STS Bulletin no.10
“an exciting new opportunity to diversify the use of the college's facilities and income streams and will provide an excellent resource that fits well with our strategic priorities around employability.”
The above quote is about the privatisation of the Leicester Adult Education College. In this context "diversify" means privatise, and "strategic priorities around employability" is a wonderful way of saying "job cuts". How much longer can our mother tongue stand the strain?
So many euphemisms are being found for privatisation. Has it become a dirty word even for its practitioners? Reform, choice, diversification, reconfiguration (a personal favourite); then there's Mr Alan Johnson's term for further privatisation of the National Health Service, "The days ... of one-size-fits-all service are over." That's just another way of saying "choice", Mr. Johnson, which brings us back to the P-word.
Whatever happened to "selling off the family silver"?