THE ROAD FROM WIGAN PIER
One element of the 1930’s that is not perhaps fully grasped
is that for many British people it was a time of growing affluence and
prosperity, particularly in the south of England and midlands, where the new
industries such as motor car production provided good wages for those making
things that catered for a new and growing middle class. For civil servants, doctors,
middle managers amongst others having a motor car had become a realistic
ambition, and many took to the roads. Whilst London, the biggest city in the
world, provided ample opportunity to relieve middle class Londoners, and those
from the recently constructed suburbs, of their newly acquired surplus income.
But Britain, particularly England was not one country in the
1930’s, for beside this growing affluence were whole areas of northern England
where unemployment, abject poverty and destitution were commonplace. Wigan was
just one such area, there were a great many more. The key thing to remember
about the depression of the 1930’s was that its impact in England was highly
selective, with the industrial areas of the north feeling the full impact. For
many middle class and more prosperous working class communities in the south
and West Midlands Wigan might just as well have been on Mars. It was this gulf
that Orwell was exploring in ‘The Road to
Wigan Pier,’ for it was a road that crossed a border into a dark land of
misery and deprivation. Orwell’s book is centrally about this stark contrast
and was written with the affluent south in mind, he was writing about a foreign
country.[1]
 |
| Suburban Lewisham in The 1930's |
Now George Osborne wants to cut the size of the state back
to what it was in the 1930’s. He has always wanted to do this, but kept fairly quiet
about it until now. In his autumn statement the truth came out, albeit hidden
by Osborne’s usual use of smoke and mirrors. It was the OBR,[2]
a creature of his own making that blew the gaffe, with the BBC merely reporting
the OBR pronouncements.
However it was the decision by the Today Programme to lead
with the OBR report, not with the Christmas package of changes to stamp duty
that they were supposed, compounded by the BBC’s political correspondent to
draw analogies with Orwell’s ‘The Road to
Wigan Pier’ that so infuriated the Chancellor. Pumped up by this report he decided
that he needed to kill this image promptly, with the added satisfaction of
intimidating the BBC in the run up to the general election, - something already
on his ‘to-do’ list.
Osborne’s
hectoring including the repeated use of the word ‘hyperbolic’ can be heard here.[3]
Osborne is desperate to kill the idea of draconian cuts that will re-shape
Britain should he be re-elected. So far he has managed to target ‘welfare’ and
local government and get away with it, but voters are beginning to feel uneasy
and Osborne knows it. He also knows that the majority of cuts are yet to come,
though that is something he is anxious to avoid discussing in any detail. In
short he needed to kill this story fast. To some extent he succeeded, as the
story, helped by the always useful Tory press became one about BBC bias.
The scale of spending cuts that Osborne has in mind will
have a profound impact on low paid workers, the vulnerable and the lives of
those living at the margins of society. We are already seeing this with the
explosive growth of food banks, the savage effect of the bedroom tax on the
disabled, and the growing numbers who have to cope with benefit sanctions,
sometimes for the most trivial reasons. Though of course it is/will not be like
the 1930’s, poverty and hardship will have a different feel to it. Though there
will be a considerable increase in homelessness and destitution. A shrinking
state, disappearing from significant areas of public life will mean people increasingly
having to fend for themselves. The suffering and hardship will not mirror the
1930’s but will be just as real. Though this time the loss of community
cohesion in working class areas will mean much greater isolation,
marginalisation and disenfranchisement.
However, and this is where the link with Wigan Pier is
significant, living alongside this growing poverty and inequality will be an
affluent majority, for whom private provision of services , from childcare to
mental health, will be available, albeit at a price. We will have, to use J K
Galbraith’s term, private affluence and public squalor. How long such a state
of affairs could continue without major social upheaval is a moot point.
It is I hope not too arch to suggest that the post 1945
political settlement represented the road from Wigan Pier, a desire never again
to see the kind of poverty and desperation that characterised the Great Depression.
Thatcher was the first to break with that consensus, Osborne wants to finish
the job.
I believe that in describing the passivity of ‘the proles’ in
‘1984’ Orwell was drawing on his
experience of the industrial north of England during the depression. For all
the various Left Book Club reading groups, the agitation of the small Communist
party and other left wing activists, Orwell found little appetite for
revolutionary change in Wigan and environs. Orwell greatly deplored this
passivity, though he was to find a different model in the Spanish working class.
How passive significant portions of our society will be as they are pushed
further to the margins, and see the services they rely on disappear, is as
important now as it was in the 1930’s. Osborne is gambling that the response
will be the same now as it was then. Let us hope that we are never placed in
the situation to find out.
[1] Of
course given his own background a considerable amount of personal guilt
propelled Orwell on his journey.
[2] Office
for Budget Responsibility.
[3]
The pertinent exchange comes just after the 7.07 mark.
