Arun D. Ellis's Blog, page 40

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Extract below

Workmen - Three Fat Ladies

Helen opened the front door, and peered out. Thank the lord for the vandal who'd taken out the street light last night. It was quiet as well as dark and their driveway was off set slightly and hidden from view of the neighbours. She slipped back inside and hefted one end of the quilt covered burden under her arm, huffing out a long breath as she did so.

Debs put her back into it and lifted her end and together they struggled out to the car; not for the first time Debs wished she'd splashed out on something bigger than a Fiat Uno.

"Will it fit?" hissed Granny from the hallway.

"It'll have to, Mum," puffed Helen.

"I don't think it will," said Granny, helpfully.

"Then we'll have to make it fit," stated Debs.

"How?" wailed Helen, abruptly coming to a halt, "he's as stiff as a board."

"Just open the door," instructed Debs, backing up slightly.

"I can't hold him and open the door, he's too heavy."

"Granny," called Debs urgently, her voice low.

"Ssssh," hissed Helen, "the neighbours."

"Granny," whispered Debs, "get the door, will you."

"Hurry up, I can't hold him for much longer," moaned Helen.

Granny struggled down from the doorstep and wrestled the car door open.

"You put your end in, Mum," said Debs, "then I'll shove from the back."

Helen did as she was bid, leaning in to the car as far as she could go. Debs' sudden push only succeeded in ramming Wayne's head into the foot well in the back of the car. The quilt fell away, revealing his legs, still sticking out the door, "He won't go any further in," Helen said, her voice bubbling with near hysteria.

"Oh yes he will," said Debs, shoving again, putting her full weight behind it. They heard a crack as Wayne's spine snapped.

"Oh my god!" said Helen, horrified, nearly falling over in her haste to get away.

"Mum," hissed Debs, "he's dead, it doesn't matter."

"But we broke his back, I think I'm going to be sick."

"Mum! Not now, I need you to help me do this." Debs climbed into the car and started to heft
Wayne's top half out of the foot well, ignoring with difficulty the grating sounds of bone on bone. As she lifted his head his legs see-sawed
downwards. "Come on, Mum, focus, alright, we gotta push his legs in."

"I can't," wailed Helen, crumpling to the floor, hands to her mouth.

"Gran, can you grab hold?" Debs asked, turning to the old lady who was standing, mouth open at the back of the car.

She nodded and reached over to grab his legs. She was prevented from so doing by the conjoining of her huge breasts with her monumental stomach.

"Come on, Gran," said Debs.

"I'm trying dear," said Gran, gamely, parting her breasts to try and make the move doable, "but I just can't reach."

"Mum," hissed Debs, "Mum, get up. I need you."

Helen closed her eyes and took a deep breath."Okay, okay," and she bent over, ignoring the legs and the dirty workman boots, and pulling on the quilt with shaking hands. Then she took another, stronger hold and together they heaved and shoved but Wayne would not budge.

"What about cutting him up?" offered Gran, reasonably.

"No way am I cutting him up," snapped Helen.

"Might have to if we can't get him in the car," said Debs, eyes sparkling at the prospect.

"Not happening," said Helen emphatically, "besides there'd be too much blood."

"He's dead so not much blood," said Debs, knowledgeably, "and no-one knows he came here."

"How do you know?" demanded Helen, "he might've told a friend. The police always find out."

"They never solve anything, Mum, it's not like CSI Miami or Miss Marple."

"I don't care," said Helen, "I'm still not cutting him up."

"What about the sunroof, dear," said Gran.

"Wow, great idea, Gran," said Debs, "why didn't I think of that? And we can lose this as well." She yanked at the quilt, pulling and tugging, ripping Wayne free of it.

"I'll get a chair," muttered Helen, unreasonably angry with both of them.

Five minutes later Debs was standing on the car, leaning into the open sunroof, the better to direct Wayne's head up and out of the car, the bonnet bending under her weight. Helen was inside, ready to lift his torso, her face was carefully averted and her eyes tightly closed. If she could have held her nose at the same time she probably would have done so. Gran was outside on the driveway; her role was to ensure Wayne's lower legs followed the rest of his body.

"Okay on three," said Debs, "three!" She tugged Wayne's shoulders but nothing happened. "Oh my back, what the hell are you two doing?"

"I thought you were going to count," said Helen, eyes still tight shut.

"You said you'd count, dear," said Gran, observing Debs with her rheumy eyes.

"That's the whole point," said Helen, almost at breaking point, "gives us a chance to get ready and then we all push together. Don't just say 'three'."

"One, two, three," said Debs, too quickly for Helen to respond, or for Gran to register.

"Give us a chance," hissed Helen, opening her eyes and glaring up at her daughter, "It's always like this with you, it always has to be done your way. It was the same when you were a baby, always bossing me and your Gran around. You wouldn't even wear the clothes I put you in. I'd dress you and you'd go and change, you were five for Christ' sake."

"God, mum," wailed Debs, "you're doing this, now?"

"Ssssh, Debbie," said Helen, crossly, "the neighbours."
Debs grabbed Wayne by his Mohican, paused and stared at it, "what did you think of his hair?"

"What?" said Helen. She was getting hot in the car and sharing such a confined space with a dead body was seriously messing with her head.

"The colour of his hair," said Debs, "I liked it."

"Oh, so did I, dear," said Gran, "and I liked the Huron thing he had going."

"Mohican," said Debs.

"Actually, I think you'll find it was a Huron," said Gran.

"In the film..." started Debs.

"Chingachgook had long hair and he was the last of the Mohicans," stated Gran with great and solemn authority, "the bad Indians were Hurons and they just had the spiky bit in the middle."

"Can we get on with it?" said Helen, shrilly, "I can't take much more of this!"

"It's a fucking Mohican," spat Debs, annoyed and confused.

"Deborah, do not speak to your grandmother like that," ordered Helen.

"Sorrreeeee," said Debs.

Gran smiled but said nothing.

"Now can we please just do this," said Helen.

"Alright mum!" moaned Debs, far too loudly for Helen's comfort and for Gran's sensibilities, "ONE!"

"Ssssh!" said Helen, "quietly."

"Two," hissed Debs, "three," and they all pulled and shoved simultaneously.

Wayne's feet slid in faster than Gran expected and she fell backwards, tripping over a bit of shrubbery and ending up against the wall, catching her head on a protruding nail. She was silent, a small trickle of blood running down her neck.

As Wayne rose up at speed through the sun roof Debs, precariously balanced as she was, on the bonnet, fell off the car and landed on Mr Tibbs, the neighbour's cat, who'd come across the road to check out the commotion.

Helen scrambled out of the car, first checking her mother for concussion or worse and then looking up to see Wayne staring down at her, pink hair glinting in the moonlight, "For Christ's sake," she hissed, "cover his head."

Debs struggled to her feet, cursing volubly then disappeared into the house. Granny groaned and Helen leaned over and patted her hand then she went indoors to get a cold flannel for the back of her mother's head. Gran was left looking down at poor Mr Tibbs.

"Oh God," said Helen, re- joining her mother, and sharing in the silent contemplation, "what will we tell the neighbours?"

Debs reappeared carrying a large lamp shade which she plonked on Wayne's head, the pink spikes of his Mohican protruding out of the top. She glanced down at Mr Tibbs. "Just bung him further into the road, they'll think he was run over."

"I can't do that," said Helen, "it would be wrong."

"Oh for fuck sake," hissed Debs, "give him here," and she snatched the lifeless Mr Tibbs by his tail, marched down their back garden and swinging him over her head launched him in the direction of the main road that ran past the rear of their house.

