Sunday, 5 July 2009

Orwell

Orwell has to be one of my favourite writers and clearly prophetic in his work. If you haven't read 1984 for a few years then do so. Being captured on CCTV 300 times each day, having 1000 phones tapped EVERY DAY, and the CrimInt database are all straight out of 1984.

However I have just stumbled across The English Revolution and thought it was worth sharing a few lines:

"The Labour leaders wanted to go on and on, drawing their salaries and periodically swapping jobs with the Conservatives."

This was written in 1941 - 68 years ago. Not much has changed! I'm reading Oborn's Rise of the Political Class and will be blogging more on this later as he deals with this in some depth.

Orwell also sets out a short manifesto:

"I suggest that the following six-point programme is the kind of thing we need. The first three points deal with England's internal policy, the other three with the Empire and the world:
  1. Nationalization of land, mines, railways, banks and major industries.
  2. Limitation of incomes, on such a scale that the highest tax-free income in Britain does not exceed the lowest by more than ten to one.
  3. Reform of the educational system along democratic lines."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My favourite for the wrong reasons is the bit in animal farm where the animals achieve power. This quote has repeatedly surfaced in my mind since 97.

'No question now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.'

Speaking of people who should have been listened to at the time, I recently came across a quote from John Maynard Keynes written in 1936 in his - The general theory of employment -

‘ideas, knowledge, art, hospitality, travel - these are the things that should of their nature be international. But let goods be home spun wherever it is reasonable and conveniently possible and above all let finance be primarily national'