Waugh’s PC Christmas
From Matthew Leeming
Sir: ‘The Spectator’s Notes’ (12 November) finds a fictional parallel in Narnia to the suppression of the custom of Christmas under the Blair terror. There is a more striking one in Evelyn Waugh’s Love Among the Ruins, a novella now neglected, possibly on account of the heroine’s long corn-gold beard. It is set in a socialist dystopia, and Waugh’s highly intelligent satire was rather prescient.
Christmas has been replaced by SantaClaus-Tide, and festive Goodwill Trees decorate the blotched and dingy houses. The arsonist hero, Miles Plastic, tries to construe a nativity play: ‘Food Production Workers seemed to declare a sudden strike, left their sheep, and ran off at the bidding of a sort of shop-steward in fantastic dress.’ Mr Plastic’s reclamation by the Ministry of Corrective Treatment is hailed by the minister as proof that ‘in the New Britain which we are building there are no criminals. There are only the victims of inadequate social services.’ Matthew Leeming Old Alresford, Hampshire
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