Mr Tibbs landed on the windscreen of a passing van. The driver; whose name was Alphonse, had been on the road for a solid twelve hours without a break and his eyelids were drooping. He almost leapt out of his skin when a flattened black cat, limbs stretched out, splatted onto his windscreen. He careened about the road, crashing firstly into a small Corsa, which went into a spin before stopping in the centre of the road. Then he bounced into a BMW, the driver of which compensated wildly, careening onto the grass verge whereupon it tipped onto its side and rolled down the gradient back into the road.

Alphonse himself carried on 50 yards down the road before his van finally flipped over; thirteen vehicles were unable to stop in time and smashed into the wreckage; the dual carriageway rendered impassable.

"Right," snapped Debs, returning to the car, "let's just get out of here, shall we?"

"Are you coming, mum?" asked Helen, looking down at her mother, who was still trying to stem the flow of blood from the back of her head.

"No, she's not," stated Debs, "no room."

Helen conceded the point and squeezed into the passenger seat. The Uno sighed as their joint weight bowed the front axel.

"Belt up and let's get this thing done," said Debs.
She revved the engine and edged the car, squeaking and groaning, down the drive.
 
Hope you have a nice week

Cheers

Arun

Murder, Mayhem & Money

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Extract below-

Five minutes after Alb gave the command twenty model Spitfires were circling Big Ben to the excited oohs and aaahs of the watching crowd. The ex-RAF boys, having made their way round from their spot on the Westminster Abbey lawn, were standing in Parliament Square, each controlling his individual squadron with consummate ease. The troops and police watched in consternation, uncertain how to handle this spectacle without upsetting the watching crowd.

Alb then sent a text to Cynthia. Moments later the ladies of the WI, some of them sporting patriotic pink and blue rinses, tumbled out of their coach; bobbing like buoys in a rough sea.

"Out of my way, girls," hollered a big round woman in a large floral tent of a dress, her multiple chins flapping like a walrus, "pass me my cane, Ethel," she yelled back into the coach, "it’s with my gun thing."

"Don't crowd me, Hilda," hissed a frail yet waspish old lady, flapping her stick wildly against all and sundry, "don't crowd me."

"How does this thing work?" asked another, whipping out an Uzi from under her dress and waving it in the air. She was gloriously bedecked, leaning on a wheeled Zimmer frame.

"Good Lord," said a sightseer who was walking past the coach, "has that old girl got a gun?" He was hurried away by his wife, intent on getting a good viewing point for when the Queen left the building.

"Steady on, Clara," said Cynthia, her diamond bracelets clacking together as she waved her arms "we haven't had the off yet."

"Come on," said Fiona quickly, "hide your guns before they're spotted by the fuzz."

The police officers stationed outside Parliament stared over towards the WI coach, a sergeant clearly speaking into his radio. Several hundred feet above them a Police helicopter hovered. The Guards on the ground also turned their gaze on the WI coach, the men of the household cavalry pulled at their reins as if preparing to charge, though charge what they did not know.

∞

“Let’s get this show on the road," said Alb.
Gerry nodded and removing his flat cap waved his arm above his head from side to side; the attack signal to the RAF boys. Immediately the Spits zipped off in different directions, circled and then flew directly at the building where the House of Lords was situated.

"Someone shoot those bloody planes down!" yelled a sergeant from the guards, at which a hundred L85A2s, the standard British army rifle, aimed skywards.

The infantry fired and two spits exploded but the others sped on and smashed through the paned windows, exploding on impact, sending glass, brick fragments and splinters everywhere. Then the remaining planes flew through the openings and crashed into the red leather seats bearing the rich and obscenely plump behinds of the Lords. At the same time the OSS set off smoke bombs that they had cunningly taped to the underside of their wheelchairs, though not so cunningly as it turned out, for two of them promptly keeled over and died of asphyxiation.

Alb turned towards the crowd and, pulling his AK47 from under his coat, fired off a couple of rounds into the air and shouted, "Get back!"

Immediately the crowd started a panicked dispersal, running for cover, away from Parliament. At the same time Gerry and the others let off a smoke bomb each. The soldiers stationed just in front of Alb's little army turned and aimed their rifles.

"Get out of the way!" ordered the soldiers, seeing only age and infirmity. The old people hastily complied and scurried as fast as they could past the red coated warriors, towards Parliament.

The Police on duty all turned their attention to Parliament Square; they were looking for an ethnic minority group or maybe a young terrorist faction but all they could see was a bunch of old codgers stumbling their way towards them, they presumed desperately seeking cover.

"Over here," yelled the sergeant of Police, waving frantically as he did so, "and keep down."

"They're in the way, Sarge," said a young copper, "I can't see who's firing."

"Out of the way," yelled the sergeant at Alb and his troops.

"What the bloody hell's going on?" yelled a rotund copper; known to his mates as six bellies, "where did those shots come from?"

"Over there," stated Gerry pointing towards Westminster Abbey, "Over there."

"Quick lads," shouted six bellies, "get the chopper over ‘ead, see if they can't see anything."

∞

Meanwhile Bill and Johnno had opened up the rear doors of the van from where Wilf, his sights zeroed in, was taking pot shots at the Police. Unable to identify where the shots were coming from the officers withdrew to the visitor entrance off Cromwell Green.

The nearby guards had fallen back on the Parliament building itself and were also looking for the source of the incoming rounds.

Alb, Gerry, Mags and their small army were still shuffling across the road, intermittently gasping their “For Britain” battle cry. They eventually made it and piled into the courtyard to the side of Parliament, to be joined by the freshly cut and dyed, tight curly perms of the WI.

"Where did all these bloody old gits come from?" demanded a sergeant of the Guards.

"I don't fucking care," yelled the Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, "just get them out of the bloody way."

"This way mate," said a young guard to Alb and Gerry as they paused for breath, Alb with his hand on Gerry’s shoulder, wheezing at the smoke, "If you hang around out there you'll end up getting shot."
Alb and Gerry nodded and squeezed past, followed by Mags and the rest of their motley crew.

∞

"What the..?" yelled a police sergeant as a tiny, wrinkly old lady dressed in a voluminous dark blue evening dress and be-jewelled in diamonds and emeralds appeared through the smoke. For a moment he thought in horror that it might be the Queen then, eyes adjusting to the smoke, he realised his error and called, "quick granny, over here."

"Less of the granny, my boy," snarled Clara as she levelled her Uzi and let rip with a long burst, emptying her magazine. The bullets smashed into everything around the police sergeant. He blinked, unscathed; a shocked expression on his face. "Oh dear," she mused, "I seem to have run out."

"Run for your life, BOY!" yelled the big round woman in the floral dress as she bounced out of the smoke wafting across Parliament. She stepped in front of Clara, shielding her with her huge bulk. "Or I'll waste your ass."

"Shit!" hissed the Sergeant, scuttling backwards for cover.

∞

Wilf, never having had the patience to be a sniper, had abandoned the van and was leading his happy band across St. Margaret Street in what he considered a charge but which was in fact a muddled shuffle. "Death or Glory!" he muttered intermittently, not having the energy for the rallying battle cry he could hear so clearly in his head.

"Keep moving that way," yelled a Colour Sergeant, pointing in the direction of the Peers’ entrance.
Puffing uncontrollably Wilf nodded, wanting very desperately to sit down and never get up again. Cursing himself for an old fool, instead he dug deep and stumbled on until he came to rest at the impressive entrance to the Lords, "Fire in the hole!" he yelled, dumping a satchel of grenades through the doorway before seeking cover further back. The double doors disintegrated into a whirlwind of splinters.

"Up and at 'em, lads!” He yelled to his collection of ruthless warriors; Bill, Johnno, Pete, Ron, Dave and Sticky. Johnno responded with quite a loud shout of “Death or Glory!"

Behind them three Chelsea pensioners, who had been sight-seeing for the day but were now lying in the road sheltering from the mayhem around them, struggled to their feet, they stared wide eyed for a minute or so then with broad grins spread across heavily lined faces they were off and hobbling, screaming at the tops of their voices, "Death or Glory!"

