Summary: <p><strong><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Recording of a debate at the Battle of Ideas festival at The Barbican on Sunday 29 October 2017.</span></strong></p><br> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">George Orwell claimed that ‘political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable’. Today, many claim that the increasing corruption of language has become detrimental to our democracy. Political labels, such as fascism and populism, right-wing and left-wing, are </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">used promiscuously, often as insults against opponents. The rise of identity politics has given us new words, such as ‘ze’ and ‘cis’. Do such novel terms encourage discussion or help to shut it down? Should we go back to basics, and pin down what we mean by such contested terms as liberalism and </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">nationalism, even democracy?</span></p><br> <p><strong><span style="font-size: 12pt;">SPEAKERS</span></strong></p><br> <p><br><span style="font-size: 12pt;">BRENDAN O’NEILL</span><br><span style="font-size: 12pt;">editor, spiked</span></p><br> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">RACHEL HALLIBURTON</span><br><span style="font-size: 12pt;">journalist and novelist</span></p><br> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">NICK HILTON</span><br><span style="font-size: 12pt;">broadcast editor, Spectator</span></p><br> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">DR PAUL A TAYLOR</span><br><span style="font-size: 12pt;">senior lecturer in communications and</span><br><span style="font-size: 12pt;">cultural theory, University of Leeds</span></p>
