground. The Davos Deviants are very much in to mass murder.
Yes, most definitely. Weak, helpless, noisy, messy, needing everyone else to keep it going. Yep, that applies to most politician’s policies.
These policies never seem to spring fully fledged and vigorous, phoenix-like from the ashes of their predecessors.
Delivery of their Reset which of course is all about ‘Change,’ as in…
The Tony Bliar Institute for Global Change.
One big event is what they are after to change the dead horse of the Petro Dollar. See the Whitney Webb video, now she is what you call a PROPPER journalist.
Global Change? Down the back of the global sofa presumably.
Excellent video with Whitney Webb talking about Blackrock and the commodifying of nature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6f5Ml6JwJQ
The Theft of the Global Commons.
https://iaindavis.com/global-commons-part-1/
https://off-guardian.org/2021/11/08/seizing-everything-the-theft-of-the-global-commons-part-2/
I couldn’t find these before.
Anyway Iain Davis covers the same topic in some depth.
Yes I thought of Iain Davis watching the video. UKC & James Dellingpole where he talked about this and in his book.
For me the worst word used by politicians is “investment”. When you hear that they are investing by increasing some benefit, you just know that more of your money is being spent and will continue to be wasted year-on-year without any return.
Agreed.
I have always found that when a politician uses the word “investment” it is typically a euphemism for demolition and destruction using our money. It is very popular with Labour politicians.