sawyl | The philosopher and the mandarin

Today's Guardian featured a forensic piece of linguistic analysis from Michael McGhee of Liverpool University's philosophy department:

"We did not practise mistreatment or torture and do not do so now, nor do we collude in torture or encourage others to torture on our behalf."? I think it is not denied. In the past tense, he denies that we practised torture, but is silent about whether we were complicit or colluded. Then in the present tense, it is denied that we now collude in torture, using the ambiguity of the continuous present, which affirms that we don't torture people, to suggest that we haven't colluded in torture in the past.

You can bet Sir Humphrey never had to put up with this sort of thing...