Changes

In many ways, the film seems to be about events that most people don't remember today. However, the filmmakers try to show the parallels to today, where left-wing opposition to greater social inequality and increased populism act as agitators try to push the government to reformand account for increasing discontent. The long road to eventually greater freedoms are depicted as having been bathed in blood and many years of unsuccessful protests that only succeeded with perseverance and small victories such as the founding the <i> Guardian</i>. Ultimately the movie is a critique of how wealth and powerful classes pass legislation and manipulate government to keep power concentrated with them, while also using the poorer classes to fight their wars and power industry. The film does generally show key events in a historically accurate manner, although historians still debate the true impact of Peterloo on British democracyand reforms in the later 19th century. Many other repressive laws and events continued to occur long after Peterloo and, in fact, probably the event represents a beginning of several decades of agitation that slowly faded as the 19th century continued with gradually increasing freedoms given to lower classes and greater benefits given through improved worker laws and rights such as the right to gather and protest.