Labour PR-speak

Yawn ( Our covenant with Britain , 4 September). David Miliband and Jon Cruddas (really? Jon Cruddas wrote some of this?) succeeded only in making me feel like a hungover middle manager herded into a conference hall at 10am with nothing between me and lunch except their grinding, verblessly sentenced PowerPoint presentation of a reason to vote Labour, their relentlessly insulting use of the rhetorical "we", their vague snippets of actual value-based political philosophies ("mutual self-improvement" – sorry, what?), their business-school catchphrases ("partners", "agenda", "define, shift and occupy", "move beyond"). This is language as utilised by press officers, PR companies, consultancies, businesses and bankers – language common in those worlds but meaningless and empty to the public in general. The deterministic slogans of dialectical materialism failed to win hearts and minds or change the world for Labour many years ago, but these have been replaced not with inspiration, oratory and leadership, but with even more alienating, drab, shuffling, humourless, spiritless drivel. I'm so bored. Is it time for lunch yet? Simon Gilman London