Waiting in the council offices yesterday, I had a chance to read the application form my mother must complete to get another Disabled Parking badge. For reasons, I can’t immediately understand, you’re asked to give your racial/ethnic group. There are quite a few categories to chose from but one of these is Black or Black British. In which case you're asked to say whether you’re Caribbean, African or Any other Black background. You’ll note the word Black is capitalised, as is Irish, Asian and Chinese. I guess this the new compulsory usage to avoid allegations of racism. I don’t suppose a new continent or country has just been discovered. I guess it would be possible [necessary?] to write:- As A Chinese man is yellow and an Englishman pink, so a Black man is black.

I’ve referred a couple of times to Orwell’s essay on the abuse of language by politicians. This was penned in 1946 and, of course, things have got a lot worse since then. Here’s an extract from an article which addresses how the Left has cranked things up in the last 10 years or so here in the UK:- After a fourth consecutive election defeat in 1992, Labour finally cottoned on to the power of re-branding and has been at it ever since. The party machinery has developed a mastery of language distortion to achieve goals that it knows would be rejected by the electorate were they set out in plain English. Labour became New Labour. The red flag had already been swapped for the red rose. Tony Blair never dismantled our civic institutions: he "modernised" them. Gordon Brown did not sign up for a European constitution: it was just "a treaty". The Government's latest fraud was unveiled yesterday with a shortlist of 15 locations for new towns in England. But these will not be just any old towns, they will be "eco-towns" and therefore, in Labour-speak, undeniably a good thing. By stamping "eco" on their plans, ministers expect, indeed demand, universal approval. Woe betide those who reject them; you will be accused of ruining the planet.

As I drove past numerous warning signs and cameras this morning, I wondered whether a recession wouldn’t bring blessed relief for the citizens of a nannying state which - absent more critical issues to deal with - has spent the last 10 ‘fat cow’ years interfering in personal lives on an unprecedented scale. The Age of the Bureaucrat, as I’ve labelled it. I say ‘absent more critical issues’ but, of course, the [New] Labour government has manifestly failed to deliver on its 1997 promises to improve the situation as regards road and rail travel, education, public health, excessive welfare payments, social mobility, benefit fraud, etc., etc. Not to mention the continuing breakdown of family life. The British are famously tolerant and patient but I, for one, would be surprised if Labour wins the next general election. New or Old.

Talking of British society . . . One commentator writes this morning: The British are a nation of volunteers. It has defined us more than egg sandwiches, queueing, warm beer or Marmite. Like good sportsmanship or tolerance, it is one of the characteristics foreigners tend to admire even while they are slating us for our rampaging teenagers or dire cooking. In his third report on welfare, published in 1948, William Beveridge explained: "In a totalitarian society, all action outside the citizen's home is directed or controlled by the state. By contrast, vigour and abundance of voluntary action outside one's home, individually and in association with other citizens, for bettering one's own life and that of one's fellows, are the distinguishing marks of a free society. They have been outstanding features of British life." I suspect that, if Beveridge were living now, he’d be rather more conscious of the aspects of a totalitarian regime that now blight life in the UK than his Labour successors appear to be. New or Old.

Finally, here’s the comment of a Spanish blogger who links to mine. Clearly a bright and sensible chap. Mirar la vida diaria a traves de los ojos extraños de estos conciudadanos venidos de lejos me ha hecho considerar de una forma más cariñosa nuestras propias carencias y limitaciones. Gracias por haber elegido España para vivir y, sobre todo, gracias por escribir sobre vuestras vidas para disfrute de todos. You can see more here.