Since becoming a Member of Parliament I've been learning a new language. Rather like Creole, it shares some vocabulary with English and, like many European tongues, you can also detect the influence of Latin. But this language is much more difficult to master than any I've yet encountered.

Quango (or public servicese, as it used to be known) is a tongue rich in obscure references, classical polysyllables and windy abstractions. Take this passage, from a briefing note I was sent on the contents of the Queen's Speech:

“The onion model set out the Government's vision of what was needed to achieve whole system change. There is an urgent need for still greater integration at every layer of the onion in frontline delivery, processes, strategy and governance. At the level of service delivery in particular there remains significant practical, philosophical and resource barriers to full integration. Further legislative changes at governance level alone will not automatically make it easier to address these barriers.”

What does this mean? What are the philosophical barriers to full integration of the onion? Is the unhappy vegetable too much of a Stoic or not Epicurean enough?

The passage I've quoted actually comes from a briefing provided by a charity. But for them, and others, to survive and wield influence in the world that we've now created they have to communicate with Government (never the Government) in this lifeless jargon.

The simple business of providing people with an education, medicine and money has become overlaid by pathways, partnership working, “light touch” duties, robust frameworks, the consolidation of good practice and sector guidance directives. No one ever uses a simple Anglo-Saxon word, or a concrete example, where a Latinate construction or a next-to-meaningless abstraction can be found. Everyone is a lead professional but no one professes to be responsible for things that go wrong. Every community has a neighbourhood safety team who integrate their working with a crime and disorder reduction partnership, but you never see the quaint spectacle any more of a police constable actually arresting anyone.

Unless you're lucky enough to work in the House of Commons, that is.

One of the great heroes of English history is John Wycliffe, the Christian reformer who fought to make an English translation of the Bible, then rendered only in Latin, available in every church. He believed that the Word of God should be available to all, and not remain the privileged possession of a professional elite.

It's about time we revived his spirit. Today we are shut out from the deliberations of the Establishment and kept at arm's length from the decisions made in our name by elites because they operate in a parallel linguistic universe to which the rest of us are denied access. The fundamental barriers to service delivery in so many areas of life are the onion layers of opaque jargon which drive you to tears as you attempt to cut through them.

Junk music

The one man who probably can tell us what the real philosophical barriers are to the onion achieving full integration is Professor Roger Scruton. Author of the definitive history of Western philosophy, he's probably the cleverest chap I've ever met. He makes Oliver Letwin seem like Timmy Mallett.

Writing in the latest issue of the magazine Standpoint, he argues that “it's only a minority of popular songs, the jazz classics and after them the Beatles, Clapton, Abba, that can be given a life beyond the grave of their first performers”. Is Roger right? We all know that it's unlikely that Bros's When Will I Be Famous? will feature in future concert repertoires. But are there other artists who can rival the Beatles or Abba in knowing their compositions have become part of the musical canon, destined to have a life independent of their creators?

I might venture Cat Stevens and Burt Bacharach, but I suspect the net doesn't stretch much further. What do Times readers think?

Cardy arrest

Watching No Man's Land at the Duke of York's Theatre this week, I was struck by the choice of a cardigan as integral to one character's costume. The cardigan now connotes only either seediness (think Rigsby in Rising Damp) or fogeyish feyness (Stephen Fry playing a Cambridge don). The cardigan-clad character in No Man's Land is a feyly seedy fogey, so the garment fits precisely. But why should a piece of knitwear named after a soldier have become so identified with faulty masculinity? Has there ever been a macho cardigan-wearer and can you combine a cardigan with machismo? Would David Davis, Snoop Dogg or Frank Warren ever wear one? Would Val Doonican ever be able to convey an air of menace?

I fear the cardigan is now destined to go the way of the trilby - an item of clothing which is practical, useful and well-designed but which, despite its very utility, now only renders its wearer ridiculous in the eyes of anyone under 50.

Michael Gove is Conservative MP for Surrey Heath

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