The budget has almost knocked the Balkan campaign out of the news. It is the former and not the latter that I overhear people everywhere discussing. [1]
This evening’s news has the appearance of being very bad. The Greek C. in C. has issued a statement that the Serbs have retreated and uncovered his left flank. The significance of this is that people don’t officially say things like that – practically a statement that the Serbs have let the Greeks down – unless they feel things to be going very badly.
The Home Guard now have tommy guns, at any rate two per company. It seems a far cry from the time when we were going to be armed with shotguns – only there weren’t any shotguns – and my question as to whether we might hope for some machine guns was laughed off as an absurdity.
[1] The budget raised the basic rate of income tax to ten shillings in the pound (50%). Peter Davison
Orwell Diaries 1938-1942 
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