Wednesday 10 September 2008

Boris kicks non-existent staff out the building

From Britain's most impartial paper comes news of a "cost-cutting shake-up" at City Hall.

Here is my favourite little snippet:

"The Mayor said he wanted to streamline the Greater London Authority with around 100 job losses."

But then later on:

"He aims to cut the number to less than 700, although some of the posts that will go are already vacant."

Last time I checked (unless you're being very pedantic) getting rid of empty posts doesn't strictly class as job "losses", as the headline and initial paragraph states.

It's all in the semantics. It is true that removing as yet unfilled posts is still technically cutting. But the intention of the article - and indeed the headline - is to instil in the casual skim reader the idea that 100 overpaid wasters are literally going to be thrown out by their shirt collars.

Sniping aside, I'm genuinely interested to know how many of the cuts are vacant posts. "Some" is a touch vague.

No comments: