Editing John Osborne (section)

=== Politics ===
In ''A Better Class of Person'', Osborne describes the emotional appeal that socialism had to him as a schoolboy and how he and his closest friends "all attended the local [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] meetings" as youths.<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1981|pp=83–85}}.</ref> He carried these affiliations with him into adult life, alienating fellow commuters and colleagues by regularly bringing a copy of the ''[[Morning Star (British newspaper)|Daily Worker]]'' into the office as a young journalist.<ref name=":3">{{harvnb|Osborne|1981|pp=159–60}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Heilpern|2006|p=71}}.</ref> Given a platform to express his views in [[Declaration (anthology)|the 1957 anthology ''Declaration'']], he took the opportunity to criticize monarchy:
{{quote|I have called Royalty religion the 'national swill' because it is poisonous... the leader-writers and the bribed gossip mongers have only to rattle their sticks in the royalty bucket for most of their readers to put their heads down in this trough of Queen-worship... My objection to the Royalty symbol is that it is dead; it is the gold filling in a mouthful of decay.<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1957|pp=68, 76}}.</ref>}}

He also protested about "[[Operation Grapple|the Christmas Island explosion]]" and what he perceived as the blindly supportive response of the British media.<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1957|pp=65-66}}.</ref> Osborne joined the [[Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament|CND]] in 1959, and in the early '60s was a member of the [[Committee of 100 (United Kingdom)|Committee of 100]] who engaged in civil disobedience to protest against nuclear weapons.<ref name="ratcliffe" /><ref>{{cite web|url=https://cnduk.org/peoples-history-of-cnd-the-committee-of-100/|title=The Committee of 100|website=Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament|access-date=2023-03-23}}</ref> 

In 1961, in the aftermath of the [[Berlin Wall]] being built, the left-wing magazine ''[[Tribune (magazine)|Tribune]]'' published Osborne's "Letter to My Fellow Countrymen", addressing those politicians the author considered responsible for [[nuclear proliferation]]:
{{quote|My favourite fantasy is four minutes or so non-commercial viewing as you fry in your democratically elected hot seats... I would willingly watch you all die for the West... you could all go ahead and die for Berlin, for Democracy, to keep out the red hordes or whatever you like... damn you, England. You're rotting now, and quite soon you'll disappear... I write this from another country, with murder in my brain and a knife carried in my heart for every one of you. I am not alone. If WE had just the ultimate decency and courage, we would strike at you - now, before you blaspheme the world in our name. There is nothing I should not give for your blood on my head.<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1994|pp=193–94}}.</ref><ref name="ianjack">{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/02/damn-you-england-wonder-whether-we-belong-brexit-vote | work=The Guardian | title=Damn you, England, for making us wonder whether we belong here | first=Ian | last=Jack | date=2 July 2016 | access-date=26 March 2023}}</ref>}}

The letter caused controversy. Conservative journalist [[Peregrine Worsthorne]] expressed concern about its "murderous language" and the possibility that the "resentment that John Osborne so virulently articulated" might be shared by many others, while the trade unionist [[Jack Jones (trade unionist)|Jack Jones]] commented, "every true Socialist should roar with applause".<ref name=":4">{{harvnb|Osborne|1991|pp=201-3}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Whitebrook|2015|pp=4-5, 184-89}}.</ref><ref name="ianjack" />

In his public letter, however, Osborne had denounced Labour leader [[Hugh Gaitskell]] as well as Conservative PM [[Harold Macmillan]].<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1994|p=194}}.</ref><ref name="ianjack" /> The following year, he told the ''[[Daily Herald (United Kingdom)|Daily Herald]]'' that he would not be voting Labour at the next election, adding "Barrenness is preferable to rape by one of two monsters."<ref>{{harvnb|Osborne|1994|p=195}}.</ref> His play ''Time Present'' (1968) contains a mocking caricature of a female Labour MP.<ref name="Meyers">{{registration required|date=April 2023}} {{cite journal|title=Osborne's Harem |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25475737 |access-date=April 1, 2023|journal=Antioch Review|date= 2009|volume= 67|pages=323–339|last1=Meyers |first1=Jeffrey |issue = 2|jstor=25475737 }}</ref> Critics saw a conservative attitude to empire reflected in ''West of Suez'',<ref name="Hartnoll" /><ref name="billington" /><ref name="Heilpern Guardian" /> and later in the 1970s he expressed support for [[Enoch Powell]].<ref name="edgar">{{cite news| url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v28/n14/david-edgar/stalking-out | work=The London Review of Books | title=Stalking Out | first=David | last=Edgar | author-link=David Edgar (playwright)| date=20 July 2006 | access-date=18 April 2023}}</ref> In the words of Osborne's biographer Michael Ratcliffe, "he drifted to the libertarian, unorganized right"; even his friend [[David Hare (playwright)|David Hare]] acknowledged that he passed "from passion to prejudice. He was forced back into a position which, finally, for most writers is undignified and unproductive: the pretence that the past is always, necessarily, superior to the present".<ref name="ratcliffe" /><ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/jun/04/hayfestival2002.hayfestival | work=The Guardian | title=Look back and marvel at anger of Osborne | first=John | last=Ezard | date=4 June 2002 | access-date=27 May 2023}}</ref> Several commentators have argued that a conservative and nostalgic strain was apparent in Osborne's work from an early stage.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lewis |first=Roger |author-link=Roger Lewis (biographer)|year=1989 |title=Stage People|location=London |publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson |pages=52–58 |isbn=0-297-79212-1}}</ref><ref name="mount" /><ref name="edgar" /> As early as 1957, [[Kenneth Tynan]] had noticed "a deeply submerged nostalgia" for Britain's pre-[[WW1]] past in ''The Entertainer''.<ref name=":5">{{cite book |last=Tynan |first=Kenneth |author-link=Kenneth Tynan |date=2007 |editor-last=Shellard |editor-first=Dominic |editor-link=Dominic Shellard |title=Theatre Writings |url=https://archive.org/details/theatrewritings0000tyna_o7o9 |url-access=registration |location=London |publisher=[[Nick Hern Books]] |page=169 |isbn=978-1-85459-050-3}}</ref>