[Orwell's London Letters were written to the New York "Partisan Review".]
Writing paper gets more and more like toilet paper while toilet paper resembles sheet tin. Volume 2, p. 270
.. there are special reasons why it is difficult for able men to find their way into Parliament. To begin with, the out-of-date electoral system grossly favours the Conservative Party ..
Secondly, the electorate seldom have a chance to vote for anyone except the nominees of the party machines. ..
To any M.P. who shows signs of independent thought the same threat is always applied — ‘We won’t support you at the next election.’ In practice a candidate cannot win an election against the opposition of his own party machine, unless the inhabitants of that locality have some special reason for adminring him personally. But the party system has destroyed the territorial basis of politics. Few M.P.s have any connexion with their constituency, even to the extent of living there: many have never seen it till they go down to fight their first election. Volume 3, p. 99
.. this must be one of the worst Parliaments we have ever had. Outside the Government, I do not think there can be thirty able men in the House, .. Volume 3, p. 101
A French journalist said to me once that the monarchy was one of the things that have saved Britain from Fascism. What he meant was that modern people can’t, apparently, get along without drums, flags and loyalty parades, and that it is better that they should tie their leader-worship on to some figure who has no real power. In a dictatorship the power and the glory belong to the same person. In England the real power belongs to unprepossessing men in bowler hats: the creature who rides in a gilded coach behind soldiers in steel breast-plates is really a waxwork. Volume 3, p. 102
Very nearly all English left-wingers, from Labourites to Anarchists, have the outlook of people who neither want nor expect power. The Tories are not only more courageous, but they don't make extravagant promises and have no scruples about breaking the promises they do make. Volume 3, p. 227
.. It is because, so far as I can see, everyone else was wrong too that my own mistakes are worth commenting on. Volume 3, p. 335
Among the British and American intelligentsia, using the word in a wide sense, there were five attitudes towards the war:
Position 1 was taken by radicals everywhere, and by Stalinists after the entry of the U.S.S.R. Trotskyists of various colours took either position 2 or position 4. Pacifists took position 4 and generally used 5 as an additional argument. ..
[Position] 1 merely amounts to saying, ‘I don’t like Fascism’, and is hardly a guide to political action: it does not make any prediction about what will happen. But the other theories have all been completely falsified. The fact that we were fighting for our lives has not forced us to ‘go Socialist’, as I foretold that it would, but neither has it driven us into Fascism. So far as I can judge, we are somewhat further from Fascism than we were at the beginning of the war.
It seems to me very important to realize that we have been wrong, and say so. Most people nowadays, when their predictions are falsified, just impudently claim that they have been justified, and squeeze the facts accordingly.
.. Pacifists claim with even greater confidence that Britain is already a Fascist country and indistinguishable from Nazi Germany, although the very fact that they are allowed to write and agitate contradicts them. From all sides there is a chorus of ‘I told you so’, and complete shamelessness about past mistakes. Appeasers, Popular Fronters, Communists, Trotskyists, Anarchists, pacifists, all claim — and in almost exactly the same tone of voice — that their prophecies and no others have been borne out by events.
Particularly on the Left, political thought is a sort of masturbation fantasy in which the world of facts hardly matters. Volume 3, p. 337
People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. Volume 3, p. 339
To a Stalinist it is impossible that Stalin could ever be wrong, and to a Trotskyist is is equally impossible that Stalin could ever be right. So also with Anarchists, pacifists, Tories or what-have-you.
Volume 3, p. 340
I have always held that pro-Russian sentiment in England during the past ten years has been due much more to the need for an external paradise than to any real interest in the Soviet régime, .. Volume 3, p. 433
No one, I think, expects the next few years to be easy ones, but on the whole people did vote Labour because of the belief that a Left government means family allowances, higher old age pensions, houses with bathrooms, etc., rather than from any internationalist consideration. Volume 3, p. 446
The anomalies of the English electoral system usually work in favour of the Conservatives, and everyone assumed that they would do so again. .. .. Everyone who took an interest saw that the only chance of getting the Tories out was to vote Labour, and the minor parties were ignored. Volume 3, p. 446
But the success or failure of the Government does not depend solely on its willingness to fulfil its promises. It also has to re-educate public opinion at short notice, which to a large extent means fighting against its own past propaganda. Volume 3, p. 448
One probable source of trouble in the near future is Palestine. The Labour Party, and the Left generally, is very strongly committed to support the Jews against the Arabs, largely because it is only the Jewish case that ever gets a hearing in England. Volume 3, p. 450
In spite of the difficulties and dangers I have outlined above, the new Government starts off in a very strong position. Unless the Party suffers a major split, Labour is secure in office for at least five years, probably longer. Its one serious opponent, the Conservative Party, is discredited and bankrupt of ideas. Moreover the people who are in power this time are not a gang of easily-bribed weaklings like those of 1929. Volume 3, p. 451
Like nearly everyone else in England, I know very little about Attlee [read: any British premier]. Someone who does know him tells me that he is in fact the colourless creature that he appears — one of those secondary figures who step into a leading position because of the death or resignation of somebody else, and hold on to it by being industrious and methodical. Volume 3, p. 451
