WELFAR STATE  JULY 1945 = the Labour Party won the elections. This new government  Protecting and promoting the welfare of its citizens in such areas as health, unenployment and pension;  It was talking over the control of power (electricity,gas,iron) transport (airlines and railways) credit (the Bank of England)

For the next 25 years both Conservative and Labour parties agreed to Govern in looking after the interests and welfare of everyone. This new kind of state became known as WELFARE STATE

Elizabeth II 1952 = George VI unexpectedly died in February and he was succeded by his daughter Elizabeth II She was crowned in 1953 The general euphoria was mingled wiht a sense of anguish and restlessness This sense caused by the aftermath of Second World War and Cold War.

IMMIGRANTS In these years immigrants (from West Indies subcontinent) were attracted to Britain by the promise of employment affluence They concentrated in inner-city areas but the unemployment began to spread especially in the heavy industry The discontent had begun also with new social problems such as the first race riots, a new generation influenced by drugs, violence and the new danger of pollution.

THE THATCHER YEARS Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher:  She was call for individual enterprise and responsability that gave English society a new start in  Can be defined as Liberal: as that she wanted - free trade; - Low tariffs; - Industries were denationalised. ≠ Conservative believed that industry wuold be more efficient in private hand November 1990 = she resigned and she was succeded by JOHN MAJOR He was to follow Thatcher’s ideas

From Blair to the present day  May 1997 = the elections were won by TONY BLAIR his goverment produced - Leader of Labour Party; costitutional reform that - Held liberal views on matters of education, partially decentralized the UK welfare but conservative views on low and order issues and family values.  2001 = Blair won a second electoral victory with Labour Party  In 2005 he had an agreement with Gordon Brown his chancellor He would resign and he succeded by Gordon Brown that became Leader of Labour Party Prime Minister  In 2010 the elections were won by DAVID CAMERON, a Conservator.

GEORGE ORWELL  Born Eric Blair in India in 1903, Orwell was the son of a minor colonial official.  He was taken to England by his mother, and was educated at Eton where he began to develop an independent- minded personality, indifference to accepted values, and professed atheism and socialism.  He became an Indian Police where he remained from 1922 to 1927.

FIRST-HAND EXPERIENCES  Back in London, he started a social experiment: wearing second-hand clothes, he spent short periods living in common lodging-houses in the East End where he directly experienced poverty and learned how institutions for the poor people, worked.  He decided to begin publishing his works with the pseudonym of George Orwell:  He chose George because it had an englishness about it, and Orwell because it was the name of a river.  He wrote narrative books like: -Down and Out in Paris and London -Burmese day -In Homage to Catalonia.

 In 1936 he married Eileen who shared his interests in literature and socialism: in the same year Orwell was commissioned by a publisher to investigate conditions among the miners in the industrial North, where he stayed for two months.  In December 1936 Orwell went to Catalonia with his wife to report on the Spanish Civil War.  Back in England the Orwells adopted an infant child and called him Richard, but George suffered from bronchitis and Eileen was to die during an operation in 1945.

AN INFLUENTIAL VOICE OF THE 20th CENTURY When the Second World War broke out, Orwell moved to London and his last book Nineteen Eighty- Four was his most original novel: it was published in 1949 and soon became a best-seller. Orwell died of tuberculosis the following year (1950).

THE ARTIST’S DEVELOPMENT  Orwell’s various experiences abroad contributed to his unusual ability to see his country from the outside, he was receptive to new ideas and impressions.  His desire to inform, to reveal facts and draw conclusions from them, led him to believe that writing interpreted reality and therefore served a useful social function.  Orwell believed that the writer should be independent, that no good writing could come of following a party line.

SOCIAL THEMES Orwell was a book-reviewer, critic, Politic journalist, used a realistic language, he insisted on tolerance, justice and in human relationships, and he presented a devastating critique of totalitarianism, against the violation of liberty and helping his readers to recognize tyranny in all its forms.

 Marrone Miriam  Casti Eva