The Politics of English is an important book. Its subject is not English as a discrete, isolated linguistic entity, but the complex set of policies, values and practices that it is an inextricable part of. In exploring a range of interrelated themes, the focus is very much on English as a lived language or, better, as lived experience. In a textbook, this approach is particularly welcomed. There is great availability, nearly an inflation, of texts about English as a world language and the many varieties that have emerged in the last two centuries. By and large, these volumes tend to provide historical, geographical and linguistic overviews of the spread of English. While this is certainly very important, The Politics of English distinguishes itself by offering a different and critical perspective and extremely useful insights into what English actually means to its many users around the world.

On the occasion of the 100th issue of English Today, scholars from around the world were invited to send their thoughts. Excerpts from messages received up to September 6th, 2009 are presented here.

In this paper I wish to discuss some aspects of the current debates about the concept of English as a lingua franca. In doing so, I will use a recount of the pre-publication stages of the volume English in the World: Global Rules, Global Roles, co-edited by Rani Rubdy and myself (2006) as a starting point, to set the scene, and will move to more theoretical considerations in the second part of the paper.

THE ALLIANCE between US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the recent Second Gulf War has appeared anomalous to many, because they belong to ideologically very different political parties. Blair, in particular, has been accused of having betrayed some of the left-wing ideas that, historically, have characterised the Labour Party. This article seeks to understand the extent to which, at least in linguistic terms, the ideas of Blair and Bush may not be as alike as one might be tempted to believe. Two small corpora of interviews and speeches were collected over a period of some six weeks, all relating to the war in Iraq. Analysis of the corpora reveals some notable differences between Blair and Bush and also shows that certain important – and more hidden – elements of discourse escape this type of investigation and need closer scrutiny.