The relationship between language and politics is a strange one. In 1946, George Orwell wrote “politics and the English language”, in which he lamented the way in which “euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness” was blunting political discourse.

Orwell knew that politics can shape language, but that language also shapes politics: lazy metaphors produce unthinking dogma; while euphemisms blind the public to cold truths, and lend scientific impartiality to biased judgments. His main worry was mindless orthodoxy, which “demands a lifeless, imitative style”. This in turn, thought Orwell, blinds us to the reality of our politicians’ behavior. Orwell hazarded a guess that language in totalitarian regimes would slowly become less and less diverse and less meaningful.  Last year, Arkady Ostrovskyn in an article about Russia found out that Orwell was right: the Russian intellegentia post-1991 couldn't construct a convincing and nuanced critique of the Soviet Union as they didn't have the language: words like "truth," "heroism" or "duty" were falsified beyond recognition by the Soviet machine, and had not been reborn.

Most of us think of 1984 when thinking Orwellian nightmares. But sixty years after this brilliant essay, I'm more worried about  language. Anyone who has read a party manifesto or Green Paper full of empowered citizens, joined-up government, innovation, and personalized services will share with Orwell “a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy… who has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved, as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself.”

The mindless repetition of political language is anaesthetizing our brains, and giving an appearance of solidity to pure wind.  So I propose we start culling some of our worst indiscretions. The first one to be thrown on the pyre should be “striking a balance”.

It’s a particularly empty expression.  When Jack Straw vetoed releasing cabinet minutes in the lead up to the Iraq War it was in order to “strike a balance” between open government and national security.  Another frequent offender is Alistair Darling (between ensuring the banks stay afloat and looking after public money). 

It's not just modern media that's to blame. In the early 1820s, John Stuart Mill railed against the Whig’s view of constitutional balance, declaring “there seems to be something singularly captivating in the word balance: as if, because anything is called a balance, it must, for that reason, be necessarily good”.

Balance is perfidious because it has the overtones of thoughtfulness, neutrality, care, objectivity. And because of that it destroys debate. Who in their right mind could disagree with the wisdom of balance? Who would dare argue for an imbalance? But balance can be deployed in the defense of all kinds of injustice and outrage. In Mill’s day “constitutional balance” was an argument against extending the suffrage. Today, it prevents us from knowing the details of why we went into a costly and disastrous war. It’s also been used to justify not knowing MP’s expenses, extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo Bay, and anything else you care to mention.

Politics is ultimately about balances and choices. To justify a decision as “striking a balance” is tautological twaddle. But through dint of repetition, we cling to balance like a blanket, comfortably numb and satisfied when we hear it. It’s a quick and dirty expression that conceals deeper truths: what has been balanced, by whom, for what ends? 

In a brilliant salvo, Orwell asks us to send worn-out and useless phrases “some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse — into the dustbin where it belongs.” Let’s please add “strike a balance” to that rubbish heap. Next time you hear or read it, beware!

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