Learn English Vocabulary: The Dark Side of Politics

A warm welcome back to engVid. Today I'm presenting a series of vocab and phrases to help you

understand what is happening in the news. It's important to know what's going on in

the world, and if you can read a newspaper in English then you will develop an enormous

sense of satisfaction because that will show that your level of English is right up there.

Okay, let's start with "unethical". So, we can see a shorter word within the longer word:

"ethic". Now, a person's ethics are the ideas that they live by. So we say: "A code of ethics".

For example, to say please and thank you. If you want to know more about this, then

perhaps watch my lesson on social etiquette. Okay? It's to do with the kind of ideas and

beliefs a person has. If something is unethical, then basically it means it's wrong, it's bad.

Evil's quite a strong word, but it's along those lines.

"Illicit" is something banned, something not allowed. So if a politician took some illicit

substances, then that would show that they had been taking some drugs that are not legal

in the country they are in. Okay? "Illegal", "illicit", a synonym would be: "illegal", "banned".

"Allegation", so we have a noun here. An allegation-I'll just write in that that's the noun-is something

that someone said about something else. For example, an allegation that Boris Johnson

has had an affair. Someone is saying that Boris Johnson has had an affair. It doesn't

mean that they have had an affair, it just means that someone is saying they have had

an affair. "An affair" is when you cheat on someone. Okay?

"Alleged", okay? To allege, you are saying the rumour, you are saying what you think

happened. "Alleged", so that is the past tense version of the verb. "To allege" is the present

tense. But it's most often seen in the past tense. "Journalists alleged that"... "Allegedly",

okay? So here's the adverb. "Allegedly Boris Johnson has done this." It's not saying definitely.

It's saying it might have happened.

Okay, "a disclosure". This is making a secret public. Okay? So, Boris Johnson tells a friend

that he has been putting lots of money in a bank account in Switzerland or in an offshore

bank account. The friend then is quite nasty to Boris, because he makes the secret public.

He discloses some information. Okay? "Disclosure", the noun; the verb, "to disclose". And if

we look a little bit more carefully there, your prefix "dis" and the main part of the

word "close", so something is close and now it is open. So we had a secret and now we

don't have a secret.

"Libel". "Libel" is a published fake statement that damages someone's reputation. Okay? So,

who says "fake" a lot? Donald Trump. "Fake news! That's fake news. Don't listen to him,

that's fake news." Okay? So, "fake" means made up. So, libel, you can accuse someone

of libel if they write something about you that is not true.

"To be embroiled in a scandal". So, "a scandal" is something regarded, something thought of

as wrong which causes a public outrage. "Outrage" is when we are angry. So the politician...

Let's just explain this word, sorry. "Embroiled" means caught up in. I'll write that there.

"To be embroiled in a scandal", you're surrounded by something that is making the public very

angry. And I've got quite a few examples of those just to come in a moment.

A "P.R. disaster". So, the P stands for "public", the R stands for "relations". If you work

in P... If you work in PR, then you are promoting people all the time and you are saying: "This

person is fantastic dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah". But a P.R. disaster is when it goes into the

newspapers some bad press. "Bad press" is something written that makes that politician

look bad. Not necessarily politician, can apply to someone else.

Okay, "an abuse of power", "abuses of power". So, our politicians have... We have voted

for them to make decisions to help run the country. If they abuse, that means if they

do something bad with that power, then they are using power for the wrong reason. Let's

think of an example. They... It would have been an abuse of power if they were using

their position to make money on the side. So, if they were taking deals from businesses

against the public good, that would be an abuse of power.

This is about relationships: "to two-time". Okay? So, generally in our society it's a

monogamous one, that means you're meant to kind of be with one person. "Mono" meaning

one. But if you're two-timing, then the politician or whoever it is, is seeing two at the same

time and maybe one is very upset about that. So if a politician two-timed, that would be

a P.R. disaster. Not in France where the press seem to sort of celebrate that kind of naughtiness.

In Britain it wouldn't go down very well.

"Clandestine affair". So, a "clandestine affair", "clandestine" means secret. "An affair" is

cheating. Okay?

