POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK AWARD

In yesterday's Guardian, Lib/Dem MP David Laws wrote of the

"intellectual opportunism and vacuity of David Cameron's Conservative party" (sic).

This from the party that argues in South West England that trident submarines should be refitted in Plymouth, in Scotland that they should be refitted in Rosyth, in Cumbria that they should be built in Barrow, and who voted in Westminster that we should not have trident submarines at all.

For a member of the Liberal Democrats to accuse anyone else of either vacuity or opportunism, intellectual or otherwise, must be one of the most extreme examples of the pot calling the kettle black. So Mr Laws is obviously my first nomination for the 2007 "Pot calling the kettle black" award.

Would anyone like to make any other nominations?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Im glad you agree with me that the Libs are equally opportunistic and empty as the Tories
5:58 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
Now that isn't the kind of mistake in logic which I would have expected an English teacher to make.

I certainly did imply that the Liberal Democrats are in no position to accuse anyone else of being opportunistic or of vacuity since they display those qualities themselves. I gave an example to demonstrate the point.

However, I neither made nor inferred any comment about the truth of the original Lib/Dem accusation.

For the record, no party has a monopoly on opportunism but it has been my experience that the Lib/Dems are more prone to this particular characterstic than any of the other major parties.
9:58 am
Anonymous said…
If the old idiom is to be believed, when the pot calls the kettle black the pot is being hypocritical as the pot is as equally black as the kettle.

When the Lib Dems (Pot) accuse the Tories (Kettle) or being black (opportunistic) they are being hypocritical as both are as black (opportunistic) as each other.

First post that I've found myself in agreement with you.

Now, what about those seagulls?
4:51 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
My copy of Brewers gives the meaning of the expression "The pot calling the kettle black" as being
"said of one accusing another of faults similar to those committed by himself."

There is nothing in that definition about whether the original accusation is accurate.

The response that a criticism is an example of the pot calling the kettle black can be made irrespective of whether you regard that original criticism as justified, if you consider that it does apply to the person who originally made it (or as in this case, to their party).

To infer that a person who employs the "pot and kettle" response to an attack necessarily accepte the truth of that original criticism is therefore faulty logic.

Q. E. D.
12:27 am
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