R's and elbows

Education Secretary Alan Johnson delivered a long speech yesterday, the soundbite from which is:

'If we expect our teachers to instill the old three “R”s: reading, writing and
arithmetic; then we must develop a new three R’s: rules, responsibility and
respect'

Yet the speech begins rambling about the atrocities against postal workers in Northern Ireland up to 1994, the building of trade unions in Iraq and then a rather nebulous discussion of social responsibility. Had the soundbite not been published it would probably not have been found, reading it I at first thought he was trying to bury some bad news about conduct in schools after many months since the launch of RESPECT (the Blair campaign not the Galloway party). Is it any wonder that we question the professionalism of political communicators when they try to deliver several different messages all at once, when they find themselves unable to be clear and concise. Again, the basic rules of communication are smashed to smithereens!