[John Whitworth]

Competition
Lucy Vickery
Wednesday, 5th May 2010
Lucy Vickery presents the latest competition

In Competition 2645 you were invited to submit an example of impenetrable ministerial waffle. Lord Mandelson set the bar high with his bewildering statement, ‘Perhaps we need not more people looking round more corners but the same people looking round more corners more thoroughly to avoid the small things detracting from the big things the Prime Minister is getting right’, which scooped the Plain English Campaign’s 2009 Foot in Mouth award. But you stepped up to the mark admirably: I was reduced to judging in short bursts as my eyes glazed over and my brain threatened to shut down in the face of such magnificently opaque prose. The winners, printed below, pocket £25 each. W.J. Webster gets £30.

Going forward our focus will be on addressing prioritised issues with decisive yet considered action founded at all times on the bedrock of our deep-core values. Our strategic approach will be evidentially robust and locked into a rigorous monitoring of outcomes. Pilot schemes in a balanced selection of economically and demographically defined areas will form the basis of a programme of ongoing initiatives to be rolled out nationally in integrated tranches. This dynamically incremental process is designed to ratchet in a consensual step-change in user attitudes leading to community empowerment across the breadth of the social spectrum. At the same time, science-based investment in technological development will ensure that costs are driven remorselessly down while standards rise commensurately in accordance with Century Twenty-one expectations. Foregrounded throughout will be a heads-up 360-degree awareness of climatological impact and the need to embrace and nurture the ecosphere.
W.J. Webster

Forward in fairness and with a full-choice menu for all, we stand for not a free-for-all but a filling bill of fare for a nation in free fall. Iron determination, but no iron rations. And a transparent agenda. Because make no mistake. What we do now will echo down the generations. And we can because we must, there are no two ways about it. The politics of fudge and mudge, of sticking plasters and window dressing, will not do when we are faced with a raft of heroic challenges and urgent pressures, the call of fresh plateaux of achievement and the need to ensure a secure, people-friendly, inclusive environment for all our citizens. Not forgetting the pensioners. Our policy initiatives are founded on the solid ground of reality while embracing the vision of a fulfilled, empowering future and throwing down the gauntlet to other parties.
Basil Ransome-Davies

This government has in the past been consistently aware that the future which was then still to come could be filled with specific problems, and over the last few years the problems ahead have, with the benefit of hindsight, been greater than might reasonably have enabled imaginative forward planning to adapt to the circumstances offered at any given time. That, however, is now firmly in the past, and the future directions will, if we are re-elected, be moved firmly forwards to that same future. This does not permit us to be complacent about the ongoing development of unforeseen potential difficulties — we would never do that — but rather we shall remain aware of the necessary adjustments that may have to be made, just as much as recognising that which should be left undisturbed. It is a time for change. And at the same time it is a time for stability.
Brian Murdoch

The programme I am launching is founded on a robust empirical model and a bottom-up evaluation process. It enables us to roll over our commitments, taking advantage of existing funding mechanisms, while at the same time achieving key delivery targets. The end result will be a more level playing pitch and more state-of-the-art facilities for end users. Individual projects will be developed within a community co-design framework for strategically significant areas of indigenous investment. We anticipate that risk- assessment procedures will be embedded within the review process, thereby ensuring an ongoing value-for-money improvement methodology, and reprioritisation where necessary.
John O’Byrne

Ah! now I’m very glad you asked me that question. Very glad. And let me say that it is a very good question, a very good question indeed. Throughout my long career in politics I have always taken the view that a good question deserves a good answer. Face to face, without fear or favour, and without regard to colour, race or creed. No shilly-shallying. But of course it is not an easy question. After all, if it were an easy question, it would hardly be necessary to ask it, as I’m sure you agree. In our party, unlike our opponent’s, we have thought long and hard about this question, and while not having come to a necessarily definitive answer, there is a good deal we can say about it. So I will address your question in three parts. But before we do that, let me just say this...
Noel Petty

Let’s be honest, the challenge to our party at this crucial time is to get across to voters our core message of synergy with vision. They don’t understand our narrative of incentivising stakeholder agencies so they can benchmark the improvement levers and mechanisms needed for subsidiarity; or our dynamic strategy of having a robust and meaningful dialogue on the potentialities of such a performance network, so we can prioritise the revenue streams necessary for empowerment and wellbeing; or that this paradigm of proactive resource allocation presents a framework for holistic governance, where innovative coterminosity interfaces with the protocol of functionality to achieve predictors of beaconicity in all departments. They need to know that multidisciplinary provider vehicles will facilitate capacity building and an upward trend in the capabilities of area-focused community engagement, providing choice and fairness for all. So take this clear message back to your constituencies and prepare for government!
Virginia Price Evans