Blogspot iconBlogspotSep 28, 2026 ~1 min source read

How Many Ministries Of Truth Does One Country Need

In previous essays I have sought to describe the political condition into which Britain and other Western democracies have been drifting by offering various analogies. Later essays pursued the analogy more directly, asking whether Britain was becoming increasingly Sovietised, with some of the same characteristics of a political order in severe decline becoming recognisable.

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In previous essays I have sought to describe the political condition into which Britain and other Western democracies have been drifting by offering various analogies.

Later essays pursued the analogy more directly, asking whether Britain was becoming increasingly Sovietised, with some of the same characteristics of a political order in severe decline becoming recognisable.

With the supply of serious comparisons running low, and the ironies apparently passing unnoticed, there seemed little left to do except laugh.

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The useful part

In previous essays I have sought to describe the political condition into which Britain and other Western democracies have been drifting by offering various analogies. Later essays pursued the analogy more directly, asking whether Britain was becoming increasingly Sovietised, with some of the same characteristics of a political order in severe decline becoming recognisable. With the supply of serious comparisons running low, and the ironies apparently passing unnoticed, there seemed little left to do except laugh.

How it works

  • Once the absurdities become difficult to describe with a straight face, parody is the logical next step.
  • The difficulty now has been making the exaggeration last until publication.

Details worth keeping

My initial forays drew comparisons with the post-totalitarian societies of late communist Eastern Europe, where the widening distance between official propaganda and observable reality produced an ever-greater institutional effort to enforce the official world view.

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