WORDS: Rhetoric

Bagnall, Nicholas, The Independent (London, England)

"TONY BLAIR talks about wanting to see a black prime minister, yet ... we have to begin to doubt the seriousness of Blair's rhetoric." So spoke Simon Woolley of Operation Black Vote, as quoted by the Guardian last week. The implication, though moderately expressed, was that Mr Blair doesn't really mean what he says.

Rhetoric is a dirty word and it's getting dirtier. The Daily Telegraph's legal editor, Joshua Rozenberg, recently quoted Sir Patrick Hastings as having said as long as 50 years ago that "the days of flatulent oratory are gone". Perhaps juries are more sophisticated now, thought Mr Rozenberg, and may be "less susceptible to rhetoric and bombast". You can tell …

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Publication information: Article title: WORDS: Rhetoric. Contributors: Bagnall, Nicholas - Author. Newspaper title: The Independent (London, England). Publication date: September 3, 2000. Page number: 27. © 2009 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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