If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
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 squirting out ink.
Political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.
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.
Political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.