"Give no quarter, take no prisoners," yelled Sticky savagely, surprising himself.

"Who are they?" demanded Johnno of Pete, pointing over his shoulder at the Chelsea old boys.

"No idea," said Pete, "they didn't come with us, did they?"

"They haven't even got weapons," said Sticky.

∞

Alb had been watching Wilf’s assault on the doors with something approaching envy. "Who does he think he is?" he demanded, "he's not running this bloody show."

Suddenly Cynthia appeared, displaying agility that belied her years, hurdling a prone and groaning policeman, then dashing into the darkened, smoke-filled building, following in Wilf’s footsteps, firing madly as she went. Bringing up the rear was Vera, re-loading as she ran, bunions forgotten in her haste to get into the action.

"Bloody crazy woman," muttered Alb, "she's going to hurt someone with that thing in a minute."

Gerry, at his side as always, made a very strange growling noise; his dander was up and he had the scent of fresh blood in his nostrils, "Death or Glory!" he yelled.

"Er....er, Nobby," stammered Mort, "I need to go to the lavatory."

"Well hold it," ordered Frank, pushing Nobby back into line.

"I can't," said Mort, pulling his dressing gown close around him, "it's all this excitement."

"Then go where you are," said Jonesey, "it won't matter in a minute will it; you'll be dead so you're going to piss yourself anyway."

Just then the Deputy Prime Minister stumbled out of the doorway clutching his head; blood running from a slight graze, "Help me," he moaned, "help me."
"Certainly matey," answered Lenny, taking aim and loosing off a whole clip.

The Deputy Prime Minister fell to his knees, "Don't shoot,” he begged as the rounds bounced around him, none finding a target.

"Bugger," moaned Lenny as he struggled to change his mag.

The Deputy Prime Minister checked to see if and where he had been shot, then realising that all of the bullets had missed he struggled to his feet determined to make good his escape. One of the RAF boys, having witnessed the incident sent his last spit crashing into the ground at the Deputy PM’s feet. There was a terrific explosion, a burst of flame and as the huge cloud of smoke and dust drifted off only a forlorn pair of shoes remained where the Deputy PM had stood.

The Prime Minister, from his hiding place in the doorway gulped and slunk further back into the shadows. Ron, emerging from the dust cloud pulled out a butcher’s knife, "Gotcha, you bastard," he snarled. Bill said from close behind him, "I've got the Labour leader."

"He's all yours," said Ron, party loyalties on the back burner, as he shuffled into the blackened building.
Just then the Queen, head held high, crown in her left hand and her tattered and torn robe hanging from her shoulders, strode out of the crumbling building, the Duke of Edinburgh strolling on behind.
Alb and Gerry were immediately transfixed. Mags moved slightly out of line of sight. Lenny stamped to attention, closely followed by Frank.

Prince Philip saw commoners and moved towards them, hand outstretched, "Hello, how are you?" he said, shaking the spell bound Lenny's hand.

"Well, it just isn't good enough, Philip," said the Queen.

"I was only helping her up, cabbage," he protested.

"It didn't look like that to me," stormed the Queen.

"Your Majesties," stumbled Alb, not at all sure of the etiquette required.

"Oh dear, more little people," muttered the Queen.

"Got to put on a good show, old girl," said Prince Philip.

"I don't need you to tell me that Philip," hissed the Queen over her shoulder, "Ah hello," she said, turning her attention to Alb and Gerry, both still mesmerised, "and what is it that you two do around here?"

"Leave this to me, cabbage, old thing," said the Prince, "I know how to talk to these types. Now see here urm, old man...."

"Corporal, Albert Rayner, of the 1st Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, your highness," said Alb, stamping to attention.

"Ah yes," said Prince Philip on firmer ground now, "don't suppose you've seen our carriage have you? It should be around here somewhere, or maybe the Colonel of the Guards?"

"You there," called the Queen pointing to Wilf who was kneeling over the prone figure of a pot bellied MP, "would you be so kind as to call me a cab?"
Wilf stared bog eyed, a bowie knife in one hand and something small and red in the other.

"I say, what do you have in your hand?" asked the Queen.

Wilf shook his head and stuffed something into his pocket.

"Oh my god!" hissed Alb, knowing Wilf, it was probably a trophy.

"What?" said Prince Philip. Alb nodded at Wilf. Prince Philip looked back and forth, a puzzled expression, "What is it?"

"I say," said the Queen, "a cab, per chance?"

"My kingdom for a cab," said Prince Philip sarcastically.

"Philip," snapped the Queen, "that isn't funny."

"Ear necklace," hissed Alb in Prince Philip's direction.

"I need someone to call me a cab," said the Queen.

"You're a cab," chuckled Prince Philip under his breath.

"I heard that Philip," said the Queen. "I say, what do you have there?" she said, addressing Wilf.
Like a naughty school boy Wilf found himself unable to speak or even to think, slowly he reached into his pocket. Alb's mouth opened in a silent scream, Prince Philip smiled benignly and time slowed down across the universe. Then, just as the bloodied trophy cleared Wilf's pocket, Prince Charles stumbled through the doorway, his multitude of ornamental medals dangling precariously from his chest, "Mummy," he wailed.

∞

Meanwhile in a sumptuous Executive suite at the Savoy, Mackie had positioned himself in front of three lap tops. He had a Skype connection open on two of them; the one on the left was the legal representative of a man identified only as Mr CS and the one on the right was representing a similarly identified, Mr MAF. The centre screen held 12 CCTV images of the events currently unfolding in Westminster.

"Okay, gentlemen," said Mackie, "as agreed, bidding will begin when the target is revealed."

"To clarify," said the man on the left screen, "how do you intend for this to work?" His usual urbane presentation had been overtaken by an unhealthy -looking sheen of what could only be termed, sweat.

"Simple," said Mackie, hiding a smile, "my man will usher the target towards one of the exits. They are all covered by SIG-Sauer SSG2000s which carry an armour piercing round. Each weapon is rigged up to my laptop from which I can control the shot, or shots. Each is fitted with a twenty round magazine. For the right price, working upwards from 5 million, sterling naturally, I will release that control to your client who will then be able to take the shot or shots."

Each of the two screens went blank momentarily; Mackie was untroubled; the middle men were, no doubt, conferring with their employers.

The one on the right, the representative for Mr MAF, came back on, "And how do we take the shot?"

"Press enter once I've switched control across," said Mackie.

The screen went black again.

"Oh, there he is," said Mackie, homing in on Prince Charles, "have to hurry you, gentlemen."

"Ten million," said the representative for CS, abruptly coming back on screen.

"Fifteen," said Mr MAF's representative; a disembodied voice.

"Twenty."

∞

The Queen turned her gaze towards her weeping son, only for a second but it was enough for Wilf to seek cover in the dust clouds sweeping back and forth across Parliament.

"What is it, Charles?" demanded the Queen.

"I think I'm going to be sick, mummy," he wailed.

"Bloody useless idiot," hissed Prince Philip.

"Charles, pull yourself together," commanded the Queen.

"It might be best if you moved on, your Dukeship," whispered Alb to Prince Philip, "it could get dangerous around here."

"Quite," said Prince Philip, smiling, "well, keep it up," he murmured, giving Alb a friendly pat on the shoulder, "you're doing a damned fine job, whatever it is."

"Come on Philip," said the Queen, "We have to be getting orf. What about a bus? Do you think they'll let us on without any money?"

"Doubt it, old girl," said Prince Philip following on behind, "you know what things are like these days, got to pay for everything, gone are the days of the freebies."

"Yes," said the Queen sarcastically, "You would know all about them."

"Protect the Queen!" screamed the Sergeant Major and the guards doubled over to surround their Monarch.

"Fix bayonets!" yelled a corporal.

