Crash-diet Carmichael crawled out from under the thesaurus he'd been hiding under to say he now knew how to admit to lying (about when he saw the Frenchgate memo) without actually admitting to lying.
Thanks to the Big Book of Words in Disguise, he was able to select a word that sort-of meant lying but wasn't quite as bad as lying. What was the magical phrase he came up with?
He claimed he'd "misstated his awareness" of the leaked memo.
A thesaurus really does come in handy. Type in "lie" into Thesaurus.com and what do you find?
Yes, you find "misstatement" as one of the options. I wonder why he didn't choose any of the other words? For example, he could have said he'd "fabricated his awareness" or he could have combined two of the words above to say he'd "falsely invented his awareness" or he could have went for something more magical like he'd "mythologised his awareness" or something more direct like he'd been "evasive about his awareness."
But oh no. After a month of searching through the Big Book of Words in Disguise, he settled on "misstated." I'm sure it'll be in both the Ministers' and the MPs' Code of Conduct books shortly:
You may not lie but misstating is allowed.
If only the English language wasn't so rich with words and subtleties of meaning. If a thesaurus helps MPs to lie, then let's ban thesauruses. Maybe then we'd finally be able to understand what the hell some of these MPs are talking about. There must be a secret language school they go to. If anyone can find a book on how to speak MP-ese, please let me know.
It would have been useful when the Scotland Bill was debated in the House of Commons earlier this week. There are vetoes in this! Oh no there isn't! Oh yes there is! And so it went on. Low-cal Mundell was very good at claiming that he didn't have a veto on most things in the Scotland Bill by stating:
What it contains is mechanisms to allow two Governments to work together on matters of shared interest and application.
Looks like when Crash-diet was finished with his Big Book of Words in Disguise, he loaned it to Low-cal. And Low-cal showed Crash-diet how to use it properly. Even Thesaurus.com doesn't give "work together" as an alternative to "veto." But, thankfully, Thesaurus.com gives antonyms as well as synonyms. Struggling to know what they mean? Synonyms are "equivalent words" and antonyms are "opposite words" and, yes, I used a thesaurus. If MPs can do it, so can I. (Though try spelling them without computer help!)
Anyway, back to Low-cal and those antonyms:
That's right - the opposite to "veto" is "allow" and so Low-cal went with that. Once he had "allow" as the core of his phrase, he could build it up by adding things like "mechanisms" and "work together" - a spectacularly gutsy usage of a thesaurus. And all done on the floor of the House of Commons too.
Opposite Low-cal that day was Binger Murray, fresh from stuffing his face with a whole curried goat. He likes the cultural melting-pot that is London. Especially if it contains a good sauce. True to this little gluttons style, he wasn't content with the all the words that were in the Big Book of Words in Disguise. Oh no, he was hungry for more. He complained that
The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who is chuntering from a sedentary position, does not seem to be starting off on the right footing.
At least Dictionary.com gives the definition of "chunter" as a Scots word meaning "to grumble." But it's not a word familiar to this Scot. Perhaps I'm just too lower class compared to the luxuries of Edinburgh South. But poor Thesaurus.com couldn't handle it and simply says "no thesaurus results." It's typical of Binger to eat up all the words in the thesaurus and then go binging for more, stealing them from a list of Scots words. Doesn't he realise the language of the UK government is English, not Scots?
But introducing new words into Hansard isn't enough to top the VR3 charts. Pete Wishart correctly characterised Low-cal's Scotland Bill performance when he interrupted to say:
I do not think that I have ever seen such a shambling Front-Bench performance.
During the Scotland Bill debate, Low-cal was up and down and spluttering and trembling and gasping and gesticulating like a children's TV show's star muppet. For that performance and for using a thesaurus to look up the antonyms, not the synonyms, he tops the VR3 charts this week.
So each member of the VR3 has now reached the top spot at least once. It's too early to tell who will dominate these influential charts over the years to come. But we'll be here, watching and wondering what the hell they're talking about. The moral of this week? Don't watch politics without having by your side the Big Book of Words in Disguise.
Tune in next week for more unbearable goings-on of the most famous diet-group in the world, the Valorie-Restricted Three!
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