Doublethink according to Orwell’s 1984 is “To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them” essentially it is to hold two mutually exclusive beliefs as correct. I can only assume that the Editor of The Sun, Dominic Mohan, has read this novel and thought that Orwell was on to a fantastic idea because it seems to me that The Sun are trying to set themselves up as a modern day version of the Ministry of Truth.

Here is a Sun Poll conducted by YouGov which clearly asks in respect to voting reform “Regardless of how you vote do you support the principle of holding a referendum?” To which 69% of people said yes. 69% of people are in favour of a referendum on voting reform. Keep that in mind.

The Sun has made no secret of its support for the Conservative Party, and the Conservative Party have made no secret of its plans to campaign against electoral reform so you can see how that 69% figure might prove a bit of a problem. But why would The Sun let a little thing like popular opinion get in their way? If there is one thing polls are good at it’s asking leading questions to manipulate the public into giving the answer you want. So here is another poll done by YouGov on behalf of The Sun asking a similar question only this time with a slight bias.

46% against a referendum now is hardly a resounding no but at least it’s a bit more in line with the Tory position. Let’s be clear about what it says; 46% of people think it is inappropriate to spend £80million on a referendum now. Presumably some of these people still want a referendum on electoral reform they just accept that maybe now isn’t the best time if it is going to cost £80million. That figure seems a bit of an exaggeration anyway, according to the Electoral Commission you can use the general election as a guide for how much a referendum might cost and that this was in excess of £80million. However they state that “costs would depend on the level of public information activity required, but would likely be in the range of £10-30m.”

So 69% of people want a voting referendum and of these 35% think it should happen now despite being told it would cost £80million. How does The Sun report this?

The Ministry of Truth would be proud.

Thanks to @AdamBienkov on Twitter for the heads up.