George Orwell's "Animal Farm", written as an anti-communist allegory in 1943-44 at a time when, due in part to wartime alliances, Joseph Stalin was well-regarded in the UK, remains a classic of its kind. The allegory is a versatile literary device for imparting a message beyond the literal storyline; in the skilful hands of Orwell this farmyard fable painted a bleak picture of the events in Russia leading up to the Revolution of 1917 and those developments afterwards which brought about the Stalin era. Clearly, Orwell's target had to be one easily identifiable through the clear vision of hindsight; he had in mind what had already come to pass and was making no predictions as to any future dystopia. But history has a way of revisiting familiar themes and it is nigh-on impossible to look at the events that have been unfolding in the UK since the ConDem alliance of 2010 seized power sans mandate - and not to credit Mr Orwell with an uncanny prescience as his work assumes a new and chilling significance.
This unelected coalition government assumed power on the back of a welter of slogans and promises; those slogans have become sick jokes, perverted out of their original bright and shiny aspect, retailed now in the bitter coin of irony and disillusion. The promises, meanwhile, lay shattered into myriad fragments, reduced to dust to be blown away by the chill wind of austerity - while the original text of vows that became lies are being erased from political web servers, lest they be waved in righteous indignation to rally the lumpen Untermensch and thus perhaps foment rebellion.
The 21st Century reality of Tory-fabricated propaganda in ConDem Britain is, if anything, even sneakier than the crude tactics of Squealer, the mouthpiece pig of the allegorical Animal Farm. Where Squealer teetered on a ladder with a bucket of whitewash, the better to "modify" the sense of the First Commandment "All animals are equal" by the addition of "...but some animals are more equal than others", the Tory revisionism is unspoken, the whitewash job more subliminal. So, the internet records are abruptly wiped and old slogans or promises such as "We're all in it together" are simply and quietly dropped, heard now only as satirical barbs by those who would counter the Big Lie. Meanwhile, the MPs get an 11% rise on their not-exactly-breadline salaries while belts are being tightened among the hoi polloi, the bankers get their munificent bonuses while the "plebs" face the heat or eat dilemma and present themselves at food banks - because what were previously recognised as bare subsistence-level benefits have now been heavily cut from every direction. As any anatomist will confirm, when you cut to the bone, any deeper cuts will lead inevitably to collapse, so harsh survival-level choices must be made courtesy of the Orwellian pigs who banquet merry in the exclusive farmhouse, aloof and uncaring.
Some of the repugnant individual characters in the book hardly do justice to their repellent modern-day counterparts. At least in Orwell's work, the pigs - on a literal level - really are pigs. The farm stock, literally, are stock - cattle, sheep, horses; the unthinking, uncomprehending functionaries exploited all these years by humans and now hoping in their trusting way for a brighter future under an administration of their alleged peers. "All animals are equal", they are assured. But, lo and behold, in modern-day Britain, real life imitates the literal level of art. The Secretary of State for Work & Pensions no longer needs to bother referring to those under his benevolent care as human beings. To Iain Duncan-Smith, they are "stock", we hear from his own arrogant mouth. Our deepest fears are thus realised: the ruling pigs really do regard us as dumb animals to be exploited for economic success and neglected to mitigate cost - the money saved to be devoted to improving the already lavish lot of the elite pigs.
"These people", trumpets IDS - in response to murmurs of mild protest - "are referred to as "stock". So, he's emphatic and unapologetic about that, he can't see that there's any problem with it. It's so hard to listen to for anyone who still retains any vestigial dream of a more equal society. People in caring professions are trained not to use terms like "these people", because it sounds so pejorative, so demeaning - as if the human beings thus discussed are in a box labelled "Problem" or "Undesirable Element". It's almost too horrible for words, a litmus indicator of the contempt in which this privileged man, this latter day ruling pig, holds the millions of needy and vulnerable fellow human beings currently at the mercy of his callous and incompetent tenure in office.
