We tend to think that there must be some special dictionary out there, one hidden from us mere mortals, that allows politicians to say whatever they damn well please and yet not use the words that we all do. Almost as if there's some other foreign language they use to speak to us mere voters. Take this from Andy Burnham for example:

As Burnham correctly said last week: “For change to work in a market context, all players need to be following the same rules.”

This is in the course of The Observer managing to get absolutely everything about obesity, sugar and fatty lardbuckets entirely wrong. We all consume fewer calories than our grandparents did, sugar is not addictive (we consume less of it than in the past) said fatty lardbuckets do not cost the NHS money (dying young saves the NHS money) and so on and so on throughout the entire litany. And, of course, they're entirely wrong in the basic theory of what they are talking about for the role of government is not to tell us how to live our lives but to enable us to live our lives as we would wish.

But specifically what Burnham is talking about there is that manufacturers should be forced, whether by taxation or by regulation, to put less sugar, less salt, in our food. And no doubt to throw some organic lentils in there at some point as well.

Which is where that special dictionary comes in of course. Because that's not "rules" that's "recipes".

Is it too much to hope that one who would rule the country actually speaks the language of it? Sure, Willie the Conq and George I didn't do so well on this basis but aren't we supposed to have moved on?