‘A bonkers misuse of public money’
ICONSIDER myself incredibly privileged to be able to share my ramblings with you every week, and in all the years I’ve been doing so I’ve only been ‘reprimanded’ by my bosses on a handful of occasions when I felt so strongly about a subject that I didn’t hold back my feelings.
However, when those in charge, as they’re perfectly entitled to, did hold back my article for publication, they politely gave me the opportunity to amend it.
Usually, rather than water it down, I happily wrote a new article, each incident being less a storm in a teacup than a ripple in an eye bath.
That said, when something happens on our own doorstep with the clear intention to cancel words and expressions we’ve used for years, it would be remiss of me not to comment on it.
And so…
The Welsh Government has issued an ‘A to Z’ list of ‘banned’ words to 30,000 civil servants in Wales.
If I tell you the words include Brexit and HM Government, you might just understand why this has been described as ‘A bonkers misuse of public money by an administration that has clearly lost the plot’.
Staff have been told “Brexit has happened. Use transition period to refer to the period between February 1 and December 31”.
Also “Refer to the UK Government. Not Her Majesty’s”.
Bang goes any chance the compilers of the list will get mentioned in the New Year’s Honours this side of Doomsday.
Civil servants are discouraged from referring to someone with a ‘hidden disability” and instead refer to their ‘invisible impairment’.
Also “able-bodied” people should be referred to as “non-disabled”.
That’s one I really can’t get my head around.
Remember folks, your hard-earned cash paid senior civil servants to ‘brainstorm’ and draw up this list which lays down more rules to 30,000 Welsh civil servants than Westminster does to English civil servants – who approximately number 450,000 – and have an eerily similar style list!
This follows hard on the heels of Welsh ministers cancelling the word ‘women’ from sex education in Wales.
Yes, I know. I know.
These word changes and more can be found in the new Welsh Government Style Guide and I’m not going to make a cheap jibe that questions what certain Welsh politicians know about style’
Not this week, anyway