Mr Smith's centre ground: a rant.

Today's rant was written by Mr J Alan Smith, of Epping, Essex, England, and published as a letter in the Telegraph newspaper.

It's about labels - and how they so often end up stuck over the flipping bar code.

SIR - The political affection for the "centre ground" and the disdain for "extremes", the "far-Right" and - very occasionally - the "far-Left" rest on the assumption that each of us can be represented by points on a line according to our political views.

Suppose that this is not true. We should have to replace the "centre ground" with the more useful "common ground" and, instead of debating whether proposals were of the Right or Left, debate whether the were right or wrong.

J Alan Smith
Epping, Essex

How about that? Sorts out the world in three sentences!

Word To Us Today: right. Both the main meanings of this word, correct and the opposite of left, have the same origin. This is very unfair. The Old English form of the word was riht.

Thanks to J Alan Smith for his permission to use his letter. A longer piece by J Alan Smith on this topic can be found HERE. It's worth a look.