LETTER: Way to survive as a peasant was to keep mouth shut

When Brexit was first announced there was very little or no information as to what this entailed, apart from £350,000,000 per week to the NHS and a vision of Sunny Uplands Ahead (to quote Johnson).

There was a report that might have annoyed the leavers one way or another, but it was held back until after the referendum vote.

We will never know what the outcome might have been had it been released earlier.

A reference to the 13th century as an example of UK’s democracy takes a little believing. Democracy really?

The only way to survive as a peasant then was to keep your mouth firmly shut and produce the requirements of the landed parasites, ie food, and, when needed, fight on his behalf if his wealth was threatened.

The alternative, as in many cases, could be a loss of your family home and hunger.

Not much of an option really. Through the centuries many a brave soul has tried to resist.

With the threat of hanging or deportation if you were caught with a rabbit to feed your hungry family it was a frightening prospect.

These were the laws at these times. Less than three per cent of the population were allowed to vote – guess who they were!

At the end of the 18th century this had grown to one in eight, but excluded women and ‘working class’.

As we know, there have been many battles by various movements to have some influence on events (e.g, Peterloo and Tony Pandy).

To bring us up to date, the cabinet reshuffle was designed (per Cummings’ instructions) to exclude any discussion, or even disagreement, however mild, about Brexit, although Johnson was originally in favour of remaining in the EU.

Some Tory politicians seem to have rather conveniently blanked this out.

As long as the rich get richer (and they are), the food banks get longer queues, the homeless increase and poverty and the unemployed swell we are told this is democracy at work.

Don’t worry, we are told. It’s bread today, jam tomorrow as my grandfather was told.

Leave you with two items: According to the Sunday Times 2020 top rich list 85 individuals’ wealth is equivalent to 50 per cent of the worlds’ lowest earners. That’s some power they can exert when extra profits are needed.

To finish on a passing thought, in the future, will you give an advanced warning if you must put Rees-Mogg on your front page. Fortunately I had just finished my lunch when I saw the photo of that stuffed grinning bear with the teddy otherwise there could have been a nasty accident.

Roger Cain, Ludlow

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