London’s Metropolitan Police arrested another 492 people over the weekend after a protest Saturday in Trafalgar Square, as the Starmer government accelerated its crackdown on opposition to the Gaza genocide.
The entirely peaceful protest was held to oppose the proscription of Palestine Action. It was organised by Defend Our Juries and attended by over 1,000 people. Of the arrests, 488 were for holding up signs declaring, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”.
Your point being? Do you think Orwell named the UK after a US air force call sign that wouldn’t be coined until after his death? I won’t be lectured on literature by someone who has the media comprehension of a middle schooler.
Well, according to my middle school media comprehension the implication of the name “Airstrip One” is that the island of Great Britain acts as a bulwark against or potential invasion staging post to Eurasia, as it did in the Second World War. London is far from the Imperial Centre in that story, though there is no clear capital of Oceania and Ingsoc. Orwell’s pessimistic view of the UK’s future is as a province of the American Empire.