The guiding principle is: the "stock" is not to be trusted. They must be kept penned up and fed on rations, lest they gorge themselves and exhaust the farm's resources. Any gorging to be done shall be done by the ruling pigs - because some animals are more equal than others. The stock cannot be trusted to have a work ethic, and so compulsory quotas are set (let's call it Workfare) and sanctions are applied to those who are unable, for whatever reason, to make their contribution. These sanctions do not apply to the pigs, because the pigs are the sort of chaps who can be trusted to work (given sufficient fiscal encouragement) - so it's all about incentives there. A bushel of apples in Orwell's book - a seven figure bonus in 21st Century Britain - if, of course, you're "one of us". Incentives for the few - sanctions for the masses. It comes down to the old choice of carrots and sticks - and the Tory pigs always did find it easier to manage the stock with the latter rather than the former. Easier - and cheaper too.
In Orwell's book when, through sickness disability or age, productive work is no longer possible, the consequences depend on whether you're stock or stockman. Faithful servant Boxer, the once-mighty workhorse, is therefore taken away when finally exhausted, to be slaughtered and boiled down for glue, amid misty-eyed lies about a hospital bed and a peaceful end. The ruling pigs retire to the farmhouse, don the trappings of humanity and live the high life. As a parallel, in 21st Century Britain, thousands who have been found fit for work - when they clearly are not - have either died of their condition or have committed suicide. They have thus become "economically neutral" in euphemistic jargon; this government don't like to talk about people dying as a result of their policies, so they've rather conveniently stopped providing statistics relating to those matters as well as making it much more difficult, even for diligent researchers, to uncover such statistics. But Mark Byford, on the other hand, the former Deputy Director of the BBC, was paid an eye-watering £1 million over and above his contractual entitlement because - in Orwellian terms - he's a pig. Certainly not "stock", anyway. The ruling animals look after their own. Some animals are, after all, more equal than others.
It's difficult to say what the future may hold - and it may well be that we're faced with a sort of Devil's alternative, looking for the least bad option the next time we go to the polls - if, that is, such quaint and old-fashioned ideas as elections aren't done away with in the next batch of nasty little surprises the ruling pigs have for us. I am speaking allegorically, of course. But to say we're approaching a crossroads is to show a huge talent for wild understatement. Things are getting worse by the day, in a manner as blatant as it is outrageous. Official figures are being manipulated to show what the government wants us to see; if they want us to believe that the threat of sanctions, or the effects of Workfare are helping people into jobs, then that's what those figures will say - with an utter disregard for the truth and the casual brushing-aside of any peeps of protest from those who are aware of that truth. The mainstream media, also, can be relied upon to perpetuate the Big Lie, in all of its loathsome forms - and sadly, people appear blindly happy to swallow this bilge - just so long as they themselves are not directly affected by the more swingeing examples of government policy. To the despair of anyone who wishes to see transparency in government - and the interests of all strata of society advising policy - the opposite is happening, and that trend remains on the up and up.
What seems certain is that now is no time to be thinking of a new way, or some ballot-box chicanery based on the provision of a "none of the above" option. Nothing would be better calculated to succour our current rulers and divide the opposition than such idealistic measures; instead, what is now needed is some emergency pragmatism in that quest for the "least bad option" towards the desirable end of ushering out this unscrupulous and incompetent regime. So much damage has been done already, unwittingly forecast in uncanny detail by George Orwell in the mid-forties - and in such a relatively short time - that it's too horrible to contemplate what might happen post 2015 if Napoleon, Squealer and Co actually manage to get elected next time around. More Workfare, more poverty for those at the bottom, more ostentatiously obscene wealth for those at the top - that could be the least of it.
And ultimately, in this nightmare scenario, there will be many thousands more poor, sick, disabled or simply old people who will die in the name of stock management - for want of fair government for all. Perhaps they will reflect as their lights go out, on the essential truth of the old Latin tag: "Qui mori didicit, servire dedidicit" (Who has learned how to die has learned how not to be a slave). For many, that might quite literally be their only way out.