Jargon and inaction

[Martin Cassini]

Public sector jargon can do "tangible harm", says an MP select committee. "Civil servants have phrases like 'stand ready'," said David Blunkett, "which actually means 'we're doing nothing about this unless absolutely forced to do so'." It echoes the lights-off trial agreed by Westminster on 8 April, then neutered and delayed by TfL (who claimed the credit for the idea along with Boris, who turned down the proposal in 2008).

[Martin Cassini]

At a meeting in March 2010, TfL told me they didn't emasculate or delay the Westminster trials; the Westminster Head of Transportation did, i.e. the guy who agreed in the first place, then subsequently, apparently, changed his mind. Having given us a verbal undertaking, he now seems to be running with the project in house, thus turning his back on the people who gave him the idea. Nice.