Dear Editor,
Thank you for quoting for us Marianna Spring, the BBC’s new verifier of truth and falsehood. When Hilary Clinton’s claim to have flown into Bosnia under fire was proved to be false, she said she had “misspoke”, as if what she had said wasn’t so much untrue as just a drawn out slip of the tongue. In coining the word “mistruth” Ms Spring goes one better–better not just than Hilary Clinton but than George Orwell himself. From now on, falsehoods can be palliated by calling them ‘mistruths’. What a gift to the liberal-totalitarian. It gets him out of the need to call someone else a liar and excuses any falsehoods he is detected in himself. How Big Brother would have loved the term. Poor Orwell, coming second-best to Marianna Spring. But what a stupid girl she must be to have the job she has and make no connection between her use of that word and Orwell’s Ministry of Truth.
Yours faithfully,
Henrietta Daly
