In early 2011, I was handing out leaflets at a demo against privatization of the British National Health Service. A smart middle-aged couple hove into view. They didn’t look as if they’d be terribly receptive but I thought I’d have a go: people often confound their stereotypes. But before I could utter a whole sentence, the man snatched my leaflet, scrunched it up and said: ‘You people are mad! You want to turn the clock back! You want to take us all back to a miserable world that’s simply incapable of producing something like this.’ And from the inside pocket of his overcoat he produced a new Apple iPhone.
‘This,’ he said, brandishing it under my nose, ‘is what a free market does. Brilliant technology that works! Not the rubbish you get from the kind of society you people want! She knows!’ And here he indicated his wife. Yes, she nodded, she had grown up in Romania. ‘This is the future,’ he continued, ‘not that!’ And with a contemptuous side-glance at our home-made placards, away they strode, into the future.
