Mea Culpa hits the buffers

Questions of style and language in last week’s ‘Independent’ reviewed by John Rentoul

Rishi Sunak was pilloried for having ‘derailed HS2’ (Getty/PA)

The HS2 story produced an outbreak of terrible train metaphors, in The Independent as much as in any other media outlet. We had one editorial headed “HS2 confusion could derail the Tory party conference”. A different editorial referred to a “rail crash” of an announcement. And we put the headline “End of the line” on an article about the decline in railway architecture, which included “those cavernous and catastrophically expensive HS2 portals bored into the Chilterns and Warwickshire countryside” as one of the things that is wrong with the current railway estate.

It is a shame we put such an uninteresting headline on such a good article, by Jonathan Glancey, the architectural critic. He showed how to use a familiar phrase in a new and pointed way. The article started by quoting the British Transport Police recorded announcement: “If you see something that doesn’t look right, speak to a member of staff or text the British Transport Police on 61016. See it. Say it. Sorted.”

Glancey went on: “Oh, the temptation. But, where to begin?” Very good. More of that kind of thing, please.