green ink brigade

For the moment, electoral reform is dead. This is comforting on balance, for the subject, along with fluoridation and a few others, is one which experienced journalists tend to avoid. It tends to bring out the green ink brigade. No electoral reform: no lengthy letters to the Editor from Miss Enid Lakeman. Good. We can all breathe again.

1980 January 13, Alan Watkins, “Gerrymandering for the aid of the party”, in Donald Trelford, editor, The Observer, number 9829, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 9, column 3

There is something perversely satisfying about the fact that, […] our elected legislature was taken over lock, stock and barrel by the green ink brigade. I should explain at once that the expression is the more-or-less-affectionate description given by journalists and politicians to the people who write them eccentric letters, often in block capitals and frequently underlined in multicoloured inks. For some reason I have never heard satisfactorily explained, the most obsessive of these correspondents seem to prefer green.

1985 March 8, Ian Aitken, “Tories who are fluoriding high before the fall”, in Peter Preston, editor, The Guardian, number 58719, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 10, column 1

Devo-sceptics outside the Assembly were furious when we changed the working title of the executive branch to Welsh Assembly Government. They thought we were assuming airs and graces. The letters poured in from the green ink brigade to the local evening newspapers – they had never accepted the referendum result anyway.

2017, Rhodri Morgan, “Earning Respect: 2000–2003”, in Rhodri: A Political Life in Wales and Westminster, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, →ISBN, page 197