We owe Orwell a lot for continuing to inform political thought so long after his death. One debt we owe is for popularising, in 1984, the notion of doublethink, where one holds contradictory opinions and believes both.
It means we have the perfect term to describe an Independent columnist who can write that "the schools system needs to be reworked to be genuinely comprehensive" just four paragraphs after bravely acknowledging that grammar schools do such a good job that two years ago "the gap between the best private schools and the best grammar schools in exam results was just 1 per cent".
How admirable to be able to believe both that academic selection works so well that money can't buy better, and that the way to reduce the role of money in education is a still more comprehensive, non-selective system for those who cannot afford to go private.