What are other things that would result in a P.R. disaster, that would be bad press for

the politician? Expenses fraud. So, "expenses", your expense... Prefix "ex" meaning out. You

can... "Pence" is kind of money, so what you're spending out. Now, politicians are allowed

to claim on expenses. What that means is if they spend money doing their job they can

get some of that money back. But if they... What fraud is, deception for financial gain.

Deception for financial gain, so what they're doing is they are being... They are cheating.

They're saying: "I spent this to do my job", but actually they didn't need to spend that

and they are fiddling the books. We talk about "the books" is like a record of money, if

they are fiddling, they are making a mess of, they are... They're playing a game to

get more money.

"An offshore hedge fund". So, "offshore" means, you know, we've got the edge of Britain. Any

one of you who watched my video on food of Britain knows that I'm not great at drawing

maps of the UK. So, "offshore", here's the shore, it means the coast. If it's off the

shore then it's somewhere else. A hedge fund, now, I'm no economist, but "a hedge fund"

is like some people working for you to make more money. An offshore hedge fund is not

strictly legal because it avoids tax being paid in this country. So, that's not going

to go down very well with our people, so that's P.R. disaster.

"Cash for honours", now, at the end of David Cameron's reign as Prime Minster of the United

Kingdom there was quite a lot of controversy... Running out of space on my board. "Controversy",

when someone thinks it's bad. So David Cameron's at the end of his... His time as Prime Minister

and he starts giving knighthoods: "Hello, you are now Sir So-and-so, you are now Lord

So-and-so, you are now..." Okay? And he gives these titles because those people have given

his party money. So that was called the "cash for honours scandal". Okay? It's not very

fair that he's just giving these titles because they have gave the Conservative Party money.

Now, from across the pond, over in America we had the "Watergate scandal" which was to

do with President Nixon and there was an attempted theft of his party headquarters that then

unwrapped this whole saga, which you can read about in your own time. But it was called

the "Watergate". Now, if anything goes slightly badly wrong, if anything's controversial...

Controversial, then we can add this suffix to the end, we call it "something-gate". Something

else that happened to David Cameron was "pig-gate". Now, someone wrote a biography about David

Cameron, alleging that he had performed something strange with a pig, therefore we call that

pig-gate, because it was bad press for David Cameron. Okay.

"Corruption", this is quite similar to the idea of an abuse of power. If you are corrupt

then maybe you're taking money to do something for someone else. So, "corruption" is your

noun, "corrupt" is your adjective.

"Tyranny". Now, a "tyrant" is someone who has lots and lots of power, and they don't

really listen to anyone else, so we're thinking sort of Robert Mugabe, Idi Amin, they're people

who rule and kill and do anything they want to maintain power. Okay? So that's your...

A reign of tyranny, and a tyrant is the person. So, tyranny is kind of like the action, that's

the person.

"Nepotism". Now, this is where you keep it in the family. So there's plenty of examples

of this all across the world, from the film business, to politics, to business. This is

just where you have a family here, like: "Right, now I pass it on to my son, now my son can

do this, now the daughter can do this, now the grandson can do this." Up to you where

you see those examples.

Now, if something goes really badly wrong in politics then that politician will have

to stop working and go out of the limelight. I'll write that down. Why is it called "limelight"?

I've no idea, but lots of attention is on them, and then suddenly they have to go and

live out in the countryside and put slippers on and smoke a pipe. Now, in America, the

President could be "impeached", there could be an "impeachment" where the president stops

being the president, but hopefully it's... The politician works out that they should

stop and they decide before the people decide. So, if they decide then they can "resign",

there can be a "resignation". So let's just break up this word. Okay? So you can see the

word, so "signature", they're taking back their signature. They did say: "Yes, hello,

I was President", and now that has been taken away.

Do hope you have learnt some new words from today's lesson. I think this would be an excellent

lesson for you to have a go on the quiz to try and ground these words into your everyday

usage. And why not start picking up an English newspaper, reading them? And some fantastic

ones out there, not just UK newspapers; America, The Times of India, plenty of them around.

And you can read them online as well. Thank you for watching today's video, and there

are other videos like this on this YouTube channel, so do check them out. Thank you.

See you next time.