ABSTRACT
It’s an odd thought that Britain’s best selling modern writer, and, according to recent polls, the most highly esteemed, was a socialist who was best known for his anti-socialism. Orwell articulates Left paranoia about the use o f power and about popular discontent with the state, for still few on the Left can conceive of a socialism which isn’t about state power. Thus Orwell utters a scepticism about the popularity o f socialism which the Left itself cannot own to. In this decade o f Thatcherism, o f populism grounded in the commonsense o f decency, domesticity and anti-democracy, Orwell has gained a new meaning.
