Part I.1
I.1
From The Equaliser, Comment & Opinion, 14 March 2022
“Prime Minister Stephen Healy Masters’s announcement yesterday of a general election to be held on 1 May came as no surprise to the leaders of the Opposition, who have claimed publicly for some time that the Liberation Party’s policies are doing irreparable harm to the economic and social welfare of the United Kingdom. It is true that Liberation, from the start of their coalition government with the Conservatives in 2014, have never made any secret of their support for dog-eat-dog capitalism, technological progress, and individualism. Since winning a modest majority in the House of Commons four years later, they have aggressively pursued open markets, a trade-based foreign policy, and a massive scaling back of the welfare state that went beyond anything attempted or even thought about by Thatcher and Blair at the end of the twentieth century. In their single term in power, Liberation under Masters and his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Miranda Markham, have withdrawn the United Kingdom from its position at the heart of the European Union, eliminated innumerable benefit programs and other forms of state aid, repealed over 3,000 pieces of legislation, and embarked upon the privatisation of the NHS, amongst other things. As a result of their advocacy of individualist capitalism, inequality in Britain has spiralled out of control, and technological development has progressed at such a pace that scientists now warn of climate-cooling-related disasters within two decades, rather than their original predictions of within 50-60 years.
Is it any wonder, then, that repeated attacks from the Populist front bench, led by party leader James Cowerd and Ann Carruthers, Shadow Home Secretary, have pressured Masters into calling an election and asking for another mandate a year before an election was due?…”
***
From dickmcswinney.com, 18 March 2022:
“Anticipation appears to be running high in the Liberation camp, with Robert Montgomery (Dewey & Cheatham) tipped to move from deputy to Minister for Communications, and the current Comms. secretary, George Merchant (Blountege), to go to the Home Office if they win the general election. Along with a number of backbenchers, including the enormously popular Alistair Bennison (High Westlyne), Montgomery enjoyed himself at Liberation HQ last night, reportedly joining in the St Patrick’s Day celebrations so beloved by the prime minister. Jack Tiptoft, Shadow Minister for Communications, has reason to be shaking in his boots: with the intellectually rigorous Montgomery preparing the ripostes, Merchant will shine tomorrow night on Question Time against Tiptoft. The topic? Censorship.
“Montgomery isn’t the only reason Tiptoft should be worried: Andrew Parnell (Howe & Ugley), the Shadow Chancellor, has come under fire for trying to poach one of Tiptoft’s best deputies, Jessica Chaple (Banging & Blowherd). Is Parnell’s office so bare of talent that he’s resorted to snaffling the help from other Shadow Cabinet members?
“James Cowerd may think his left-leaning party is a shoe-in on 1 May, but early polls show Liberation have a healthy, if modest, lead…”
***
Hannah Simpson and Thomas Gregory stood on a terrace outside the Houses of Parliament, passing a cigarette back and forth and gossiping snidely in salacious undertones as various members of the House wandered in and out of the nearby Commons bar. The early spring evening was chilly; Hannah pulled her coat tighter around her chest and flicked a long lock of dark hair over her shoulder in irritation. If this were any other night of the year, she would be somewhere else, doing something better; but that bastard Masters had called an election, and now all the researchers in the building were working unpaid overtime – surely a breach of what would be considered human rights in a more civilised country! – to pack up their MPs and vacate their offices. Everybody knew the researchers were the backbone of Parliament; why, then, did she always feel she was being shat on?
‘You look as if you’re about to complain again,’ Thomas observed drily. ‘Just keep repeating to yourself that one day you’ll be an MP, and then you’ll be doing the shitting.’
Heaving a self-pitying sigh, Hannah nodded, leaned back against the railing, and resumed her vigil. After a moment, a slow smile spread across her face, and she nudged her companion. ‘Hey,’ she said, pointing, ‘isn’t that Bennison’s slave?’
Thomas looked round and narrowed his eyes. ‘Yeah. That’s Ari Abraham. Three guesses why he’s working for Liberation.’ His voice dripped nastiness.
‘Do you know him? Was he at Cambridge with you?’ Hannah asked curiously.
