- The Guardian
- Issue #2120
Concerned
Thanks to Grant Schapps, former UK Foreign Secretary, we learn you can be concerned about something when you want the direct opposite of that thing. The UK has long controlled the Chagos Islands, going to great lengths to deport all the people who lived there and keep them off so that a UK-US military base could operate. New(ish) British PM Kier Starmer has made a deal with Maritius to share control of the islands. Schapps has claimed that he blocked a similar deal because he was “so concerned about the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands.” Being so concerned about sovereignty that you don’t want the Chagos Islanders to have any is a new level of weaseliness, but it’s always possible Schapps got excited and meant to say ‘ownership.’
Consequences (unintended)
The Minerals Council of Australia doesn’t want the government to rush into environmental legislation in case it runs into unintended consequences. It’s weaselly language because what the MCA wants is to not have any intended consequences like actual environmental protection. Instead they’d prefer Albanese to take his time and either do nothing, or let the Mineral Council of Australia take the weight of designing the legislation off the government’s hands.
Mandate for change
British PM Kier Starmer has written a piece in the Murdoch newspaper The Sun, explaining why he’s putting about $46 billion Australian into Carbon Storage. He’s delivering on a “mandate for change.” As in Australia, mandates are always pretty weaselly – you’re in government, so you get to do all the things governments can legally do (also a lot of stuff they can’t legally do), boasting about a mandate or complaining the government doesn’t have one is beside the point.
British voters certainly voted for change, by throwing out a phenomenally corrupt and incompetent Tory government, but their ballot forms didn’t have a box to tick for giving 23 billion pounds to a fraudulent scheme designed to prolong fossil fuel extraction.
For good weaselly measure, Starmer described the money he’s about to chuck into that particular black hole as “investing” in the country’s future.
Futureability (clean)
No, we’re not kidding. ‘Clean Futureability’ is the title of a pdf Unilever has made, showing that their carbon recycling scheme will be terrific. The pdf depicts a magical carbon rainbow as part of an effort to persuade us that Unilever is moving towards a ‘saving the planet’ approach. The carbon rainbow isn’t being farted by a unicorn, but judging from the reaction of climate activists to Unilver’s Clean Futureability, it might as well be.
The Chandler-Mather group
This sounds like a folk trio from the 1970s, or possibly an alternative universe version of the Bader-Meinhof Gang. The reality is way less interesting – it’s just Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek, attempting to demonise Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather during an interview (calling the Greens “the Greens Political Party” doesn’t seem to be working). Chandler-Mather is far too left wing for Plibersek, although to be honest there’s a lot of room to the left of Tanya Plibersek, so if his group is a big one, they can all fit in comfortably.
Talking about
One of many weaselly expressions that amount to noisy procrastination, Tanya Plibersek has said “We’ll be talking about progress,” describing something she’ll be doing at a Global Nature Positive Summit, like a teenager talking about cleaning their (still filthy) room. We apologise to any teenage readers who have clean rooms, also all teenagers who’d rather not be compared to Australian Labor and its non-efforts on Climate Change.
