A bit of spin

The phrase “paying lip service” is always bandied around politics and now and again you see it can be applied with good reason. The video link that beamed in Gordon Brown into the Galaxy British Book Awards last night so the prime minister could congratulate JK Rowling on her outstanding achievement award was cringeful.

Well done for congratulating the author but it is not quite good enough to talk about her ability to get “the whole country reading” and then beam out. Literacy rates will prove quickly to Brown that the whole country is far from reading and now Potter has hung up his wand where is the next JK Rowling coming from? That’s what he should be more worried about.