Politics of Harry Potter middle class, especially whenever Harry confronts his ludicrously dysfunctional and downright abusive adopted family, the Dursleys." The critic Anthony Holden wrote in "The Observer" on his experience of judging "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" for the 1999 Whitbread Awards. His overall view of the series was very negative—"the Potter saga was essentially patronising, very conservative, highly derivative, dispiritingly nostalgic for a bygone Britain." A review in "The Guardian" echoed this interpretation and stated that "despite all of the books' gestures to multiculturalism and gender equality, Harry Potter is a conservative; a paternalistic, One-Nation Tory, perhaps, but a Tory
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" continues to examine what makes a person who he or she is, which began in the first book. As well as maintaining that Harry's identity is shaped by his decisions rather than any aspect of his birth, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" provides contrasting characters who try to conceal their true personalities: as Tammy Nezol puts it, Gilderoy Lockhart "lacks any real identity" because he is nothing more than a charming liar. Riddle also complicates Harry's struggle to understand himself by pointing out the similarities between the two: "both half-bloods, orphans raised