Here’s some Orwell to enjoy with your Longworth lunch break.

We often forget how good he is:

Since you don’t know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Enough thoughtful discussion for today – we’ll now get back to our regularly scheduled programming .