"Wait for me mummy," called Prince Charles, realising a bit late that he'd need to scurry if he wasn't to be left behind.

"Charles," Camilla had emerged from the smoke, her hair and face blackened, "help me."

"Not so fast, you bounder," snarled Hilda, the floral pattern of her dress clashing wildly with the AK47 she was levelling at Prince Charles' chest, "time to say hello to the devil."

"Bugger," groaned Prince Charles, abandoning Camilla and nipping back inside the House of Lords.
Hilda pulled the trigger but it wouldn't move, it was the same problem she'd been having all afternoon, "Wouldn't you just know I'd get the broken one," she complained.

"Remove the bloody safety catch!" yelled Gerry, as he shuffled past.

"Safety catch?" said Hilda, "what's a safety catch?"

Alb shook his head and followed Gerry into the smoke filled gloom, "Where do we go from here?" he said.

"I don't know," said Gerry, "just push on, I guess."

Meanwhile Prince Charles was ushered by his security detail towards the entrance by Cromwell's Green.

∞

"Okay gentlemen," said Mackie, "I'm going to need you to finish off now, the target will be available in a short moment, final bids please."

"50 million," said the representative for SC.

"60 million," said the representative for MAF.

"70 million," said the representative for SC.

"100 million," said the representative for MAF.

"Sold," snapped Mackie, "transfer of funds required up front, of course."

The representative for MAF then started to type frantically into his lap top.

Mackie sent a quick text, 'Hold at the entrance for my clearance.'

Meanwhile, Ken and Val, having also managed to slip passed the troops and police, a bucket each of hot tar and a bag of feathers in hand, were closing on Cromwell's Garden.

"Money is transferred," said the representative of MAF.

Mackie checked his account on his laptop and smiled, "I am transferring the shot to you, now," he said, "be ready because you will have only a split second in which to fire." Mackie then sent a text to his man in Prince Charles' security detail, 'Now.'

"It's alright, sir," said the security man, to Prince Charles, "I've just had the okay, the way ahead is clear."

"About bloody time," hissed Prince Charles.

"Not so fast," screamed Clara from the shadows behind.

"Bloody hell," groaned Prince Charles, before ducking out of the door.

MAF stared wild eyed at the tablet in his hands, his finger hovering over the enter button, then he saw his target and he started to bash away. At precisely the same moment Tom and Harry leapt out of the smoke and together launched a bucket load of tar all over Prince Charles. Horrified he raised his hands to his face and, stepping backwards, slipped on a police truncheon, just as the rounds from the Sig came crashing into the entrance killing his security escort outright. Ken and Val emptied their bags of feathers all over him.

Crowing with victory the small group disappeared into the grey and white smoke swirling around Parliament.

MAF stared at his screen, eyes bulging. He couldn't see anything through the smoke. His representative stood next to him, also peering.

At the Savoy Mackie was busy putting away some of his other equipment when he saw a lone figure standing up in the camera shot, a figure covered head to foot in tar and feathers. Mackie squinted, shrugged and closed the PC.

MAF looked confused, he stared at the screen, "Did I get him?" he asked, then, "He's still ALIVE!" he screamed, hurling the tablet across the room.

Prince Charles groaned and started to shuffle towards Bridge Street. Behind him he could hear the burst of automatic fire and the screams of dying politicians. "Bloody stupid...." he muttered under his breath. No one stopped him, checked his progress or attempted to molest him in anyway; they steered clear and let the sad lonely figure stumble on down the road, that is, all except a small mousey looking old lady, a bowie knife clamped firmly between her gums as she manoeuvred a bent and squeaky Zimmer frame along the uneven pavement, an empty Uzi dangling at her side.

∞

The Prime Minister, his tie pulled loose and his shirt buttons open at the top, crawled along the floor towards the House of Commons. Behind him he heard the continuous cracking of machine guns. He crawled onwards past a cowering reporter who, realising he had the opportunity of an exclusive, thrust a mike under his nose.

"Prime Minister, what do you make of the day's events?"

"Look," said the PM, falling into his usual intro, then he groaned and crawled off. Trust bloody Blackmore to balls it up.

∞

Outside the army had formed a defensive square around the Queen and the Duke. The police had cordoned off Parliament.

"Are you alright your Majesty?" asked the Colonel.

"Yes, but I'm just a bit tired," said the Queen.

"Sergeant Major!" shouted the Colonel, "seat for the Queen."

"Sir!" shouted the Sergeant Major turning to a couple of privates, "On your hands and knees lads and look sharp about it." The two privates dropped on all fours and the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh sat down.

"Don't suppose you could rustle up a cup of tea, could you?" asked the Queen.

"Cup of tea for the Queen!" shouted the Sergeant Major.

"Whiskey if you've got one," said Prince Philip.

"It's too early for a whiskey, Philip," snapped the Queen irritably.

"Damn it all," he muttered.

Just then about thirty MPs burst from the Peers entrance and dropped to their knees; gasping for air and praising the Lord for their salvation. Seeing their chance the OSS wheeled passed the distracted household cavalry and watching policemen, and rolled on towards the peers' entrance.

"Get them!" shouted a police officer, pointing towards the OSS but too late, for they had reached their target. The MPs, realising they had been approached by ancient invalids, acted as one and sought cover behind the wheelchairs, convinced that no-one would shoot a cripple. Ebullient that their prey had reacted so helpfully, the members of the OSS detonated their charges blowing themselves and the thirty odd MPs into the next world.

∞

Inside the Lord's Chamber Wilf and his merry band were busy despatching the few remaining MPs who had sought refuge behind the seats. They'd been joined by Fiona and Esmé; both of whom had proved to be excellent and ruthless shots. Pete was watching Fiona with a new level of admiration and not a little fear.

"I just got the Chancellor of the Exchequer," bragged Johnno.

"Well, I got the Foreign Secretary," yelled Sticky, "little toad that he is."

"He only counts as half," joked Dave.

Bill staggered into the chamber, blood running from an open chest wound.

"You alright Bill?" asked Esmé, pausing in the middle of a re-load.

Bill slumped down in one of the seats and grinned, "I got the bloody leader of the opposition." Then he slumped forward, his last breath rattling in his throat.

Dave and Sticky bowed their heads for a moment, Johnno put his hand on Bill's shoulder and then they all moved off.

∞

Alb and Gerry had reunited with Mags, Lenny, Dora and Cynthia.

"What now?" asked Cynthia, her hair askew and eyes wild.

Gerry's face was filthy, his smile stretched from ear to ear and his eyes were wild, "Who cares? Never expected to get this far."

"Where are the others? Where's Wilf's lot?" asked Alb.

Gerry shrugged; he'd been with Alb all the time so he knew what Alb knew.

"Mort had a stroke," said Lenny "and I saw Frank and Jonesey get it near the entrance."

"What about Val?" asked Alb.

Everyone shrugged, no one had seen Val or Ken or any of that team.

"And Vera, Esmé?" Dora looked like she might cry; the excitement giving way to despair.

"I say we go down shooting," said Cynthia, brandishing her weapon like she'd been born to it.

"Like Butch and Sundance," said Gerry, smiling at Alb.

"Why don't we just escape?" asked Mags, not altogether ready to meet her maker.

"We're through, Mags," said Alb, "these old bones won't get much further."

"But there's a war still to fight," said Mags.

"That's right," said Lenny, "there'll be others to replace these scumbags, someone will have to tackle them."

"There's no way out," said Alb, "I can't face prison."

"See if there are any more left," Mags said, authority personified, "then gather back here in ten minutes."

"You know a way out?" Alb's voice was high, thick with renewed hope.

"Of course," she said, smiling gently, "I know everything."

