Teenagers Must Be Warned About The Dystopia Being Built Around Them

The following is the introduction to Mike Fairclough’s new book 2030 – a dystopian novel aimed at teenagers.

I want to speak to you directly, before the story begins.

When I was your age, the books we studied at school were dangerous in the best sense of the word. We read George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984. We read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. We were exposed to stories of mythological heroes – ordinary men and women who faced extraordinary challenges.

These books didn’t come with ‘trigger warnings’. They weren’t wrapped in cotton wool. They were meant to disturb, to challenge, to wake you up.

I grew up in a time when boys were boys and girls were girls. Our fathers, and our grandfathers before them, had fought in wars or been raised in the shadow of those who did. They taught us grit, resilience, and the courage to stand up when something was wrong.

We were also raised with pride in our British heritage. Our history, our culture, our traditions and our flag were things to respect, not to be ashamed of. We learned that our nation had stood up against tyranny, twice, and paid the price in blood. We sang songs that carried our past. We flew the Union Jack as a symbol of unity, freedom and identity.

Today, children and young people are told to see their history not as a source of pride or strength, but as a catalogue of guilt. They are taught that the victories of their ancestors were crimes, that courage was cruelty and that sacrifice was oppression. They are urged to turn away from their heritage, to treat their own flag as a symbol of shame, and to believe that the culture which once defended freedom is now too offensive to exist.

Much of what shaped us has been stolen from you. Books that once inspired rebellion are now treated as dangerous objects. Classrooms have become indoctrination centres. Children are drilled to fear the weather, to doubt their own identity, to repeat slogans about ‘inclusion’ while real truth is erased. Men are called ‘toxic’ simply for being men. Women are told that men can be women and therefore women are redundant.

I spent many years as the headmaster of a school, and almost 30 years teaching within the English education system. I am now the author of books, an editor, a ghostwriter and a campaigner for freedom.

I have lost count of the number of parents who have said to me, Write something for our children, something that tells the truth.

That is why I have written 2030.

Make no mistake, this book is not pure fiction. It is a prophecy. If we do nothing, if we stay silent, if we accept every slogan and every fear they press upon us, then 2030 will not be a story. It will be your future. Adults may deny this, but the task of resistance will fall to the young. To you.

So read carefully. Remember what has been erased. And when the time comes for you to stand, take your decision with conviction and purpose. Because if you do not stand, nobody else will.

A Note on Style

As a headmaster, my approach to education was celebrated internationally. It was rooted in something called character education, a philosophy in which young people were expected to move beyond their comfort zones. I saw children thrive when they lit fires in sub-zero temperatures, fired shotguns with steady hands, camped under the stars and faced personal challenges that demanded grit. Those experiences expanded them. They forged strength. They forged resilience.

This book has been written with the same spirit. You are about to enter a dystopian world. It is deliberately crafted to feel that way. The early chapters may feel like a grind, heavy, relentless. That is intentional. This is not TikTok with its quick dopamine hits, nor a Hollywood blockbuster that begins with explosions. This story asks for your focus, your stamina. The hardest journeys are the ones that change us most deeply.

And while the opening chapters set the weight of this world, know that the journey does not remain there.

The path widens, the pace quickens, and what follows will reward your perseverance.

2030 is not an ordinary book. You will discover, as you read, that you are not simply an observer. You are a participant. This story is rooted in truth. You, the reader, have the most important role to play.

So buckle up. Stay with me. Let us step together into 2030. Because until you realise you are sleepwalking into dystopia, you cannot begin to unlock the prison door.

And when that moment comes, you will discover just how powerful you truly are.

Chapter 1: The Digital Prison

George woke to silence. Not the silence of peace, but the heavy, engineered quiet of a world with no birdsong, no traffic, no laughter. The Council had found ways to mute even the dawn.

His room was the same as every other room, square walls, pale light, a bed without softness. A clock blinked on the wall, but its hands did not tick. Time was measured now in doses and data, not in minutes and hours.

He sat up slowly, pressing his palms against his eyes. The same dream again, a sound he could not place, a ripple of joy, a child’s laugh that did not belong in this world. He tried to catch it, to hold it in his memory, but it slipped away like water through his fingers.

The World Safety Council called these fragments ‘spikes’. Citizens were taught to report them immediately, to present themselves for correction. But George had learned to keep his silence. To carry the spike quietly. To let it burn like a secret fire.

Today would be no different. He would dress in the World Safety Council’s uniform, walk the Council’s streets, speak the Council’s words. But deep inside, he carried something the injections and lessons had never erased. A trace of another life. A whisper that the world had once been more than this.

And the walls, though he did not yet know it, remembered too.

Mike Fairclough was the only serving headteacher or school principal (out of 43,500 in the U.K.) to publicly question the rollout of the Covid vaccine to children. His new book, 2030, is now available on Amazon.