It's much beloved by on-message "new" Labour politicos - as Ruth Kelly showed yesterday in her plea for "zero-tolerance" of bad behaviour in schools, but what the hell does it actually mean, if anything?
Leeds City Council recently announced a "zero-tolerance" approach to litter - with fines of up to £2,500 for business that were found contributing to the mountain of crap on the City's streets. In that case, "zero" was eventually defined as five pieces of litter that could be attributed to the same commercial source. So, that's it then - five is the new zero.
To those of us with memories longer than Ms Kelly's, it seems that "zero-tolerance" has replaced another hackneyed favourite: "we should campaign vigorously" meaning "we should do something, but probably won't".
The trouble is, "zero-tolerance" is dragged into service to castigate the obvious; most people would agree that something has to be done about loutish behaviour in schools, or that the Army shouldn't allow rascist bullying in its ranks - it's the what and the how that causes the problem, that's when "zero-tolerance" is pressed into service as a woolly, one-size-fits-all, non-defined answer.
Don't be coy, Ms Kelly; this is something you could really take a stand on - put an end to zero-tolerance - you know, as Churchill said, why not make it something up with which we will not put.
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