Irish Examiner View: Double-speak is alive and well

State Papers reveal the euphemisms government departments used in the past

Malcolm Tucker (played by Peter Capaldi) in The Thick of It would be proud of the double-speak that appears in some of our State papers.

The discovery in the State Papers of a guide to double-speak might have come from the script of Yes Minister or The Thick of It, the TV comedy series that satirised the inner workings of government.

As is so often the case, the truth is more colourful than fiction. Secret papers released from the State Archive reveal that officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs wrote a guide to answering queries from the public about family members trapped in Kuwait and Iraq in late 1990.