Martin Amis, Success

1990 UK tv serial (1977-8). BBC TV….Most episodes written Wilfred Gretorex (1921-    ), who devised the series, or Edmund Ward. 

…Reflecting the fears of the middle classes in the 1970s, this serial, set in a socialist UK of 1990, warns of what could happen if the welfare state continued in its present direction. The country is run by the PCD, an all-powerful bureaucracy that incorporates the trade-union movement within its machinery; the only people free of its control are a select elite possessing Privilege Cards. The story concerns the efforts of a lone journalist ([Edward] Woodward) to outwit the system in such ways as helping people to escape to the USA, still a bastion of freedom.

John Clute & Peter Nicholls, eds. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993)

We’re getting taken over - that’s for sure, also. Everyone is a bit sweaty at my work these days. We’re all having a bit of a bad time these days. It now looks as though we will be obliged (I expected this) to affiliate with the Union, regularising staff rates of pay, holidyas, office hours, luncheon vouchers, going to the lavatory, etc. In return, the office will enjoy considerable increases of salary and proportionate rationalisations of personnel. 

It’s a nervous time for all of us here. This is is not a bad office, but at the moment it has a bad feel. Disgruntlement hangs in the air; it hangs in the air like migraine. …There are no new jobs and nobody wants to go looking for them. Nobody wants to go. (And it seems that we can’t protect each other. If we were in the Union we would be able to, but you can’t get organised until you get organised.) 

Martin Amis, Success (1978)