‘Trinity, first-class,’ Thomas droned bitterly, repeating something he’d had to listen to numerous times before. ‘Top of the year. Cunt.’
‘What’s his degree in?’
‘Maths,’ answered Thomas, screwing up his vulpine features into an expression of utmost distaste. ‘All his sort care about is money.’
Startled at this tacit admission of prejudice, Hannah remarked, ‘I didn’t know you didn’t like Jews.’
‘I didn’t mean Jews,’ he hissed. ‘I meant Liberation. They don’t mind other people suffering under injustice, as long as they get rich.’
‘You’re jealous!’ Hannah grinned. ‘Well, this’ll improve your mood.’ Raising her voice, she shouted, ‘Oi! Ari!’ When the dark-haired young man glanced over at the sound of his name, she raised two fingers of her gloved hand in unmistakable, gleeful rudeness.
The young man’s face registered surprise first, then challenge. He spoke briefly to the friend with him – similarly young, but as fair as Ari was dark – and their path altered to include the spot on the terrace where Hannah and Thomas were loitering.
‘That wasn’t polite,’ Ari drawled as he approached. Wind sliced across the terrace, blowing out his match as he attempted to light a cigarette of his own.
‘Of course not,’ answered Hannah. ‘Who’s your friend?’
Ignoring her question, Ari went on, ‘I’m sure those gestures are considered unparliamentary language. What a sophisticated tone of debate for a Populist to adopt. Is that all you have to offer?’
‘That’s what I asked your mother last night,’ Thomas sniggered.
Dropping his cigarette, Ari lunged forward, but his blond friend obstructed him bodily, whispering urgently and jerking his head back the way they’d come. All eyes on the terrace turned; Alistair Bennison had seen them and was hurrying over, his face uncharacteristically grim.
‘I’m not paying you to socialise,’ he said curtly when he was within earshot of the group of researchers. ‘Finish your cigarette and get back upstairs. You too, Balham,’ he added, addressing Ari’s friend. ‘Robert hasn’t got all night.’
‘Of course,’ Ari murmured, retrieving his cigarette from the flagstones. As he did so, he caught sight of a second figure headed their way. ‘Better look out,’ he advised Hannah and Thomas, enjoying their splutters of outrage at the revelation that he was being paid to work extra and they were not.
Jack Tiptoft, slumping slightly with fatigue in his rumpled suit, stepped onto the terrace. ‘Corrupting my staff now?’ he demanded of Bennison, not entirely flippantly.
‘If you’re not going to pay them…’ Bennison trailed off, shrugging, with a wink at Hannah, who was grinding the butt of her cigarette under the viciously pointed toe of her shoe.
‘You—’ Tiptoft began heatedly, his face twisted in an expression of hostile confrontation, but Bennison had already lost interest. He presented his back, bored.
‘Go,’ he commanded his staffer, and the two Liberation researchers followed him obediently from the terrace back into the bowels of the Palace of Westminster.
Tiptoft turned on Hannah and Thomas, crackling with ire, and snapped, ‘Well? Why are you indolent cunts still standing there? Get back to work!’ He stomped away.
Exchanging mutinous glances, the two Populist researchers slouched off, tired brains refuelled by a self-righteous sense of injury and already beginning to plot petty revenges.
***
Later that night, James Cowerd, leader of the Populist Party, and his Shadow Home Secretary, Ann Carruthers, could be found skulking in a shadowy corner of the Commons bar, nursing glasses of chilled white wine. They were amongst the last to be vacating their offices. Cowerd rubbed the top of his balding head, his posture betraying his moroseness, while Carruthers tapped her long fingernails on the tabletop and stared into space thoughtfully. She was already feeling the strain of the campaign season, and only four days of it had elapsed. After a moment, her glance focussed on the screen mounted in the corner: a news program was showing footage of Parliament Square earlier that day when thousands of protesters had gathered in the weak sunlight to vent their displeasure. Her eyes narrowed in dislike.
Noticing, Cowerd said reassuringly, ‘Don’t worry about it. Someone is always protesting something.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but today they were protesting us. They don’t want the censorship law.’
Cowerd’s brow furrowed. ‘I don’t understand it,’ he said in a weary tone that indicated he had said this same thing many times before. ‘I thought it would be a really popular proposal. Who can argue with the protection of children from disturbing things? Proposals like it have always won votes before.’
