Blair's party slammed for bad English
Britain's governing Labour Party stood accused Thursday of improper English usage after it rolled out a new slogan aimed at wooing voters ahead of an expected general election.
"Britain forward not back" goes the slogan, which according to Labour's election supremo Alan Milburn neatly sums up the mood and desire of the nation as Prime Minister Tony Blair shoots for re-election.
But the Plain English Camp-aign, a lobby group that wages war on linguistic gobbledegook, said the slogan misses a verb, and ought to read: "Britain forwards not backwards".
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. "The verb seems to have been abolished by New Labour," said John Lister, a spokesman for the group.
"It sounds like a grammatical nicety, but it means you can put across a message with no specific action in it so you can't be tied down to anything," he said.
"It should say 'forwards not backwards' just for the sake of linguistic consistency."
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