Hope you have a nice day

Arun

Insurrection

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Extract below

Community Leaders

Three days later a group of community leaders from lower Boro, Southside made their way to a small community hall; 30 people give or take and each one had received a personally delivered verbal invitation, issued in the name of Donald Snr. Terry had insisted on all wards being represented and had borne impatiently the resultant delay. He’d been given the low-down on the leaders, including a vivid description of the one woman in the group; Irene, widow of one of the most feared men in Boro whose viciousness paled now besides the rumours that surrounded her name.

It was 19:00 hrs by the time the last one was seated. Jimmy had posted his brothers and several of their mates at the various doors; a dual purpose was served, keeping the selected in and the interlopers out. The community leaders understood the risks of such a large meeting and their attendance indicated implied acceptance, but the added burden of knowledge concerning the chip’s locator facility was known only to Terry, Don and the others.

Terry had positioned himself on the stage behind a lectern; a shield, a leaning post and a symbol of authority. Don was seated in one of the chairs in the row behind him, with Lawrence and Dave, stand-in father figures protecting Donald’s boy, positioned solemnly on either side of him. Eric was in the audience, his choice. Sandra had been persuaded to stay home, to be there in case Donald turned up had been Don’s argument, stoutly supported by Terry. He looked out over the assembly, thinking again how glad he was that Sandra was out of it, if this went wrong, it could go seriously wrong. Then he spoke his voice betraying none of this concern, “Gentlemen, and Irene, thank you for coming,”

She acknowledged the personal salute with the barest flicker, some in the audience nodded, others sat stony faced, and all wondered who Terry was.

“You’ve been invited here to talk about the future,” said Terry, “but before we can do that I have to raise a rather thorny issue, that of informants.”

“Where’s Donald?” demanded a large black man in the front; he’d caught Terry’s attention at the start, not just size but demeanour singled him out, this must be the feared Ice Man of whom he’d been told.

Moment of partial truth… “Donald’s not here yet,” said Terry

“Why not?” demanded a small wiry man from a few rows back, “and pardon my French, but who the fuck are you?”

“My name’s…” began Terry at which point Don stepped forward.

“It’s okay,” he said, “most of you will know me and for those who don’t, I’m Donald’s son.”

“So?” said someone.

“My dad would vouch for Terry,” said Don, “if he was here.”

“Well that’s dandy,” said Ice Man, “but not good enough.”

“It’ll have to be,” said Terry, “that is, until Donald gets here.”

“Where is Donald?” demanded the wiry man, getting into his stride.

“Late,” said Terry.

The room was filled with blank looks.

“Look,” said Terry, “you’ve all been invited here by people you know and trust, and Donald would be here if he could. You all know each other and you know Don or most of you know Don, so there should be no real problem.”

“If there is,” said Ice Man, “you’ll be the first to find out about it.”

“I’m sure I will,” said Terry.

“Okay,” said Don, “just give us a chance to explain, that’s all we’re asking.”

There was no reaction from the group so Terry chose to ignore the silent hostility and ploughed on, “First,” he said, “I’d like to tell you a story and I’d appreciate it there were no interruptions until the end, if that’s ok.”

“No it’s not,” said Ice Man, “I didn’t want to be here. I’m not about to sit here an’ let someone I don’t know talk at me.”

“Well,” said Terry, “that’s understandable but please, if you bear with me I think you’ll like what I have to say, eventually that is.”

“I’m with Ice Man,” said someone else, “this is a shit thing you got me into, O’Connell.”

Jimmy jumped in, “Listen, you might not like being here but this needs to be done, things need to be said, we ain’t none of us gettin’ nothin’ outta the way things run round here and it’s about time we did something about it.”

“Is that right?” said Ice Man, rising to his full 6’ 6”.

“Okay ‘Ice Man’,” said Terry, “we can all see how big you are but what are you doing for your community? How are your people coping with the shortages?”

“I’m doing just fine,” said Ice Man, “ain’t no whitey gonna try and slip into my territory and take over.” Having said his piece he folded himself back onto the chair.

“That’s not what this is about, Ice,” said Don, “it’s about all of us acting together, to change things.”

“Ah, this is a waste of time,” said someone from the back of the hall, rising to leave, “you ain’t gonna change nothin’. It’s been like this for years and it’ll always be like this.”

“Sit down Jake,” snapped Jimmy as Brendan readied himself to bar the exit.

Terry thought quickly, recalling the bios he’d been given. If memory served, Jake controlled a small ward, not mission critical; he could use him as a test case. “It’s okay Jimmy, if he wants to leave, let him, at least we’ll know which side of the fence he’s on.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” demanded Jake.

“It means the sinks are crawling with informants,” said Terry, “and anyone who isn’t interested in changing things for the better is more than likely an informant.”

“I ain’t no informant,” said Jake, “and I’ll kill any man who says I am.”

“No one’s saying you are an informant, but,” said Don, turning his hands up in the classic questioning pose, “if you’re not interested in improving things then it’s a bit sus.”

“Sit down Jake,” said Ice Man, “first we’ll hear what little whitey has to say and then if we don’t like it,” he paused for effect, “we’ll kill him.”

Jake grunted a bit, then nodded and sat.

“Okay,” said Terry, “let’s begin at the beginning shall we, where this war really started.”

“War?” demanded someone, “What war?”

“Please, gents,” said Don, “just listen.”

“Yeah, but you said there was a war,” said the same voice, thin and reedy, anxiety paramount.

“He didn’t mean between us, Tim,” said Eric, turning in his chair to look at a young man three rows behind him, “just listen and you’ll see where he’s going.”

“Give me a chance; all of you” said Terry, “please.”

There was a brief silence.

Then “We’re listening whitey,” said Ice Man, “but we ain’t patient types.”

“Okay,” said Terry, “the beginning then. Back in the 80’s,”

“Are you taking the piss? What the fuck do you know about the 80’s?” said someone.

“Look,” snapped Terry, “The world outside your little ghetto is turning to shit and if you really want to change things for your community now’s the time to jump on board.”

“That’s cute, whitey,” said Ice Man.

“Well, you might think so, but it doesn’t seem so cute to me, whilst you people are stuck here, barely scraping a living, d’ you have any idea how the rich are living? How much they have? How completely different your lifestyles are? They live like gods and you live like slaves so listen up, ‘cause this is a wakeup call.”

Ice Man stared at Terry for a full 30 seconds before leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms, “I ain’t no slave … and the clock’s tickin’, so get on with it, white boy.”

Terry waited a few seconds, “Okay, so we’re back in the 80s with Thatcher. I know everyone’s heard of Thatcher, hell one of the streets here is named after her, but what she did to this country takes some understanding so I’d like to run through it again so we can see how they achieved all of this,” He waved his arms, indicating all of them, the small hall, their small lives. Those gathered moved restlessly in their seats, some nervously, some irritably and some he noted, rather aggressively. Jimmy nodded to Paddy to move closer to the most restless group …all known bully boys. “Okay, first things first, Thatcher wasn’t the architect; that dubious honour belongs to Keith Joseph, Thatcher was a believer and a credible mouth piece.”

“Keith Joseph? Why’s he got two Christian names?” Sean hissed at the person nearest him who happened to be a Muslim, obvious to anyone but Sean, and one clearly not pleased with the assumptive reference to the infidel’s religion.

“Keith who?” whispered Don to Lawrence.

“Bit before my time,” said Lawrence, “no idea how Terry’s heard of him.”

“Probably his posh education,” sneered Dave, by no means a ‘Terry’ convert, and having taken a seat on the stage only in support of Donald’s son.

“Thatcher and her cronies told British workers that they weren’t competitive enough and then created the right circumstances for British industrialists and entrepreneurs to close their factories and businesses in Britain and then reopen them in poorer 3rd world countries where costs such as wages and rents were nonexistent,” said Terry, passion trembling in his voice.

He’d vented and decried the whole concept to whoever would listen throughout his adolescence. This was the first time he’d tried it out on a real audience, sod’s law it had to be one so hostile.

