Your article on George Orwell’s prescient novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, coincided with several stories showing that his dystopia is upon us (“Big Brother’s long shadow”, New Review). As an anagram of “1948”, the novel was intended as a warning of what would become of Britain under socialists. George Orwell could write beautifully, especially in his journalism, but Nineteen Eighty-Four is a ghastly failure as a novel. Letter-writer Bernie Evans doubts whether the Cambridge IGCSE was subject to the same reforms as GCSEs (“Playing the exam game”). If the UK is not to abandon all serious effort to avoid calamitous climate change, we know that in 30 years’ time the electricity generating and gas supply industries will have to have been utterly transformed.

Source: The Guardian May 26, 2019 04:52 UTC