3.2. The Category of Cohesion

1. What word can be treated as the main key-word holding together the logical-semantic wholeness of the article? Explain your choice. In what way does its recurrence contribute to the integrity of the text?

2. What words and word-combinations are logically connected with the key-word and form the corresponding thematic group?

3. Pick out words and word-combinations pertaining to the thematic groups united by the common notions of:

• newspaper

• family relations

• fame and popularity

• football

4. What lexico-semantic groups of words are conducive to the semantic wholeness of the article?

5. Comment on the role synonyms proper and contextual synonyms play in the lexical cohesion of the text.

6. How does antonymy (both antonyms proper and contextual ones) reinforce the lexical cohesion of the newspaper writing?

7. Through what associative-semantic strings of words and word-combinations is the lexical cohesion of the text also achieved?

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• Compose and write a coherent essay summing up your observations on the linguostylistic and textlinguistic peculiarities of the newspaper text “Gang arrested over plot to kidnap Victoria Beckham”.

Unit 3

Budd report rejects cover-up, but finds that email helped fast-track application

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Blunkett ¹⁾ resigns over visa for nanny

Michael White and David Hencke

Whitehall ²⁾ breathed a sigh of relief this week after Sir Alan Budd ³⁾ cleared civil servants of covering up events surrounding the fast-tracking of a visa application for the nanny of David Blankett’s then lover, Kimberly Quinn.

Mr Blunkett resigned as home secretary last week, making a tearful exit from government, after it became clear that Sir Alan’s report would find that staff in his office had helped speed up the visa application.

Four days after Mr Blunkett resigned following the emergence of an email that proved his office had been in contact with the immigration and nationality directorate (IND) over the visa, the increasingly public row between him and Mrs Quinn continued to dominate the weekend papers. Friends of David Blunkett accused Sir Alan of being “mesmerized” by his former lover into accepting her account, while friends of Mrs Quinn insisted she had not wished to bring him down but simply for him to stay out of her life.

The saga took a further twist when it was revealed that Mrs Quinn was also having an affair with Simon Hoggart, the Guardian’s political sketch writer and the Spectator’s wine correspondent.

Sir Alan found that an email sent from the home office had the effect of speeding up the visa for the Filipina nanny, Leoncia Casalme, to stay in Britain indefinitely.

On Tuesday the parliamentary commissioner for standards in public life, Sir Philip Mawer, upheld a complaint against Mr Blunkett that he had misused two first-class rail tickets, intended for MPs’ wives, when he gave them to Mrs Quinn.

Mr Blunkett, who has already repaid £179 to cover the cost of the train journeys, immediately apologised for his mistake.

Both Mr Blunkett and Mrs Quinn were said to be suffering from nervous exhaustion after several weeks in the glare of the media headlights.

Both face a further difficult day on Thursday when the next stage of Mr Blunkett’s case for access to her two-year-old boy reaches the high court. He claims to be the father of the child from his three-year relationship with the publisher of the Spectator.

Mrs Quinn, 43, heavily pregnant with a second child, left hospital last Friday after after 18 days of treatment for complications that her husband, Stephen, said had been brought on by stress.

Mr Blunkett’s resignation came as a dramatic end to one of the most tenacious political careers. As a child born blind in a poor home, he rose to hold one of the most important and demanding offices in the state – and lost it for love.

Though the cabinet’s combative education secretary, Charles Clarke, was almost immediately promoted to fill his shoes, MPs on all sides at Westminster ⁴⁾ were actually aware that the prime minister had also sustained a blow.

Mr Blair ⁵⁾ has lost another close political and personal ally soon after accepting that Peter Mandelson ⁶⁾, now an EU commissioner, could not return to cabinet for a third time, almost certainly hastening the day when he will hand over power to Gordon Brown ⁷⁾.

But Blair loyalists dominated the promotions prompted by Mr Blunkett’s departure. The former Guardian journalist Ruth Kelly, 36, deputy to the Blairite Alan Milburn, took over as education secretary to become the sixth woman cabinet minister and trusted former No 10 ⁸⁾ adviser, moved to take her job in the Blair campaign entourage.

In emotional TV interviews after the news was confirmed, Mr Blunkett made clear that he had risked – and halted – his career for love.

He said: “I misunderstood what we had. I misunderstood that someone [Mrs Quinn] could do this, not just to me, but to a little one as well” in the couple’s fight over paternity and custody of what he called “that little lad” he loved.

The Guardian Weekly

December 24, 2004 – January 6, 2005

 Explanatory Notes

¹⁾ David Blunkett (born 6 June 1947) is a British Labour politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Sheffield Brightside since 1987. Suffering from blindness since birth, and coming from a poor family in one of Sheffield's most deprived districts, he rose to become Education Secretary in Tony Blair's first Cabinet following Labour's victory in the 1997 general election. He gave up this position to become Home Secretary following the 2001 general election, a position he held until 2004, when he was forced to resign following the revelation of an affair Blunkett was having while serving as Home Secretary. Following the 2005 general election, he was appointed Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, but was again forced to resign later that year following the release of a series of reports about his external business interests during his brief time outside the cabinet.

²⁾ Whitehall - a road in Westminster in London, England. Recognised as the centre of HM Government, the road is lined with government departments/ministries. "Whitehall" is therefore also frequently used as a metonym for overall UK governmental administration, as well as being a geographic name for the surrounding district.

³⁾ Sir Alan Peter Budd (born 16 November 1937) is a prominent British economist, who was a founding member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in 1997 and a chief economic adviser to the Treasury between 1991 and 1997. Sir Alan has appeared more in the public eye, however, in fulfilling various government appointments. He gained an even higher public profile when in 2004 he was asked to investigate the circumstances surrounding the issue of a visa to the nanny of Kimberly Quinn, the lover of David Blunkett, the then Home Secretary.

⁴⁾ Westminster - the name describes the area around Westminster Abbey and Palace of Westminster. It derives from the West Minster, or monastery church, west of the City of London's St Paul's. The area has been the seat of the government of England for almost a thousand years. "Westminster" is thus often used as a metonym for Parliament and the political community of the United Kingdom generally.

⁵⁾ Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He had been the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007; he resigned from all these positions in June 2007.

⁶⁾ Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, PC (born 21 October 1953) is a British Labour politician who is the current First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, President of the Board of Trade and Lord President of the Council. Mandelson served as Member of Parliament for Hartlepool for twelve years (from 1992), a seat he vacated in order to become a European Commissioner (2004–2008). He twice resigned from Tony Blair's government. After his second resignation he served as the European Commissioner for Trade for almost four years.

⁷⁾ James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party. Brown became Prime Minister in June 2007, after the resignation of Tony Blair and three days after becoming leader of the governing Labour Party. Immediately before this he had served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour government from 1997 to 2007 under Tony Blair.

⁸⁾ No 10 - 10 Downing Street, the official residence and office of the First Lord of the Treasury and hence Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The headquarters of Her Majesty's Government, it is situated on Downing Street in the City of Westminster in London. Number 10 is perhaps the most famous address in the United Kingdom and one of the most widely recognised houses in the world.