The iron-haired Shadow Home Secretary sipped her wine and said nothing.
‘How can they do it?’ Cowerd burst out, thumping the palm of his hand against the table. ‘How can Liberation keep winning votes when they don’t do anything to get them? They don’t solicit group votes—they ignore the pressure groups—’
‘It’s because they ignore the pressure groups that they win,’ Carruthers cut in.
He shook his head in bewilderment and fussed with the strands of his comb-over again. ‘But that’s how it’s always been done! The strategy never used to fail.’
‘Yes, but it fails now,’ said Carruthers sharply. ‘Liberation win because they never promise anything to anybody. And never give anything to anybody, either. And that’s popular with a big group of voters whose needs always used to be ignored—the people who don’t put pressure on the government, but simply get on with things.’
‘Why didn’t that group ever make its demands of the government, too?’ Cowerd asked.
‘Because the government couldn’t give them what they wanted and continue to satisfy the special interests.’
‘Why not?’ Cowerd persisted. ‘What did they want?’
Carruthers sighed and leaned back in her chair. ‘To be left alone,’ she answered simply. ‘And Liberation do that superlatively.’
‘People shouldn’t want that,’ Cowerd murmured, almost to himself. He knew his companion wasn’t listening any more. ‘They’re links in the chain of society; they’re connected to everybody else. Nobody has the right to be left alone.’
‘The “chain of society”?’ Carruthers repeated and gazed at him contemptuously. ‘Don’t let anyone from Liberation hear you say that.’
‘Why not?’ he demanded, thrusting his jaw forward aggressively.
She rolled her eyes and finished her wine. On the other side of the bar, the Prime Minister, Stephen Healy Masters, had entered and taken a seat. Alistair Bennison and Miranda Markham, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, were with him. Carruthers felt a brief stab of envy; wouldn’t it be nice to be Miranda Markham, surrounded by people as competent as oneself? But she banished the disloyal thought and jogged Cowerd’s elbow. ‘Break’s over,’ she said gently and guided him from the bar.
As they passed another of the screens mounted on the wall, she heard the smooth, cultured tones of Jeremiah Peacemeal reading the day’s news. ‘George Merchant, Minister for Communications, today attacked the Populist Party’s published manifesto, claiming the so-called authoritarian overtones of their policies would, quote, turn back the clock to the days when the citizens lived in servitude to the state. Populist Party Leader James Cowerd offered his customary response, that the Populist Party wishes to promote co-operation, not servitude…’
Carruthers shook her head and walked on. Politics was going round in circles. Some sort of shake-up was needed.
***
At the table on the opposite side of the bar, Bennison was imparting sage advice: ‘Things could get nasty. I overheard some of the researchers exchanging taunts.’
Masters bit the edge of this thumb, a nervous habit he couldn’t seem to discipline away.
‘Stop doing that,’ Miranda Markham commanded. ‘And for god’s sake, don’t do it on campaign.’
Chastened, he pressed his hands flat against the table and regarded Bennison appraisingly. ‘The protests are encouraging. People don’t want to go back to the days of state control of media.’
‘Some people,’ Bennison agreed. ‘Others…’ He shrugged. ‘The others were never going to vote for us anyway.’
Markham listened, taciturn as was her wont, and wondered why it was that political ideals always seemed to turn into vote-chasing. She knew objectively that democracy was fundamentally about making sure people had the government they wanted, and she knew that throughout the history of democracy, politicians had been too eager both to criticise what people wanted and try to give it to them, in half-cocked, backward ways that offered with the left hand and snatched away with the right. She trusted people to want the things that would improve their lives, and if their support for Liberation during the past four years was any indication, she was right to do so; but freedom had a cost. Freedom required people to take responsibility for themselves. Freedom required people to endure the consequences of their failures. Right now, while life was good and the nation prospered, that was easy to do. But when the next economic downturn occurred, or the next natural disaster, or the next war, or the next terrorist attack… would people view that same freedom as a burden? Would they demand to be looked after, to be protected, to be insulated from the consequences of freedom itself? She didn’t know, and she hoped not. But she understood, with the same mind that deplored the vote-chasing, that getting the votes was about more than winning power. It was an philosophical battle being waged in the minds of the British people, and Miranda Markham was determined that love of liberty should prevail.
