Kick in the Pants 2013

This award draws attention to companies or organisations who need to communicate in plainer English.

The 2013 Kick in the pants winners are:

Leicester City Council

Leicester City Council are not the only council guilty of ill-conceived communication or inappropriate public relations. They are, simply, the most deserving of this year’s many similar offenders.

Their public notices on dog control – which we rightly described as “barking” back in August – are either impenetrable and baffling or as daft as the following example.

“A person who habitually has a dog in his possession shall be taken to be in charge of the dog at any time unless at that time some other person is in charge of the dog.”

Helen Grant MP

This year, we are giving a ’Kick in the Pants’ to Helen Grant, Minister for Sport, Tourism & Equalities and the Conservative MP for Maidstone and the Weald in Kent.

Helen’s claim to fame is being unable to answer five sports-related questions put to her by ITV Meridian. The questions included the name of the current FA cup title holders, the name of this year’s Wimbledon women’s champion and the name of the current England rugby union captain.

We don’t think that a ‘lack of revision’ is a good enough excuse – we think the Minister for Sport should have at least a working knowledge of what are some of the major sporting events of the year!