The road to Wigan pier

I felt reading The road to Wigan pier by George Orwell that I was simultaneously looking backwards and forwards in time. Looking backwards as Orwell describes a 1930's Britain so unlike our stereotype images of a Britain populated by Mr Chumbly-Warners, cucumber sandwiches and fair play; the idealized Britain of which the establishment dream of returning. Orwell describes 1930's Britain as divided between the the poverty stricken working class masses, living in poor housing, suffering the effects of inadequate employment and unemployment and those employed working hard for little; and the middle and upper classes who on the whole looked down on the working class and poor, seeing them (if they saw them at all) as the architects of their own situations and cause of many national or social woes. In many respects little has changed, the Daily Mail was full of hateful shite, the more fortunate looked down on the less fortunate, though for most part people looked away. There were of course still communities back them, which was a bonus and on the whole things were slowly on the move up, the working classes were getting organized, there was diversity in media and people had their eye on a better future (which would arrive after the Second World War). If you like, the antithesis of Britain now as we slide into the past. It's a frightening that Orwells depiction of poor 1930's Britain is the Britain to which the establishment will have us return.

It has become clear to me that the hard won social justices bought by the suffering of the First World War and the realizations of the depression (the dole, allotments gardens and corporation housing) and those of the Second World War (like the NHS and other public services; of which of course Orwell would have known nothing of) were merely a temporary concession by the ruling establishment, a reaction to the rise of socialism, of unionization and a more aware working class; now the memories have faded, union membership is dwindling and the ruling elites are stripping our public services and preparing to return their boots to the necks of the less fortunate. I challenge anyone reading The road to Wigan pier to say that they didn't feel the fear rising up in them as they turned the pages, and realization that this is where the establishments right wing ideological policies are leading us.