“The intention of economists at the time was that the private sector would create or develop a service based economy in Britain.” The room was quiet, all eyes on him. He took a sip of water, ‘Christ why am I doing this? “The rich invested in what was termed at the time ‘emerging markets’, namely, companies being set up in the 3rd world by western industrialists and Corporations.” He stood upright; he’d been leaning over the lectern as he spoke, trying to get his message across and putting his whole body into it. “The idea was that the west would invent, the third world would build and the western worker would buy.”

“Yeah, we get the idea,” said a female voice, the infamous widow “and we know already.”

“You should do,” said Terry, looking out across the room, trying to locate her “but somewhere along the way you’ve learned to live with it rather than resist the unfairness of what occurred.”

“Who’re you to talk?” said Jake, “what d’ you know about what we’ve learned to live with? Who the fuck is he, anyway?” He directed this at Don.

“Look please,” said Don,” If you’ll just bear with us for a bit longer.”

“Keep going,” said Ice Man, “I want to hear what you gotta say.”

Terry nodded, “So that was the plan they sold to the people…that the west would ‘invent’, the 3rd world would ‘build’ and the western worker , employed in the service industry which replaced the manufacturing base, would ‘buy’. Now, whether it was meant to be permanent or they had other long term plans, we’ll never know… but what we do know, and what should’ve been clear at the time, is that the ‘private’ sector didn’t create enough service based industry jobs.”

He took another sip of water, he didn’t like public speaking and his throat was painfully dry, “So people were out of work, not enough buying going on….to fill the gap the government created public sector service jobs, all governments did it, right or left; they had to reduce unemployment, to create demand for other services, to increase spending power, maintain the number of consumers for these goods being made in the 3rd world.”

The room came alive at that moment, throat clearing and murmurs of what? Dissent? Agreement? Terry couldn’t tell. Neither could Jimmy who made himself more visible and pointed organizing fingers at the door guards.

“Yeah, they created the national debt that we’re still paying off,” shouted someone,

“All of this was designed to make sure,” continued Terry, raising his voice against the catcalls now emerging from the crowd, “that the industrialist and the investor had their constant return of interest.” He paused briefly, ‘this is a nightmare. How’m I ever going to convince these people that they’ve been had.’

“You got this all wrong.” shouted someone else.

Don and Dave were on their feet; Lawrence still seated was making ineffectual calming hand gestures.

“What’s he on about?” hissed Sean to Brendan.

“Fucked if I know,” said Brendan, “I just hope he knows what he’s doing.”

“What d’you mean?”

“You been paying attention?” asked Brendan.

“Yeah.”

“Well, he’s pissed off just about everyone in the room, and if he don’t put it right there’s gonna be an awful ruckus.”

“So?” said Sean, “we can handle it.”

“Idiot,” said Brendan, “c’n you count?”

Sean scanned the room, “I’m not scared of any of these fat fucks.”

“Good,” said Brendan, “then you fight ‘em, all of ‘em.”

Ice Man stood up and signaled to the room for silence, and then he sat down again; an unexpected ally.

Terry took heart and continued, “In the end, a service based economy, shops, restaurants, hotels, holidays, is vulnerable to collapse when there’s a recession and that is exactly what happened, with the great banking disaster of 2008.”

He started to pace, coming out from behind the lectern and moving from one side of the stage to the other, his stride lengthening as his confidence grew. “I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of how the banks lost all the money, I’m just going to say that it put huge pressure on the world economies and governments when they were already exposed…most of them, just like the UK, had spent a lot on creating jobs that didn’t bring any financial return by way of Gross Domestic Product. The net result was that the economies of several countries collapsed and a desperate period of austerity began for all, except….”

He paused and took a drink before continuing, then recommenced his pacing, “It wasn’t actually austerity for all. It was austerity for the likes of you and me. The seriously rich are seriously rich still. The industrialist still had his factories in the 3rd world and the investor still had his money in emerging markets, all they had to do was find a new consumer for their products …which they did.”

Ice Man started to nod his head almost imperceptibly; it was not wasted on Don and the others.

“They made money more available to the workers in the 3rd world so they could become buyers as well as builders” he was almost shouting now, “Western governments told their people they’d over spent on their credit cards, bringing this recession on themselves” he paused, and then he did shout, a controlled burst of fury “but this was a lie.”

He checked the room, he had their attention. He softened his voice “The industrialists and investors wanted to maximize their return, so they put all their funds into the 3rd world. The result was massive unemployment and poverty in the west, western governments raised fewer taxes, and to top it off those same governments reduced the taxes for the rich, scared of the threat of them leaving if they didn’t.”

He walked over to the lectern and leaned against it, needing its shelter and all his energy for the finale. “Governments, like the UK government, hid behind ‘austerity measures’ to reduce services for the masses, like libraries and refuse collections, to privatise the NHS, to cut social benefits and scrap free public education, then they forced up property prices and cut out social housing.”

He glared round the room, his anger at the conspiracy fuelling the tirade. “You’ve all heard of the Occupy Movements? Ordinary people taking to the streets to protest peacefully about the 1% who own everything? People willing to stand up for the rest of us against the system and its weapons; pepper sprays, tear gas, water cannon, rubber bullets…”

“Yeah, we heard” Jake stood up and spoke, looking round at his fellow leaders, rallying support, “and where are they now? In prison, dead, destitute…”

Terry looked down from the stage and met his eyes. He nodded slowly, “Yes …they were crushed, deliberately and coldly crushed in the tidal wave of anti-terrorist laws brought in to combat so-called atrocities on our streets.” He lifted his arms “As was Colin Carpenter and the rest of the Independents, who were trying to achieve a fairer society using democracy, trying to occupy the political space…yet the real atrocity is here and now, in Boro and places like it all over the world, where hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people, are condemned to live their lives in squalor and penury while the world’s 1% still lives in obscene luxury.”

He stopped talking, took a deep steadying breath, wondered briefly if he was insane, and then continued, “They drove the poor to places like this; fenced them in, no way in or out without a pass, ghettos. The mass of the British people now live in places like Boro…I know this for a fact…” final pause, “because I used to work in Relocations.”

The hall erupted. Chairs overturned as their occupants leapt to their feet, a few were sent flying towards the stage. Jimmy and Paddy waded in, fists flying as some of those nearest the stage leapt on to it, trying to get to Terry. Dave happily gave as good as he got, standing back to back with Don who was enjoying himself for the first time since his dad’s disappearance.

Lawrence disappeared; physical violence had never been his strong point. Terry cleared the stage swiftly of the most ambitious attackers, a motley crew of barrel-bellied bullies who were used to size being important. He had the look of someone prepared to defend a position for hours if needs be and gradually the number of takers lessened.

It took a good fifteen minutes for tempers to cool and for people to settle down enough so that individual voices could be heard. By that time Sean and Brendan had cut a swathe through the section of the crowd who’d been luckless enough to sit their side of the hall. One of these had been Eric, apparently unrecognized in the mêlée and now unconscious on the floor. It was another twenty minutes before Terry felt able to reclaim his position at the lectern. The chairs had been righted and people who could sit comfortably were doing so, those more appreciably damaged were leaning against the walls and some, like Eric, had stayed down.

Ice Man had remained aloof from the fracas. He stood and made sure he was seen, “We’re gonna sit here a little longer, and you get to finish your little lecture but you better have something good at the end of it ‘cause if not, that little confession of yours is gonna cost you big time.”

“Fair enough,” said Terry, “but to be honest, I don’t really get why you’re all so upset with me, considering most, if not all of you, are informers.”

There was a collective intake of breath as Don moved swiftly to Terry’s side, “you can’t call them informers,” his voice a hiss.

“That’s not a thing for you to say,” Ice Man’s control was slipping, “and you’re asking for it, saying such a thing.”

