Modern politics consists of framing, soundbites, talking points, context shifting, and statistics. The political essay died along with Orwell's elephant.
I read this a decade ago, and tried to practice it. The only problem is that people pay less attention because you don't sound as impressive...
OTOH maybe I can recommend it: using this approach, I did win a prize for an essay-based subject (non-computer science)... And there was another essay I wrote that one lecturer gave to another lecturer to read because it was so "stimulating".
BTW: Orwell mentions "dead metaphors". There's a really cool rhetorical device called "reviving a dead metaphor". A simple way to do this is to take mixed (dead) metaphors and unmix them. The impact can be strikingly visceral.
\EDIT {it's all coming back to me now... when I used metaphors in this way, they became true isomorphisms, revealing a much deeper and more informative - and even predictive - correspondence. For an example, note that the desktop metaphor is itself a dead metaphor that is also an isomorphism.}
Finally: Orwell did not do well romantically. It makes one think twice about emulating him. I try to remember this test before following advice :-)
This is a great read, especially for anyone who's involved in any sort of "activist" stuff.
I point all my friends who do any sort of political writing - which is mainly things like small local zines and such - at this. It does a great job of showing how to make a point effectively, and showing how a lot of political writing fails to do much of anything but preach to the choir.
When I first read 'Politics and the English Language', I was pleased to see the similaities between pg's essays and Orwell's thoughts about language, metaphors and good writing.
Thats really cool. I had never read that. In doing so, its easy to see now why Orwell created short powerful books. He really was concentrating on his craft and using a systematic approach to his writing.
...like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes.
...phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.
...gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else...
...an accumulation of stale phrases chokes him like tea-leaves blocking a sink.
A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow,...
...give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.