Sampson has been recording what is going on in Britain without much editorialising
for over 40 years.
Here are some quotes from the first of two extracts for a forthcoming
book:
“After all the promises of democratisation and openness, central
government has become still more concentrated and impenetrable. New
Labour's Freedom of Information Act was more concerned to conceal information
than to reveal it. The Ministry of Defence and the intelligence agencies
are still obscure, while the danger from terrorism makes it easier to
invoke national security and allows the Home Office and the police to
cut civil liberties. And more decisions than ever are concentrated on
Number 10. Britain, for all its new diversity at the bottom, has become
one of the most centralised of all countries at the top. And in the
centre a new Establishment has taken over from the old.”
—
“ The 76 years from 1914 to 1990 are beginning to look like a
temporary aberration in Britain's social history. The First World War
undermined the immunity and confidence of the rich. After the Second
World War, they faced continuing austerity, higher taxes and fears about
socialism and communism. Later, taxes were lowered, and the end of the
Cold War brought an expansion of the global marketplace which allowed
investors to benefit from the world's resources, on a scale which the
Edwardians could only dream of.
“Today's rich can detach themselves more thoroughly from the
problems of their home countries, as they fly between houses and hotels
across the world. In Britain, they can enjoy the comforts of country
houses in privacy, without long-term commitments to large staffs of
indoor servants or local communities.
“They can separate themselves from the lives of ordinary people,
while the gap between them widens. The new poor in Britain, the immigrants
from Asia and Africa, can remain out of sight and out of mind.”