“Come on, we all know you’re informers,” Terry persisted, shrugging away from Don, “you know it and I know it, the only ones who don’t know are your followers.”

Jake made a lunge onto the stage, Terry sent him flying backwards with a front push kick, resuming conversationally “Look, we can all end up fighting again but that’s not what this is about, we’re here to work together and find a real way forward.”

Don tried again, “you won’t get anywhere calling them informers.”

“Why not,” said Terry, “they are; how else you think their little empires run so smoothly?”

“They don’t have to be informers for that to be the case,” said Don, “look at dad and how he ran things.”

Terry looked at him without speaking, sighed then turned back to the audience, “Listen,” he shouted, reaching to the back of the room “I know you’ve just been trying to make things work for your people, trying to work out a set of rules with the pigs, trying to keep things calm in the ghettos to keep the riot squads out but that hasn’t worked, all that’s happened is they’ve left you here and swelled the size of the ghettos.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” yelled a voice from the back.

“Don’t you get it? You’re as much victims as anyone who’s ever been sent here, you’ve not been rewarded for your loyalty, with a big house, money, beautiful women fawning over you...”

“That’s what you fink” said the same voice, nursing a black eye and a grievance.

“He’s seen your Brenda, Mike, he must’ve.” laughed another.

Terry grinned but continued quickly, “you live here, with the rest of us, in a ghetto and you have probably lived here most of your lives. Some of you’ve had children here…but what are you getting out of the deal? What are you getting for your years of loyalty?”

“Quiet everyone,” yelled Ice Man, “as for you” he gave Terry a long, hard stare, “you’re talking yourself into a nice early grave, whitey.”

“He keeps callin’ him ‘whitey’, ain’t that racist, Brendan?” Sean whispered hotly into his brother’s ear, for once apparently thinking before he spoke.

“Sean, shut the fuck up” the subtlety evidently wasted on Brendan.

“Yeah, don’t I know it,” said Terry, “the authorities want me dead, you guys probably want me dead and if I don’t win you over, one of you will make certain that I am dead. So yeah, I’m taking a very big risk here but I’m prepared to do that for a better life, for a better way, for me and my friends. All I ask is that you let me finish.”

Ice Man stared at Terry for what seemed an age but was probably only a few seconds, and then he nodded and sat back down.

Terry continued, “What you might not know is there is more than one place in the UK called Boro” he stopped, waited for it to sink in, then continued, “there are three; Boro; Boro 2 and Boro 3, each with a total population of 5 million. Boro is a Triplet city.” There was a shared intake of breath and a shuffling of feet, but no-one spoke. “There are other cities, Liverpool, known as ‘the Pool’; Manchester aka Mancs, Newcastle or ‘Toontown’; all of them ghettos and all of them Triplets.”

He looked behind him at a noise from Don who shook his head quickly; he was just as appalled as the rest of them.

Interruption over, “The M4 corridor is now the UK’s dividing line; anything north of the line is a ghetto. Meanwhile the nouveau riche, those who belong to the new global aristocracy, the super rich, they all live south of the line, below the M4 corridor, in luxury.”

He pointed south for effect, “they have everything you can only dream of and it’s all financed by dividends from manufacture and sale in the 3rd world. They don’t need us anymore and that’s why the government doesn’t look after us, why there’s no investment in UK manufacturing.”

Ice Man rubbed his chin, “You claim to know a lot about us but we don’t know nothing about you ‘cept you claim to have worked in Relocations.”

“He did,” said Don, quickly defensive.

“There’s more to it,” said Ice Man, “no-one who just worked in Relocations would know all that.”

“You’re right, Ice Man, there is more.” Don and Dave leaned forward in their chairs, Lawrence put his head down, grimly awaiting this next revelation, “I’m Special Forces and I’m trained to infiltrate and destroy.”

Jimmy responded with a loud burst of amused annoyance, “I knew it, yer bastard!” He gestured to Paddy, “see, he’d never of taken us otherwise.”

Sean’s loud; “I told you he was a liar” was hushed swiftly by Brendan’s elbow to the gut.

Don and Dave looked shocked; Lawrence sat still and silent.

The community leaders, each of them an informant as Terry had said, all of them government plants, were equally stunned. What was going on? Why had the government sent a Special Forces operative to brief them like this?

“Were you sent here to tell us all this?” asked Ice Man, “or are you rogue?”

“Both,” said Terry.

“Which means what, exactly?” demanded Don, recovering and angry.

“I was sent here to contact community leaders, the government informants here” he waved his arm to indicate the whole group, now sitting as if pinned to their chairs. “I was to monitor the situation on the ground.” He paused and turned to face Don,

“However, I’m also rogue - I’m a member of a group trying to overthrow the current regime which is driving our country into the ground and destroying the lives of the vast majority of its people.”

“Are you accusing my dad of being an informant?” demanded Don.

“It is what it is,” stated Terry, “ask your friends here, they know.”

“What in hell’s going on?” demanded Eric, conscious now, having missed all but the last 5 minutes of the proceedings.

“This sounds well dodgy,” said Jake.

“It is,” said Ice Man, “Quiet everyone. Quiet. What are you up to, whitey?”

“You’ve got to listen to me and think about what I’m saying.” He broke off and stared out at the angry faces. “The state is meant to represent the will of the people, the will of the majority of people but today it only represents a few thousand people, everyone else is either ignored by or is a slave to the system. That’s it. That’s all there is. Whatever you were promised in the past, whatever you’ve been promised recently, none of it is real, none of it is ever going to happen, you are always going to be here enforcing their code and if you should ever question it or ask for your pay off… they will kill you.”

“And how do you know that?” asked Ice Man.

“Because I’m the man they’d send,” answered Terry.

Even Ice Man felt the need to get involved this time; he made it as far as two feet in front of Terry before a turning kick to the head floored him. The rest of the activities took place over him and next to him and he was quickly joined on the floor by a few colleagues who’d not taken heed of the warning afforded by his prone position. The fighting was over quicker second time round; Jimmy and Paddy were faster off the mark and isolated the worst troublemakers, Sean and Brendan’s side of the hall still hadn’t recovered from the first bout and most were too damaged to join in at all, others with a bit more energy threw a few punches but their hearts weren’t in it. The vocal arguments went on for a bit and then after some sub-debates, a bit of shoving and pushing everyone was back in their seat.

Recovered from his brief flirtation with unconsciousness, Ice Man took up Terry’s spot by the lectern, “Okay, okay” he said, flattening his hands in the universal signal of calm, “I don’t like him any more than you do” rubbing the side of his head as he spoke “but it seems to me he got a point. We been stuck in this shit hole for 20 years grubbing out a living and I don’t see anything changing, we still gonna be here another 20 years time.” There were murmurs of assent all round him and much nodding of heads. “I don’t like the idea that some fat banker is sitting on his arse laughing at us, thinking we too stupid to know what’s going on, that don’t sit well with me at all.” More nods, “but if we act, then we all gotta go the same way ‘cause if just one of us sings the wrong tune this place be crawling with Feds and we all be dragged out an’ shot.” He glared at Terry and then back at the crowd, “I don’t mean to get shot, so if anyone thinking to sell us out, he better know we’ll find out an’ when we get him he take days to die.”

“We’re all in this together,” shouted someone, “we all gotta make an oath.”

“An oath is good,” said Ice Man, “and it better be on the bible.”

“Not everyone’s religious, Ice,” said Jake.

“Don’t matter, they sell us out, we get them, the pigs hate this shit as much as us, they won’t take much persuading to come over, anyone does sell us, we get to them,” He tilted back his head, raised his eyes to the ceiling and opened his palms, “and they face the Lord or me.”

Terry walked to the lectern “Remember it won’t just be us in Southside, we need to spread word across the whole of Boro and to the other ghettos so there’s a general uprising.” There were shouts of agreement, “and remember, the people who have jobs and work within the system, the ones working to keep the rich and the ghettos in place are so heavily in debt and so screwed by their workloads that they will join us.”

