In the new age of Tory über-twattery it was a tad deflating to note, as I innocently flipped open ‘Decline of the English Murder’ that Eric Arthur Blair himself was educated at Eton. Jesus. Had forgotten that. But the more I dug in to that collection of disparate essays the more I liked, or re-liked the man.

It’s opinionated; it’s judgemental; it’s prone to the occasional hideous lapse – n-words, daft generalisations – but also chockful of brilliant, even timeless observations about life, politics, philosophy. It’s bolshy in an entertaining way about trends of thought and cultural icons. Almost certainly, it’s prescient regarding the filth that is fake news and that particularly modern (but plainly not) phenomenon of swamping the universe with porkies of a particularly poisonously-charged variety. This in the knowledge that most of the media will give it a platform unchallenged and enough of the people will be titillated by its raw bigotry.

(From Notes on Nationalism, 1945);

‘The general uncertainty as to what is really happening makes it easier to cling to lunatic beliefs. Since nothing is ever quite proved or disproved, the most unmistakable fact can be impudently denied’.

This of course is absolutely the essence of the Bannon and Trump playbook… but also surely redolent of the Cummings Project in the UK, and more recently Braverman’s ‘appeal’ to Confused and Angry, of Grimsby. Yes, Orwell’s essay is specific to nationalism but plainly – and sadly – its reach is into and across the racist spectrum.

I am much taken with the idea that although

‘nationalistic loves and hatreds… are part of the make-up of most of us, whether we like it or not’,

we must and can

‘struggle against them, and that this is essentially a moral effort’.

For me this is a truth and something of an inspiration: that we must recognize some degree of ‘inevitable bias’ and then act intelligently. We can therefore prevent both concession to evil and, through opposition that is self-aware, steer clear of ineffectual, ultimately inactive rage.

‘The emotional urges which are inescapable, and are perhaps even necessary to political action, should be able to exist side by side with an acceptance of reality’.

Orwell is making the case for a generous kind of engagement here, something which decimates the (il)legitimacy and rank ugliness of Braverman’s contemporary posturing. The absence, within the current political discourse, of Orwell’s connection to commonly understood decencies has been profound. And deliberate, surely? We may fascinate over the degree of consciousness exorcised around the fug that is our philosophical vacuum, but not, I think over its prevalence.

If only the likes of Kuenssberg and Peston had the wit, nerve or grounding to challenge the likes of Johnson, Patel and Braverman for their obvious, perennial spite – their badness. The UK might be in a very different place had the direct and essential questions not been confined to honourable margins such as Byline Times, or the Twitter feeds of outraged individuals.

Major journo’s have gone missing. They apparently remain undisturbed by the grotesque distortions around Small Boats. They failed to stir at the whole Rwanda invention, despite it being a manifestly provocative kite-flying operation, designed to delight the most perverse and cerebrally-deficient amongst our rightist brethren. They saw and heard nothing during Partygate.

Presumably it’s just too difficult these days to find balance around moral questions? These people, even those with no ties to ‘journalistic principles’ or obvious stake in the grift of the press barons, utterly facilitatedthe fall into mindlessness. They were lazy, they were cowed. Orwell calls them out, from 80 years back:

‘this, I repeat, needs a moral effort’.