Marghanita Laski's satire could also be categorized as alternate history. James Leigh-Smith, after sitting out most of World War II stranded on an island with four other Brits, is finally returning to England, where he expects to find a socialist Utopia. Imagine his surprise when he discovers that the Torys have taken power and have restored the class system with a (satirical) vengeance. James is classified as an A and thus able to live as a Man-About-Town supported by the government; to his dismay, though, not everyone finds life under the new regime so pleasant. Sharp, funny. ( )

Like Love on the Supertax (1944) – a novel Persephone haven’t re-issued – and I suspect may not – Tory Heaven is a social and political satire. However, where Love on the Supertax is at times a little too Mitfordesque – Tory Heaven is merely sharp, wonderfully so. Here too Laski turns her observing eye on the British class system as she did in both The Village and Love on the Supertax. Those who come in for particular criticism (indirectly of course) are those members of upper class English society who resented the changes to their world and way of life that the Second World War particularly brought about. The world was changing forever, and they didn’t like it, and no doubt expressed their views loudly to anyone who would listen. This novel, it seems is Margahnita Laski’s reply.

In his preface to this Persephone edition David Kynaston writes how in the immediate aftermath of the war and the election of Clement Atlee’s government many in the middle classes began to feel great discontent, no longer able to afford things they had taken for granted. They began, Kynaston tells us to want a return to the old sure Tory ways, that they had grown up with, with its strict social hierarchy.

The novel opens in 1945, five Britons have been stranded together for some years on an island in the Far East. They are a mixed bag, but have rubbed along fairly well together, despite a few petty jealousies and resentments. They manage to listen to the results of the 1945 General Election on the radio – and learn that a Socialist government has been elected. James, a traditional upper class young man is utterly horrified, as is Ughtred an elderly former civil servant, they can only imagine the world they will eventually arrive home to. Martin, a middle-class academic is delighted. Alongside these three are Penelope, the daughter of an Earl and Martin’s girlfriend, and Janice, a blonde beauty whose background no one seems to know much about. Having once managed to secure herself a double room at the Raffles Hotel, she generally comes up smelling of roses. James has had his eye on Janice – but she has made it quite clear she doesn’t return his interest. James offers up a kind of prayer that the dreaded socialists might be done away with.

‘“God, let it be as it might have been. Alter the clock, fix the election, do it any way you please, but let me see the England of all decent Conservatives’ dreams.”

The group are rescued and taken home to England by ship. Here is where Laski has played around with what actually did happen in the mid-1940s after the war – imagining not just a Tory victory but a whole new regime based upon returning the country to what certain sections of society would see as the ‘Good old days’ (ha! Any bells ringing?).

The Socialist government having collapsed almost immediately, a new hard-line Tory regime is in place as the five return to England.

Everyone in Britain has been graded along social lines, A, B, C, D, or E. Those granted coveted A status – are given everything they would want, bags of gold sovereigns, beautifully furnished rooms, complete with attentive butler. Bs are the middle classes, Cs the servants of A, including hairdressers and domestic servants, waiters etc, Ds are trade unionists, who don’t cause trouble as strikes are now illegal, Es are the odds and sods and hated intellectuals.

“‘The intellectuals.’ Ughtred continued, ‘apparently went delirious with organisation. They cut out the Light Programme of the BBC and substituted continuous editorial comment by Mr Kingsley Martin. They turned all the strip cartoons into illustrations of intellectual activity. They organised WEA lectures in every village hall and showed foreign films in every cinema…’”

When James is handed an A disc he is bemused at first, but over the next few days comes to realise what a wonderful world he has returned to. Fabulous, recently unheard-of food, enough credit to order his dream car, the promise that should he want a wife – one will be found for him. In the immediate chaos of his return to England James loses sight of his fellow island dwellers. However, in the company of Ughtred – another joyful A, James is destined to run into Martin, Penelope and Janice – and through them, and members of his own bemused and frightened family he is eventually forced to see things as they really are. On a visit to is parents his mother – always anxious that their butler/spy shouldn’t hear – explains…

““The Government want all ladies in my position to do a lot of charity, visit the poor with blankets and calves’ foot jelly and send them coals for the winter; in fact they issue us with special coals for the purpose. Well, of course, we’re only supposed to do charity to C’s, and there aren’t nearly as many C’s around here as there are A’s. We’re all supposed to go once a month and the consequence is, all the C’s are getting more blankets than they could possibly use. And as for the calves’ foot jelly – they just won’t touch it now they’ve tasted Heinz’s tomato soup.”

Knowing how many people will be reading this book in the coming months – I won’t say anymore about the plot. Laski is wonderfully witty, she makes her point without any need of a sledgehammer.

It is extraordinary how relevant a novel published in 1948 can still seem. I just hope no one buys Tory Heaven for Jacob Rees Mogg – it could very well give him ideas. ( )

Reminded me a bit of TUCK EVERLASTING in that it showed why what you might imagine to be perfect, really is quite the opposite. A story of the class system in England - a parody. Very well done, interesting - after WW II - the "dole" reversed. ( )