The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

 The Orwell Prize | How to Enter – Submissions for the Orwell Prize 2008.

There is some fine writing in the British political blogosphere and now there is an award to recognise it. The Orwell Prize will, this year, include a "Blog Prize."

Click on the link above to enter your blog. You just fill out an online form to submit your 10 best posts published in 2008 and send a separate email confirming authorship. Full instructions are to be found by clicking the link.

While you are there, subscribe to Orwell's own "blog" (his diaries published in blog form) for regular inspiration from the best political writer England has produced since the original and best Tom Paine.

And here, for the benefit of blogging generally, are Orwell's 6 rules for good writing. If we all followed them, our daily experience of reading each other's blogs would be greatly enhanced!

1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.