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My name's Linda Davies and I commission podcast for BBC Sounds.

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Thanks for downloading analysis, the program about the ideas behind the news.

This week, analysis investigates a worrying new divide in Britain, which could spell trouble ahead.

Here's Edward Sturtin.

The country is in chaos.

Rioting has broken out in the north and spread across the nation.

The purpose of this essay is to discuss some of the historical causes of the grievances that

erupted in the May risings.

My theme is that whether or not these were explicitly

organized by the populists, they were certainly organized by history.

That is from the introduction to an official report into the unrest which is imagined to have

taken place in 2033. It comes from the rise of the meritocracy, a piece of

spoof sociology. It was published 60 years ago by the left

wincer Michael Young, who, among many other things, drafted the Labour Party's seminal

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