It has become fashionable among conservatives to invoke George Orwell as authority for their denunciation of any sanctions on such things as expressions of racism, or breaches of public duty by media monopolies. The real Orwell, of course, supported such measures.

Yet these same guardians of freedom have fallen silent before the genuinely Orwellian spectacle of top US spooks chanting “two legs good, four legs bad!”, as they try to justify their monstrous global surveillance program – the envy of any Communist dictator – for reasons they cannot detail because they are “classified”. If they are so proud of their handiwork, why hunt down the man who brought it to light?

Even if US “intelligence” could claim a tacit mandate from their own citizens, they have been granted no such thing by the other 95% of the world’s population.