By Kerry Maxwell, communications manager, British Poultry Council
It’s that time of year again when I sit down to think about what we want to publish in our Annual Report. As I look back at the past year – what’s been said, what’s been done, and where Government’s head is at – I keep coming back to the same idea that the most persistent problem isn’t the absence of ideas, but the way they are talked about.
I think we would all agree that, most of the time, recommendations are written in vague or non-committal terms to create the appearance of action without requiring any. I understand why, but the more we ask the same questions, the more I wonder if we’re mistaking motion for movement.
In our last two reports, we outlined our ambitions and asks, and explored the difference between action and contribution. Without that distinction, responsibility evaporates. Words like ensure, review, and consider dominate strategies, yet rarely translate into meaningful change. They describe intentions, not interventions.
I used to think the problem was a lack of ambition. Now I think it’s a lack of courage. Agreement on principle is easy, especially when it’s the right principle, but agreement can delay the harder work of deciding what must actually change.
Ensure points to an outcome but not an action. Review suggests process but not decision. Support implies encouragement but not obligation. And unlock (a word I’m truly not a fan of!) assumes a solution when no one has even built the lock. Unless you name the tool, the key doesn’t really exist.
I’ve called these “linguistic dead ends,” but, the more I think about them, they’re actually cul-de-sacs. The choice of word doesn’t just limit the scope of the conversation; it traps it in safe semantic stasis. Over time, this reliance on empty verbs erodes trust and stifles progress.
Maybe it’s the pessimist in me, but it seems everyone has ended up saying the same things – “we must ensure sustainability,” “we should support resilience” – without moving the conversation forward. Once-useful terms become hollow. Even resilience, once a proactive capacity to adapt, now feels like a lack of imagination rather than a plan.
So maybe our task isn’t to find new words, but to make the old ones mean something again.