At 91 years of age, Harry Leslie Smith is certainly still standing. The author of Harry’s Last Stand – shortlisted for ‘Polemic of the Year’ – is angry and despairing of Conservative Britain, fearing that Osborne’s austerity will send Britain back in time.

Speaking from beneath the rim of a fedora after a Fitzwilliam College Debating Society event discussing the motion ‘This House Welcomes the Return of Old Labour’ on Tuesday, Smith’s voice is quiet but determined as he condemns Cameron’s government. He describes to me how he was left “gobsmacked” by the outcome of May’s General Election. “I thought: 'there’s something crooked going on here.'”

Born into poverty in Yorkshire in 1923, Smith has unique insight, his experience of life before the NHS in the interwar years informing his writing and politics.

Smith says that his generation “suffered so dreadfully under austerity and the Great Depression”, meaning that when he went to war in 1941 he believed that “we would not come back to those living standards and that those standards were not worth fighting for”.

The NHS is a particular passion for Smith. Last Wednesday he spoke at a rally in Leeds for junior doctors, fearing that sly privatisation will leave the NHS “sold off in parts to the highest bidder”. 

Speaking about life before the NHS, he says: “Before 1948 I had never seen a doctor. Hospitals were private: we couldn’t afford to go,” adding that when Labour won the election in 1945 he felt “immensely lucky”.

“We came home to the promise of the NHS and in two years, like a miracle, it was built.”

Smith remembers the triumph of the welfare state after years of suffering and poverty, acutely fearing not only a reversion to an age of austerity but also that “if we are not careful there will be another war, things have become so extreme.”

His ire is not reserved for the Conservatives. Commenting on Tony Blair’s recent statement advocating the deployment of British troops in Syria, Smith says: “He gets us into war in Iraq and now he wants us to go into Syria. Hasn’t he done enough?”

Smith recently received press attention for defending Jeremy Corbyn’s decision not to sing the national anthem at a Battle of Britain memorial service, but considers the rest of the political class – who wear poppies but deal in arms – as hypocritical. With sharp wit, he suggests that Britain is mad to supply arms to corrupt regimes: “We send over our men to get killed by weapons we sold their opponents.”

Despite his age, Smith’s determination to make a difference is not waning. He is currently in talks about writing another book to coincide with the EU referendum, and has an active presence on Twitter.

History, from Smith’s perspective, is repeating itself. As the NHS is dismantled, he remembers the time without it, and as child poverty increases, he remembers what it was like to grow up in such conditions. Smith, his memories, and his passion for the welfare state are warnings that we should heed the lessons of the 20th century.

As he himself observes, “I am not a historian but I am history. And I fear its repetition.” Perhaps we should listen more carefully.

With additional reporting from Sebastian Fuller St Arrowman.