Scenes from an imagined future, if we are no longer dominated by the kleptogarchy

What Happened to the Revolution? Sunday July 22nd 2035

I remember the revolution of 2024 to 2027. It petered out in the heat and humidity of summer 2027. Energy prices had skyrocketed, impacting everything else. There was some financial help from the government of the time, but by the end of 2024 more than five households in ten could not pay their bills without borrowing. The debt overhang collapsed into a political crisis, we experienced riots, strikes, violent uprisings. We had shortages of everything. The failing government tried to cling on, while it over-filled the jails with the protesters it had criminalised. Eventually so many ministers resigned that the government crumbled. Turnout in the general election that followed was low, because people were exhausted and dispirited. The new administration didn’t pretend that a return to affluence was possible, we would all have to manage with less. And we did. No more super rich, they agreed to heavy taxation or they left. In years past the super-rich would have persuaded enough of us that they were indispensable, that without them the economy would crumble, but not this time. The mystique had evaporated. The new government was labelled socialist, but it was more complicated than that, a rich or untidy mixture, depending on your point of view, of not-for-profit and state-owned enterprises, individual and family businesses and co-ops. The deluge of dubious money flowing into the City of London slowed to a streamlet and now it is a dribble. Redundant bank buildings were converted into homes. We are poorer, more self-reliant, and think of progress as the abandonment of 19^th and 20^th century notions of humans as the dominators, the big beasts of the living world. It is a long road back. A hot, dusty road.

Perennials: Thursday July 26th 2035

I hesitate to write ‘what a hot day’ because it’s nearly always hot, energy-sapping hot, and I work in the garden only at dawn and dusk. In the middle of the day, I try to sleep. Now that I’m 89, the bones creak a bit, but we need to keep going. My daughter Rose visited on Sunday, travelling the ten miles from Llandew on her electric bike, and we sat under the green striped umbrella in the garden. There’s a hosepipe ban, like every summer now, but I have water butts to collect any rain that drains off the house, garage and shed roofs. The butts are not full so I prioritise the vegetables, because they are such a vital part of our diet. A few years back I started growing a lot of perennial vegetables, like Babington’s leeks and perpetual spinach, and count myself lucky to have a garden, especially considering the food shortages we often face. We grow and swap, and order what we can’t produce ourselves – flour, rice, pasta, sugar, salt, pepper — through the community council’s purchasing group. Tea and coffee are such luxuries now, but we do have milk, butter and cheese from Dai Davies’ dairy just outside the village, on the flatter land of the Geitho valley where the dense sward of native grasses helps to retain moisture in the soil.

Money is a problem because of course old-age pensions have not been uprated for inflation since 2030 and so they buy less and less every year. Inflation now is not due to strong demand, but to shortages of supply. I expect pension payments will stop completely before long, and it will be as if David Lloyd George had never introduced them back in 1909. They rescued the aged and infirm from the fear of the workhouse, which we thought had been banished for good. We will all have to be inventive. We barter, spend any cash we can get hold of, and worry about how the next generations will cope. There aren’t many public services left, it’s down to community groups to organise what they can. Rose has a small salary from the regional council for her work with disadvantaged children, but it’s only a half of her income of 15 years ago. Then her husband Henri was alive, but he died nearly three years ago of sepsis after what seemed a minor cut, but it became infected. The infection did not respond to antibiotics.

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