The first sexual harassment allegations against individuals MPs were made last Sunday. Now this. pic.twitter.com/MSFCK3Iwta

— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) November 5, 2017

Sexual harassment: Boorish behaviour, unwanted by the target. Not to be confused with flirtation or courtship. Often perpetrated by people who have not recently looked in a mirror or who have forgotten their age or marital status.

Code of Conduct: Having some manners.

Witch-hunt: The process of making grown-ups accountable for their behaviour.

Addiction: Bad behaviour turned into an “illness”.

A clinic: A place where “addicts” go to, to hide from the media.

Abuse of power: Bullying. Soon to be classified as an “addiction”

Inappropriate: Very popular word covering –

(1) Breaches of social etiquette, such as using fish knives to eat steaks.
(2) Language mistakes e.g. the use of “disinterested” to mean “uninterested”.
(3) Behaviour previously described as “wrong” or “illegal” or “criminal”.

Wrong: Description of behaviour which is either illegal or known by a majority to fall below widely accepted standards of decency. Implies responsibility by the person doing it. Now in high danger of falling into disuse.

Banter: Amusing social interaction between friends and/or colleagues. Not to be confused with bad or offensive language, which becomes “banter” when someone complains about it.

Apology: (1) A short form of words by which a person says sorry for behaviour which is “wrong” (see above). Traditionally starts with the 1st person singular and ends with the word “sorry”. In danger of falling into disuse.

(2) A long form of words by which someone appears to apologise while not in fact doing so. The non-apology apology requires focus on the victim’s reaction while also implying that it is both overegged and may not have happened.
There are many variations of this. Industries where bad behaviour is widespread are fond of adding to their apologies (variant no. (2)) a lengthy reference to all the good people in the industry; see Banking, Parliament, the Police, Journalism.

The time for apologies is over (©Bob Diamond): The time when apologies (see “Apology (1))” should start.

Shame: No known contemporary definition. Last heard of in the 1960’s.

An inquiry: A process by which an embarrassing story disappears from public view.

A report: What a person who had nothing to with the original events has to present to Parliament and/or the media many years later. See the Savile Inquiry Report.

Recommendations: What you find, if you read that far, in the Appendices to a report.

Working group: A group of people unable to avoid being tasked with the responsibility of coming up with suggestions as to how recommendations might be implemented.

The long grass: Where recommendations usually end up. See also “Inquiry”

Lack of resources: The best reason yet invented for not implementing any difficult recommendations.

Lessons learned: Lessons which are never learned by those who need to learn them.

Whistleblowing: Something which is frequently talked about but rarely done. The equivalent of an “extreme sport” in some professions e.g. medicine, politics, finance.

The internet: An efficient way of disseminating porn and cat videos.

Over to you, now………

CycleFree