Countering claims that proposed changes to the curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds will result in a “dumbing down” of English literature lessons, the British ministry of education has issued a list of writers it considers a crucial part of British national heritage. Austen, Dickens, Trollope, and two of the Brontës’ places in the curriculum are secure, but those of such writers as James Joyce, Doris Lessing, and George Orwell are up for review by the government’s exam advisers.

A story in The Guardian details the debate, but here’s Quillblog’s tuppence. We’ve had sexed-up documents and weapons of mass destruction that were never found. We now have wars in Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan, which are all part of the seemingly endless war on terror. The government in Afghanistan has plans to reopen the Department to Promote Virtue and Discourage Vice, so notoriously vicious under the Taliban. And the Pentagon runs a department called the Office of Strategic Information. Keep Orwell.

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Click here for the story in The Guardian