Four dishes for the price of six

I noticed this menu at a nearby pub a while ago. Pity the poor haddock and cheesecake, listed a mere once each.

Customs to excise

In recent weeks I've had a couple of dealings with British officialdom. The comparison between the two forms of communication I encountered is quite interesting.

First, I was sent the following letter by HMRC:

Whuhuhuh?

I had quite a bit of difficulty working out from this whether they owed me or I owed them money. I don't mind the inclusion of all this detail — indeed, it might be reassuring to see their working rather than just take their word for it — but I can't be alone in lamenting the lack of a sentence at the bottom of the page along the lines of "your cheque's in the post" or "pay up, pal".

In fact, the information I needed was really spread across three pieces of paper. The covering letter, which I accurately reproduce without paragraph spacing, read:

"I have reviewed your income tax for the year shown above to see whether you have underpaid or overpaid tax for that year.
My calculation is given on the enclosed sheet. The calculation result is given near the foot of that page.
The 'See Notes' column refers to the numbered notes in the guidance leaflet 'Understanding your Tax Calculation' which I also enclose.
A payable order for this amount has been issued to you separately."

Perhaps if I'd known whether a payable order was a cheque to me or a demand for payment from me, I'd have found it all a little more straightforward. It took me a nervous few minutes to work out that they owed me money.

Last week, by contrast, I got a letter telling me it was time to renew my driving licence and that I could either do so in person at the Post Office, or online using the passport photo they already had stored for me. (As an aside, I find not having to go to the Post Office a bigger draw in winning me round to the big brother state than any threats about terrorism or identity theft ever achieved.)

So, I logged on to DirectGov's website, and was certainly more impressed than I ever have been by HMRC. Each page was clear, short, and written in an accessible style, with any important links well signposted. All that was really missing was a section on how to find the paper bit of your driving licence (the 'counterpart', as the DVLA penpushers call it).

It can't be a coincidence that bureaucrats forced to do their business online would end up communicating in much more public-friendly ways than they might be used to (and you can expect to be put on hold for at least quarter of an hour if you're ever unlucky enough to have to phone HMRC). Anyone who goes on a web writing course will be told the same things:

• Stick to short sentences and paragraphs.
• Use keywords readers will recognise.
• Keep it all in plain English and avoid jargon.
• Use short and sensible headlines in large bold text.
• Make sure images are relevant.
• Make sure everything's big and clear enough to read.
• Break paragraphs up with bullet points.

The DirectGov site already does this quite well, but it looks like its replacement will be even more user-friendly.

But here's the thing: all of this works equally well in offline communications. There's no reason why HMRC couldn't instead have sent me a covering letter that got these basics of plain English right, made it very obvious what the financial bottom line was for me, and directed me to the details if I wanted to make sure they'd got their sums right.

I don't deny that tax rebates are more complicated matters than driving licence renewals, but anyone working for any sort of organisation dealing with the public needs to be aware of the importance of clarity and simplicity in communications: especially when money's involved. Here's how I might have worded the letter:

"I have reviewed the income tax you paid for the 2007–08 tax year. I'm pleased to tell you that you paid too much tax that year, and that we owe you £886.83.

Please see the details of this calculation in the attached sheet. If necessary, you can also refer to the guidance leaflet Understanding your Tax Calculation which I have also attached.

We have sent you a cheque for £886.83, which should arrive in [however many] working days. If you have any questions, please see our website at www.hmrc.gov.uk, or call us on [whatever our unanswered phone number is]."

Neoliberal neologisms

This blog post on the Telegraph's site the other day caught my eye. It nicely explains some of the baffling terms financial experts and political economists use, and their self-serving reasons for doing so. We are left, as so often with political and bureaucratic language, with "a form of gibberish in which words are divorced from meaning".

We're already familar with the euphemisms 'quantitative easing' (printing money) and 'negative growth' (recession), but the central bankers create jargon almost as fast as they create money. Many of these new terms are of course abbreviations that demand prior knowledge of their full phrases: QE, ESFS, ZIRP, M1, etc. Orwell once wrote that he was "smothered under journalism"; perhaps today he'd instead feel smothered under acronyms (SUA).

Both sides of the political debate — which, at least in Britain, is increasingly little more than an economic debate — use these rhetorical tricks. 'Social justice' seems to be a clever rebranding of 'redistribution of wealth', and has replaced it in the leftist lexicon as 'tax and spend' has gone out of fashion (which is why it's even cleverer that they don't call it 'economic justice').

On the right, meanwhile, we often hear 'wealth creators' used to imply aspirational entrepreneurs but really to mean the already rich, many of whom collect rather more wealth than they create. Many commentators and even politicians also fail to show much understanding of the difference between deficit and debt, or between tax evasion and tax avoidance.

Perhaps we should always bear in mind HL Mencken's quote: "when somebody says it's not about the money, it's about the money".