As Christmas approaches, some of you may have started thinking about what to buy for those awkward friends and relations. If these include members of the judiciary (and they can be awkward), the perfect gift idea could be a copy of George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language.

Speaking at the Bar Council’s annual conference last weekend, master of the rolls Lord Neuberger (pictured) told delegates that he had been sent a copy of this pedagogic tract by one of his fellow judges after the latter had read one of his judgments.

We’re not sure this was intended as a compliment. Orwell noted that writers of modern prose tend not to write in concrete terms but use a ‘pretentious latinised style’ (judges? never!) and offered readers rules that will help them right better than what they did before. Said he: ‘A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks... English ... becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.’ Harsh – but fair?

Meanwhile, presenting the bar’s pro bono award at the same event, London mayor Boris Johnson showed that he knew where he ranked among the speakers who breakfasted together at the Metropole hotel. Lord Neuberger, said Johnson, was ‘master of the rolls’, while he was ‘master of the croissants’.

Ken Livingstone hopes Boris is toast, but that’s another story.