I was reminded recently of a speech which Labour leader Ed Miliband made on the occasion of the George Orwell Memorial Prize award in 2006. Miliband's theme is the role of the public intellectual and why this is important.
The latest WikiLeaks revelations show that much of what passes for high level international diplomacy is in fact little more than tittle tattle and dodgy dossiers of the kind freely and widely available in the blogosphere.
Nevertheless, the controversy created by the release of this information and the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on unrelated charges has revealed unlikely apparent support for the organisation's modus operandi.
Could it be that not only some within the media, including people like John Pilger, but also some within and close to the very establishments whose data has been leaked welcome the outing of political "white noise" around which important decisions are taken ?
I think this is certainly the case, and a lot of people outside and inside the system want a higher level of discourse around diplomatic decision-making, including the management of conflict in places like Afghanistan.
George Orwell would certainly have done so, and if the contribution of Ed Miliband to British politics is to re-introduce high quality public intellectual discourse to these - which he has not done yet - the new Labour leader will have made his mark.
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