Northants County Council adopts Newspeak as its official language.

“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

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One of my all time favourite books is "1984" by George Orwell, this story of a dystopian future  is bleak, very bleak, this bleakness permeates throughout the story, like bitter cold through a body.

The thought of constant surveilance is so soul destroying even in its imagining, can you imagine a life without privacy.?

I remember when I first read the book as a teenager, I was intrigued by some of the idea's the book contained, the thought police, children reporting their neighbours to the authorities for supposed crimes against the state, the ministry of truth, the anti sex league.

Two minutes hate, whipping people into a frenzy, the state needs us to hate something other than itself after all, now how to do that I wonder ?.

The job Winston performed eradicating anything in written form that contradicted what the state wanted people to believe, history effectively being re-written, truth entirely disposed of.

The concept that grabbed me most though was Newspeak, the official language of Oceania, the idea of the formation and manipulation of language in a way that completely restricts anyone from expressing negative idea's about the state.

The gradual eradication of a number of words available to express thoughts, feelings, and emotions is reduced to restrict individualism, and free thought, giving total control to the state over the individual.

The ability of language to influence the way we think and act is extremely powerful, subtle variations in the way an idea is expressed  can render in our minds a totally different way of perceiving a situation.

It looks like Northamptonshire County Council have taken up Newspeak to alter our perception of reality, take a look at the link below, NCC lay out the proposed cuts to services to come, and attempt to justify the large rise in our council tax bills.

Note the use of words to distort the real situation.


www3.northamptonshire.gov.uk/news/council-news/Pages/final-budget-proposals-announced-by-council.aspx

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 Take for example their opening gambit,

"A 4.99% Council Tax increase is being proposed which would mean the county would have the second lowest like-for-like county tax rate in the country while at the same time be able to further stabilise its finances and invest in areas people have said are most important to them."

This is a wonderful example of Newspeak, where they posit a proposed huge increase in Council Tax (ungood) together with the qualifier "which would mean the county would have the second lowest like-for-like county tax rate in the country".

Doublethink ??

This "invest in areas people have said are most important to them." should read as essential services,


See a quote from the book below -

""In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy".


Yes suckers we are going to charge you more for the essential services you had before, but this is good as reinforced by the use of the words, invest, lowest, stabilise.

My thoughts are -

Yes we do want you to invest in gritting the roads when it's icy because not to do so would endanger our lives, and yes we would like Libraries, as we like our language, we want to be able to borrow and read books, this educates and informs us, and allows us to see through bullshit.

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They then go on to say -

The Council Tax increase would amount to an additional 75p to £1 a week for the 70 per cent of county residents living in properties within the Council Tax Bands of A to C. This would raise an additional £5.8m which will be used as follows:

• An extra £475,000 to permanently reinstate the previous winter gritting and winter maintenance of roads
• Scrapping plans to charge for community use of schools by uniformed and community groups
• An additional £1.2m for Children’s Services
• A reversal of plans to charge for higher specification community equipment
  
• An extra £673,000 towards independent adult social care placements
• Provide greater financial resilience
• Provide a more sustainable financial foundation for any future Unitary Councils

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Lets take these points one at a time and examine what they actually mean.

An extra £475,000 to permanently reinstate the previous winter gritting and winter maintenance of roads.

This is patently not an extra amount of money, we are effectivly paying more to keep the same services we had previously, this would be laughable were it not so silly. (DoublePlus Ungood).

Scrapping plans to charge for community use of schools by uniformed and community groups.

I wondered what that actually meant, well it appears that plans were to scrap the £56,000 subsidy that the Scouts and Guides had been receiving, this has now been dropped.

Here is a telling statement from Dean Smith, the county commissioner for the Scouts in Northamptonshire,

"“We were very surprised that it was involved in the budget in the first place as no-one told us and we weren’t consulted about it, we were told by the media."

Lack of consultation, the proposal is bad enough but not telling those affected who have to find out through the media is pretty shocking.

To summarise the council are saying "we had an Ungood idea".


An additional £1.2m for Children’s Services

Again, this is patently not an extra amount of money, if anyone can explain how this equates to an extra amount of money then I'm open to persuasion.

A reversal of plans to charge for higher specification community equipment

What the above means is anyones guess.

An extra £673,000 towards independent adult social care placements

Again the use of the word "extra" above is misleading.

Provide greater financial resilience

Greater financial resilience, this statement is a corker, basically the council have asked Central Government (who have cut back on the amount they give to local Councils) if they can raise another %2 over and above what they could normally levy. This is the politics of lunacy, you couldn't make this stuff up.

Provide a more sustainable financial foundation for any future Unitary Councils

We will only get stability when we have people in place who actually know what they are doing. putting up council tax does in no way equate to "greater financial resilience".

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www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-46429740?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cp7r8vgl2dlt/northamptonshire-county-council&link_location=live-reporting-story

"Parsons was Winston's fellow employee at the Ministry of Truth. He was a fattish but active man of paralyzing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms-one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the thought police, the stability of the Party depended.""Parsons was Winston's fellow employee at the Ministry of Truth. He was a fattish but active man of paralyzing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms-one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the thought police, the stability of the Party depended."