Of course it's ugly but now you're confusing grammar with politics and
telepathy?
Politicians tend to be VERY careful about what they say so that they can shift
ground later if necessary. If the Minister said 'is' at the time of speaking
and implied that he would continue to be so, then that's what he meant. Using
the past tense later to describe the utterance does not preserve the essence of
the statement which expressed an attitude continuing into the future. The
expression 'keen to preserve' does not exclude the possibility of failure so no
verbal allowance needs to be made for a change of mind. He did not say
'determined' or 'resolved'.
Andrew Fildes
afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.soultheft.com
Author/Publisher:
The SLR Compendium:
revised edition -
http://blur.by/19Hb8or
The TLR Compendium
http://blur.by/1eDpqN7
On 07/01/2014, at 8:53 PM, Piers Hemy wrote:
> I had to have a good think about this, and having slept on it, am convinced
> that Chris is perfectly correct. "The Prime Minister reported that he WAS
> keen to preserve the State Pension" accurately reflects what the PM said at
> the time. We cannot know from the source quoted what the PM's inclination is
> now (a change of mind by a politician? Heaven forfend!) and thus the use of
> the present tense is both grammatically ugly and factually unfounded
> (perhaps misleading, perhaps not).
--
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