Politics Versus Learning. Student Essays to be Scanned for Signs of 'Radicalism'

The latest insane Anti-Radicalisation Programme to analyse student essays for signs of terrorism puts us directly in the middle of the Russian purges, or even Swift's paranoid totalitarian state.

"In the Kingdom of Tribnia, by the Natives called Langdon... the Bulk of the People consist, in a Manner, wholly of Discoverers, Witnesses, Informers, Accusers, Prosecutors, Evidences, Swearers.
... It is first agreed, and settled among them, what suspected Persons shall be accused of a Plot: Then, effectual Care is taken to secure all their Letters and Papers, and put the Owners in Chains. These papers are delivered to a Sett of Artists, very dexterous in finding out the mysterious Meanings of Words, Syllables, and Letters. ... Where this method fails, they have two others more effectual, which the Learned among them call Acrostics and Anagrams. First, they can decypher all initial Letters into political Meanings: Thus: N shall signify a Plot, B a Regiment of Horse, L a Fleet at Sea: Or, Secondly, by transposing the Letters of the Alphabet in any suspected Paper, they can lay open the deepest Designs of a discontented Party. So, for Example if I should say in a Letter to a Friend, Our Brother Tom has just got the Piles, a skilful Decypherer would discover that the same Letters, which compose that Sentence, may be analysed in the following Words: Resist — a Plot is brought Home — The Tour. And this is the anagrammatic method.'

This is a technique now much easier with modern computer power. God help us all. And God help the entire intellectual project, when every student is choking on every word of every essay in case it gets him arrested.