George Orwell's critical essay Politics And The English Language (1946) is very pertinent indeed to the Bush-war-PFI horse-trading and spin-doctoring in Blackpool this week ("Blair stands firm on Iraq policies", The Argus, September 30).
Orwell wrote: "It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear... In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible... Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind... From time to time, one can even send some worn-out and useless phrase into the dustbin where it belongs."
Perhaps only then can we begin to see clearly through such repulsive democratic nonsense as: "The Premier made clear he would listen to his critics but the Government's policies would not change."
-Richard W Symonds, Lavington Close, Ifield, Crawley
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