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LRB blog

Reform Reform

Thomas Jones

According to the campaign YES! to fairer votes, the BBC's 'top brass' have circulated a memo 'that demands that their staff stop describing "electoral reform" as "electoral reform".' A quick search of the BBC website reveals that until 20 January the words 'electoral reform' were used fairly often in relation to the upcoming referendum on AV, but since then have been applied only to Jersey and Nigeria. The BBC's reasoning is that

The term “reform” explicitly means an “improvement” or “change for the better”. So in this particular context, it is not neutral, but controversial in itself.

Search for 'NHS reform', however, and the most recent result is less than an hour old.

bbc

Comments

  • 8 February 2011 at 8:59pm
    A.J.P. Crown says:
    BBC reform.
  • 14 February 2011 at 8:18pm
    Westmorlandia says:
    A fairly important difference is that we will be asked to vote on "changes to the electoral system", whereas we won't be asked to vote on the changes to the NHS (sadly).