Politics and the English Language Revisited

Posted on | April 22, 2010 | 1 Comment

Tonight, in Bristol, the leaders of the three main parties will debate on live television. We now know that the performance of each leader in the debate can change perceptions and may change the course of the election.

I tweeted an audioboo by one of the BBC’s political correspondents, Chris Mason (@ChrisMasonBBC), on the interesting use of language around the potential for no single party to have an outright majority of the House of Commons. Is this a ‘hung parliament’ or a ‘balanced parliament’?

I was reminded of, and revisited, George Orwell’s essay – Politics and the English Language,written in the aftermath of the Second World War and whilst Stalin’s purges were still happening on a daily basis. Politics have changed, writing has changed and yet, some things remain the same.

political language has to consist largely of euphemism,
question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry:this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is
needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.

The examples from this election – war in Afghanistan, immigration and unemployment, MP’s expenses, cuts in public services and increases in taxation to name but a few – are different but I suspect that Orwell’s cynicism will not be misplaced in the way they are put forward tonight. There will be a lot of use of ‘trigger phrases’ to differentiate one party’s unacceptable policy from their own ‘essential action’.

All I want to do here is to suggest that you listen to the substance of what is being said and assess it for yourself against Orwell’s view -

A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy
of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.

Orwell offers his thoughts on how a ‘scrupulous’ writer behaves -

in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:

1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

And he will probably ask himself two more:

1. Could I put it more shortly?
2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

Is it hopelessly idealistic to wish for political language and communication that answers those six questions well and comes out completely – in one of the favourite words of this campaign – clear?

When so many people are suspicious of anything that any politican says, what hope is there for the future of trust in government and politics?

Category: Communication, Writing Skills
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Comments

One Response to “Politics and the English Language Revisited”

  1. Mary Griffin
    May 24th, 2010 @ 6:19 am

    i have never been a fan of Bad Politics and bad policies in the government. they always present bad news.,.’

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