War of the Worlds

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Been listening, on and off, to the BBC radio dramatization of H.G Well's "War of the Worlds" on Sounds this last week or so. I read the original in school over fifty years ago, and have seen and listened to just about every adaptation of the story since. The stand-out for me, though, revisiting the original text again, is not the tale of Martian invasion itself, or it's prescience in presaging so much of the World War that was soon to actually occur; but rather the realization that the plot essentially centres around London and its immediate environs of the Home Counties, with the Thames at the centre of it all.

Not a lot has changed, has it? We - well, those in England at least - still cleave to a metro-centric bubble here in the UK, where wealth, privilege and success are gravitationally attracted to the capital, at the expense of the least well off - the non-rich majority - of its inhabitants. Almost no-one can afford to rent, let alone own, property in many parts of the capital, so overheated is its housing market: a situation now replicated in much of the rest of the country. Since 2010, the UK's economy, its health service, its social care, workers' rights, its environment, and just about everything else of deep concern, have essentially been forced into crisis by exactly the kind of egotism that inward thinking nationalism represents, driven by a political party - completely out of touch with reality - in thrall to Mammon itself.

The Martians of Well's story were defeated by a trivial human infection: a parable of hubris crushed by the mundanities of life. The Tories likewise will find themselves ultimately facing their Nemesis, but it won't be that of any opposing political party: rather, the opposition they will have to deal with is the total failure of the UK economy and the destruction of the fabric of the society which they hold in such scant regard.

Comments

  1. Anonymous30 March 2023 at 08:44

    Sadly the Nirvana that should occur once the ravenous Tories are defeated will not arise under a Laffur government!! It was one G. Brown that introduced PPI and saddled this generation and the next with HUGE bills for shit schools & hospitals that are now in such poor state we'll have to do it again! The stupidity is that "they" welcome money, ANY money despite the evil ways that it is procurred (Concomittant Kharma!) which distorted the property market in London which then gave rise to the ONLY trickle-down effect that I've seen in that ALL property is now over valued and most property owners are glad that their pile is worth more than they paid for it. We NEED homes NOT investment opportunities!
    JHS

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