Aloud, she said, ‘Where’s Robert? I want to know what he’s given Merchant for Question Time.’
‘I’ve scarcely seen him all day,’ said Bennison. ‘I think he’s avoiding us.’
‘He stays shut up in his office all the time,’ Masters complained. ‘Even now, when everything is packed up and the whole place is stuffed with boxes.’
Resignedly, Markham extracted her mobile from the pocket of her jacket and fired off an email. When, a few minutes later, Robert Montgomery entered the bar and pulled up a chair, she took a moment to admire him. Unlike Masters, whose bland, cheerful countenance and middle-aged figure made him an Everyman, Robert was tall and whip-thin. His face was narrow and eager; intelligent blue eyes focussed like lasers from beneath a curtain of wavy, dark hair. If he were a little younger, and Markham a little older, he could have been her son: although they were similar in colouring, what made them so alike was the fierce and intense capability they both radiated.
Almost as soon as Robert took his seat, however, Bennison stood up. ‘Let’s leave them to their planning,’ he said, indicating Masters and Markham, and practically dragged his friend out of the bar.
Markham stared after their retreating figures in frustration. ‘I needed to speak to him,’ she said irritably. Rooting through her pockets for change, she turned to Masters. ‘Oh, well. Same again?’
He nodded, yawning.
Out in the corridor, Bennison herded Robert into the men’s room. ‘What are you doing here so late?’ he demanded.
‘Is it that late?’ Robert asked absently, standing at the mirror. The planes of his face were sharp with exhaustion.
‘Yes, and I know for a fact that you’ve been hanging around here all day, every day since Masters announced the election.’ Bennison stared at his friend. ‘You finished that stuff for Merchant yesterday. What’s the matter with you?’
Robert closed his eyes and said flatly, ‘Rose left me.’
‘What? When?’ Bennison blurted, stunned.
‘Monday,’ replied Robert, running his hands through his dark curls. ‘I’ve got so much to deal with at the moment; she couldn’t have picked a worse time. I can’t bear going home; she’s taking forever to shift her things.’
Bennison patted his friend’s shoulder awkwardly. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
Shrugging the hand away, Robert said quietly, ‘I’ll be all right.’
‘What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?’
‘She’s just not in love with me any more.’
Bennison gritted his teeth against the urge to point out the obviousness of that statement. ‘I gathered that,’ he said gently. ‘Why?’
‘Because she’s not my first priority.’ He turned away from the mirror and went to the urinal. ‘It’s fair, I suppose. My attention has certainly been elsewhere lately.’
‘Why is that?’ Bennison demanded and stepped nearer, breaking etiquette. He scented useful information. ‘Did you know Masters was going to call this election?’
‘I suspected it,’ Robert admitted. ‘He didn’t tell me. And Rose had every right to expect first claim on my time and attention. She’s never tried to stop me doing what I want to do or put a brake on my ambition, but there’s not much point in being with someone you never see.’
‘So she’s just going to fuck off?’ Bennison raised one eyebrow. ‘If what she wants is to see you more, that’s not a very good strategy.’
Robert nodded without much enthusiasm.
‘Look, mate,’ said Bennison bracingly, ‘just forget about it. She’s a lovely girl and all that, but you’ve got bigger things to be worried about.’
‘How am I supposed to forget about it? Her stuff is still in my flat, for god’s sake.’
‘There are other women in the world.’
‘Better than Rose?’ Robert asked, drying his hands on a towel. ‘I’m not sure that’s true.’
Good god, thought Bennison, how awkward; he was uncomfortably aware of his deficiencies as a confidante. Forcing sympathy on himself, he leaned casually against the sink and crossed his arms. ‘Aristotle said that the actual is always superior to the potential. Find a new girlfriend, and she’ll be better than Rose because she’ll be there and Rose won’t. QED.’ When Robert still looked sceptical, Bennison heaved a great sigh and slapped his friend encouragingly on the back. ‘Trust me. It’s true.’