The Politics of the Forked Tongue

This is a vigorous polemic against what the author calls 'authoritarian liberalism' in the guise of excessive political correctness and the methods it uses in order to exert influence. The danger, also highlighted in 'Managing Britannia' revewed elsewhere, is that certain ways of thinking and expression become endemic and are unconsciously absorbed. The forked tongue of the title refers to the simultaneous cry for 'inclusion' while sharply dividing the population along certain exclusive lines such as race or gender. This leads to a number of Orwell-like paradoxes such as 'inequality in the name of equality, state control in the name of freedom, censorship in the name of 'tolerance', 'gender' quotas in the name of 'opportunity for all' and, to combat racism, an almost pathological emphasis on race'. This is a thoughtful and incisive analysis of modern social trends that deserves a wide readership.