“As Orwell perceived, the first target of every revolution is language. The need is to create a Newspeak that puts power in the place previously occupied by truth and, having done this, to describe the result as a ‘politics of truth’.” — from Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left by Sir Roger Scruton, who died one year ago today

Relevant as ever, he prophetically added…

“…labels were required that would stigmatise the enemies within and justify their expulsion: they were revisionists, deviationists, infantile leftists, utopian socialists.”

Yet again we face this looming threat from the self-appointed paradigms of virtue and enlightenment. I’m just glad Scruton is no longer here to see it.

(Douglas Murray’s tribute to this titan of conservatism can be found here.)