Mind your political language
Boris Johnson has his ‘roadmap’ and Nicola Sturgeon has her ‘framework’. Andrew Woodcock ponders the difference
When Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon set out their plans to ease coronavirus restrictions in England and Scotland, there were plenty of differences. But one of the most intriguing was the names they chose for their blueprints.
In England, Johnson had a “roadmap” out of lockdown, while north of the border, Sturgeon was working to a “strategic framework”. And it would be wrong to assume the titles differed by chance. Like any aspect of political presentation, someone behind the scenes will have sweated long and hard over what to call the plans, and their choices offer insights into the approaches of Westminster and Edinburgh.
If you are using a roadmap, you are on a fixed route from A to B, the means to get there have already been laid out and if the most direct route is blocked, there are plenty of alternatives to guide you round any obstacles. You know what your destination is, and most importantly you are at the wheel of a machine which is actively moving you towards it.
Everything about a roadmap is suited to Johnson’s approach to easing lockdown. Despite his claim to be proceeding with “caution”, he was happy to set out a string of dates – like stopping-off points along the way – leading to “a spring and a summer that will be very different and incomparably better than the picture we see around us today”.
So, leaving lockdown is like setting off on a predictable journey to a place which will be much nicer than where you are now, and even if there are a few delays or diversions along the way, you know you’re not returning. Who, after all, would turn the car around and deliberately drive back from the land of their dreams to the grotty hellhole they’ve managed to escape?
A strategic framework is an altogether different beast. Sounding rather more like the kind of guide you’d use on the battlefield than on a jaunt in the countryside, the very words suggest that, while you have a definite goal in mind, the means of getting to it might need a bit of improvisation and thinking on your feet.
It’s not by chance that Johnson replaced the doom-laden phrase ‘no-deal Brexit’ with the altogether sunnier ‘Australian arrangements’
Unlike a roadmap – which doesn’t really allow you to set off cross-country – a framework for action sets out general guidelines on how to proceed, but recognises that tactics might change in line with circumstances. And that fits with Sturgeon’s more cautious approach, setting out objectives only until April and waiting to see how conditions develop before committing to her next step.
In all of these things, language matters. It’s not by chance that Johnson replaced the doom-laden phrase “no-deal Brexit” with the altogether sunnier “Australian arrangements”, which had exactly the same meaning, but summoned up visions of barbecues and beaches rather than queues at Channel ports.
Some in government rue the day they allowed the 2014 Scottish referendum to be fought on the question, “Should Scotland be an independent country?”, and believe a different wording would have delivered a more emphatic vote in favour of continued membership of the United Kingdom. They vow that if there is ever another poll, it will be about “separation from the UK”, and not independence, and that the nationalists will not be allowed to claim the positive “yes” as their rallying cry.
Devotees of prime minister’s questions will have noted Johnson’s dogged determination to (incorrectly) describe Sturgeon’s party as the Scottish Nationalist Party, no matter how much the -ist suffix may irritate speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle. A national party claims to represent a nation, a nationalist one just represents the nationalists, is the reasoning.
It’s this kind of framing that Johnson excels in, and we will see plenty more of it as lockdown comes to an end. If all goes to plan, don’t be surprised if – in the PM’s mind at least – the car in which you are following the roadmap suddenly sprouts wings and becomes a rocket shooting through the air on a trajectory to the stars.
Even if all that means is you can go shopping and visit the pub again.
Yours,
Andrew Woodcock Political editor