George Orwell has been long a controversial figure for the left. In this talk from the Socialist Workers Party rally at Skegness in April 1984, Paul Foot mounts a passionate defence of Orwell, making a case for seeing Orwell's writing in its political context and the thrust of 1984 and Animal Farm deriving from his frustration that 'the things he really believed in, which were the movements from below, the activity of rank and file working-class people, were being suppressed.'