‘Dupes to the love of duping’: Coleridge and ethics in government communication

There is a paradox, evident in Coleridge‟s time as well as our own, that where governments behave more openly public trust often diminishes.2 Coleridge‟s experience as acting Public Secretary on Malta, encouraged him to investigate the connection between public trust and the integrity of government communications. His reflections on the manipulation of public opinion in four major essays on the communication of truth in The Friend3 are of critical relevance to a modern audience and furnish fruitful possibilities for the reform of the modern propriety conventions governing government communications in the UK.