Larkin was for Enoch Powell; Orwell defended the coloured subjects of the Empire at home and abroad. Larkin mourned the withdrawal from ‘East of Suez’; Orwell wanted the whole colonial racket wound up. Larkin famously reprobated family life and reproduction, recoiling especially from ‘kiddies’; Orwell thought the English were too scared to breed enough, and keenly wished to become a father himself. Larkin shuddered at the thought of the seaside in ‘Going, Going’; Orwell celebrated the brash vigour of Donald McGill’s end-of-the-pier postcards. Larkin was a law-and-order type who hated rioters
...more
