What Is The Thursday Briefing?

The Thursday Briefing is a blog bringing a round-up of news and musings relating to Green politics around the world, and especially from Europe. It is written by Tom, a member of several Green parties and self-confessed EU-politics-geek, but any views expressed don’t neccessarily represent those of any Green party. Have a look at this article, and remember that I might write something that is my opinion only, and doesn’t reflect party policy.

Just as much as anyone else, he should be prepared to deliver lectures in draughty halls, to chalk pavements, to canvass voters to distribute leaflets, even to fight in civil wars if it seems necessary. But whatever else he does in the service of his party, he should never write for it. He should make it clear that his writing is a thing apart. And he should be able to act co-operatively while, if he chooses, completely rejecting the official ideology. He should never turn back from a train of thought because it may lead to heresy, and he should not mind very much if his unorthodoxy is smelt out, as it probably will be. Perhaps it is even a bad sign in a writer if he is not suspected of reactionary tendencies today, just as it was a bad sign if he was not suspected of Communist sympathies twenty years ago.

George Orwell, ‘Writers and Leviathan’, from Politics and Letters, 1948

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