‘Spinning a Yarn’ is a computer-generated collage overprinted with a diamond dusted spider’s web and finished with an applied plastic Black Widow spider. I have selected exponents of political obfuscation ranging from Eve’s encouragement for Adam to partake of the fruit of wisdom, to the commissioning by Bishop Odo of the Bayeux Tapestry designed to justify his brother’s invasion of Britain in 1066, to Shakespeare’s ingratiating support for the Tudor dynasty through his plays, or to perhaps the most overtly political spinning by Joseph Goebbels of the actions of the third Reich. More recently the term Spin Doctor as applied to political advisors such as Alastair Campbell and Bernard Ingham is held to have originated in the 1950’s and appeared in the OED in 1993. In 1986 William Safire, in his “On Language” column for the New York Times wrote:

Spin doctor is a locution we must keep our eyes on for 1988. It is based on the slang meaning of the verb to spin, which in the 1950’s meant “to deceive”, perhaps influenced by “to spin a yarn”. More recently, as a noun, spin has come to mean ‘twist,” or ‘interpretation”; when a pitcher puts a spin on a baseball, he causes it to curve, and when we put our own spin on a story, we angle it to suit our predilections or interests.