Advice to PAP MPs - Drop the Pink Elephants when apologising!

The year 2011 seems to be the year of apologies for PAP Members of Parliament in Singapore. However, in the process of apologising and defending their fellow MPs, the PAP government created so many pink elephants that keeps reminding people of the mistake.

Take for example Minister Shanmugam's interview with the media yesterday where he defended Mr Seng Han Tong by saying that "Mr Seng Han Tong is not a racist".

The problem with the "not" is that it actually focus on the word "racist". This is an example of an unnecessary negative.

Even if the person reading this sentence in the papers live in the Stone Age with no access to the Internet, the person will wonder why Minister Shanmugam had to emphasis that Mr Seng Han Tong is not a racist.

Minister Shanmugam also gave The Online Citizen the limelight by highlighting the social-political blog for wrongly quoting Mr Seng Han Tong.

In the apology, both Mr Seng Han Tong and Minister Shanmugan should have gone a step further by highlighting how the Public Transport Council is taking steps to ensure that SMRT train drivers can take the initiative to help passengers without the fear of reprisal from upper management, or that all train drivers will be given paid time off to go for English conversation lessons.

You can get the book "Drop the Pink Elephants" from Amazon.

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