I’ll scream if I hear another politician saying they will ‘deliver on’ their promises.
You keep a promise, you don’t deliver on it. And since when has the verb deliver needed ‘on’? Does your postman or woman ‘deliver on’ your mail?
I wrote to the Guardian in 2011 about this awful example of abusing the language of Shakespeare.
The bridge too far: Arnhem 1944
It was the bridge too far: the operation designed to end the second world war by Christmas 1944. The airborne assault was audacious and partly succeeded. Nijmegen was captured. Yet Arnhem proved the bridge too far, as Lieutenant-General Frederick Browning was claimed to warn in the famous film A Bridge Too Far. The allies lost twice as many casualties in Operation Market Garden as at D-Day.
That film was one of the last great movies about the war. I saw it with my friend Gareth in Cardiff when it came out in the autumn of 1977. (I remember having to pay full fare on the train into Cardiff as I had just turned 14.) I enjoyed the film, but didn’t really understand the story. You needed some understanding of Market Garden.
… but yes to Great Britain
We can breath again. Scotland said no to independence. Great Britain lives on. The United Kingdom is intact. We can forget all those arguments about a currency union and sterlingisation. We are truly better together. Here are my thoughts on the day we found out that the 307 year old union has been renewed.
Scotland and Britain will never be the same again.
Out of touch London politicians have had the fright of their lives. Cameron, Miliband and Clegg complacently assumed that the result was a foregone conclusion. But when a single poll claimed a yes lead, they panicked. They cobbled together a promise of ‘Devo Max’ – home rule within the UK. Dave, Ed and Nick rushed up to Scotland to declare undying love for the country and plead with Scots not to file for divorce. It was desperate and unconvincing.
Scotland decides
On Thursday, Scotland will decide whether to become an independent country. This time next week we might be coming to terms with the end of Britain. I’ve blogged a few times about the independence vote, starting with the 2012 Edinburgh agreement between the UK and Scottish governments to hold a referendum. More recently, I voiced concern that the rest of the country was paying more attention to the Great British Bake Off than the Great British Break Up. That has changed at the eleventh hour as the British establishment finally realised that the union was in deadly peril.
Not many cities can claim to have hosted a Ryder Cup and NATO summit within four years. Newport, South Wales is in a very exclusive club.
I have affectionate memories of Newport as it’s the place I started work in 1986. I was one of the few who commuted from Cardiff rather than the other way round.
It was good to see the sun shining this week as world leaders gathered at the Celtic Manor, in contrast with the rain that blighted the opening of the Ryder Cup in 2010. (I jeered those who asked who decided to hold a golf tournament in Wales – as if it has never rained at Wimbledon, Lord’s or Wembley…)
Some in South Wales have complained about the disruption – but it’s a small price to pay for the priceless publicity Wales earned this week. We have long been in the shadow of Ireland and Scotland, and we must grab every opportunity to be centre stage.
President Obama, David Cameron and other NATO leaders at Cardiff Castle.
Ertblog 