“But can you be sure of that?” asked Eric.

“Oh they’ll join us, they might be slow off the mark because they don’t look outside their tiny bubble, but they will, once we make it clear to them that they, the workers, are serfs to a system, that their debt is the yoke that holds them, once they realise the reality they will rise with us.”

“They will rise,” intoned Ice Man.

“And remember,” said Terry, “We, the people are the state. So the 1% who have seized control of the nation and its money, they’ve committed an act of treason, treason against the people is the same as treason against the state.”

Don, Dave and Lawrence surrounded Terry, “We need to talk,” said Don.

“I know,” said Terry, but first we need to see this ends smoothly or we’re all dead.”

“We need to talk,” said Don.

“Okay,” said Terry, “tomorrow.”

“No, now,” said Don.

“Tomorrow, we gotta make sure this all ends well here tonight or else everything is lost.”

“You got a lot of questions to answer,” said Dave.

“Not really,” said Terry.

“Tomorrow?” said Dave.

“Tomorrow,” said Terry.

≈ ≈

Superintendent Bill Travers opened his emails. There was one marked high security. He opened it and entered his password. The message told him that over 30 local community informants had been gathered in one place with a number of known transgressors. He was instructed to resolve the issue. “What the fuck does that mean,” he muttered, “resolve the issue?”

Hope you enjoy the book and have a nice week

Cheers Arun

Uprising

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Extract below

Community Leaders

Three days later a group of community leaders from lower Boro, Southside made their way to a small community hall; 30 people give or take and each one had received a personally delivered verbal invitation, issued in the name of Donald Snr. Terry had insisted on all wards being represented and had borne impatiently the resultant delay. He’d been given the low-down on the leaders, including a vivid description of the one woman in the group; Irene, widow of one of the most feared men in Boro whose viciousness paled now besides the rumours that surrounded her name.

It was 19:00 hrs by the time the last one was seated. Jimmy had posted his brothers and several of their mates at the various doors; a dual purpose was served, keeping the selected in and the interlopers out. The community leaders understood the risks of such a large meeting and their attendance indicated implied acceptance, but the added burden of knowledge concerning the chip’s locator facility was known only to Terry, Don and the others.

Terry had positioned himself on the stage behind a lectern; a shield, a leaning post and a symbol of authority. Don was seated in one of the chairs in the row behind him, with Lawrence and Dave, stand-in father figures protecting Donald’s boy, positioned solemnly on either side of him. Eric was in the audience, his choice. Sandra had been persuaded to stay home, to be there in case Donald turned up had been Don’s argument, stoutly supported by Terry. He looked out over the assembly, thinking again how glad he was that Sandra was out of it, if this went wrong, it could go seriously wrong. Then he spoke his voice betraying none of this concern, “Gentlemen, and Irene, thank you for coming,”

She acknowledged the personal salute with the barest flicker, some in the audience nodded, others sat stony faced, and all wondered who Terry was.

“You’ve been invited here to talk about the future,” said Terry, “but before we can do that I have to raise a rather thorny issue, that of informants.”

“Where’s Donald?” demanded a large black man in the front; he’d caught Terry’s attention at the start, not just size but demeanour singled him out, this must be the feared Ice Man of whom he’d been told.

Moment of partial truth… “Donald’s not here yet,” said Terry

“Why not?” demanded a small wiry man from a few rows back, “and pardon my French, but who the fuck are you?”

“My name’s…” began Terry at which point Don stepped forward.

“It’s okay,” he said, “most of you will know me and for those who don’t, I’m Donald’s son.”

“So?” said someone.

“My dad would vouch for Terry,” said Don, “if he was here.”

“Well that’s dandy,” said Ice Man, “but not good enough.”

“It’ll have to be,” said Terry, “that is, until Donald gets here.”

“Where is Donald?” demanded the wiry man, getting into his stride.

“Late,” said Terry.

The room was filled with blank looks.

“Look,” said Terry, “you’ve all been invited here by people you know and trust, and Donald would be here if he could. You all know each other and you know Don or most of you know Don, so there should be no real problem.”

“If there is,” said Ice Man, “you’ll be the first to find out about it.”

“I’m sure I will,” said Terry.

“Okay,” said Don, “just give us a chance to explain, that’s all we’re asking.”

There was no reaction from the group so Terry chose to ignore the silent hostility and ploughed on, “First,” he said, “I’d like to tell you a story and I’d appreciate it there were no interruptions until the end, if that’s ok.”

“No it’s not,” said Ice Man, “I didn’t want to be here. I’m not about to sit here an’ let someone I don’t know talk at me.”

“Well,” said Terry, “that’s understandable but please, if you bear with me I think you’ll like what I have to say, eventually that is.”

“I’m with Ice Man,” said someone else, “this is a shit thing you got me into, O’Connell.”

Jimmy jumped in, “Listen, you might not like being here but this needs to be done, things need to be said, we ain’t none of us gettin’ nothin’ outta the way things run round here and it’s about time we did something about it.”

“Is that right?” said Ice Man, rising to his full 6’ 6”.

“Okay ‘Ice Man’,” said Terry, “we can all see how big you are but what are you doing for your community? How are your people coping with the shortages?”

“I’m doing just fine,” said Ice Man, “ain’t no whitey gonna try and slip into my territory and take over.” Having said his piece he folded himself back onto the chair.

“That’s not what this is about, Ice,” said Don, “it’s about all of us acting together, to change things.”

“Ah, this is a waste of time,” said someone from the back of the hall, rising to leave, “you ain’t gonna change nothin’. It’s been like this for years and it’ll always be like this.”

“Sit down Jake,” snapped Jimmy as Brendan readied himself to bar the exit.

Terry thought quickly, recalling the bios he’d been given. If memory served, Jake controlled a small ward, not mission critical; he could use him as a test case. “It’s okay Jimmy, if he wants to leave, let him, at least we’ll know which side of the fence he’s on.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” demanded Jake.

“It means the sinks are crawling with informants,” said Terry, “and anyone who isn’t interested in changing things for the better is more than likely an informant.”

“I ain’t no informant,” said Jake, “and I’ll kill any man who says I am.”

“No one’s saying you are an informant, but,” said Don, turning his hands up in the classic questioning pose, “if you’re not interested in improving things then it’s a bit sus.”

“Sit down Jake,” said Ice Man, “first we’ll hear what little whitey has to say and then if we don’t like it,” he paused for effect, “we’ll kill him.”

Jake grunted a bit, then nodded and sat.

“Okay,” said Terry, “let’s begin at the beginning shall we, where this war really started.”

“War?” demanded someone, “What war?”

“Please, gents,” said Don, “just listen.”

“Yeah, but you said there was a war,” said the same voice, thin and reedy, anxiety paramount.

“He didn’t mean between us, Tim,” said Eric, turning in his chair to look at a young man three rows behind him, “just listen and you’ll see where he’s going.”

“Give me a chance; all of you” said Terry, “please.”

There was a brief silence.

Then “We’re listening whitey,” said Ice Man, “but we ain’t patient types.”

“Okay,” said Terry, “the beginning then. Back in the 80’s,”

“Are you taking the piss? What the fuck do you know about the 80’s?” said someone.

“Look,” snapped Terry, “The world outside your little ghetto is turning to shit and if you really want to change things for your community now’s the time to jump on board.”

“That’s cute, whitey,” said Ice Man.

“Well, you might think so, but it doesn’t seem so cute to me, whilst you people are stuck here, barely scraping a living, d’ you have any idea how the rich are living? How much they have? How completely different your lifestyles are? They live like gods and you live like slaves so listen up, ‘cause this is a wakeup call.”

Ice Man stared at Terry for a full 30 seconds before leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms, “I ain’t no slave … and the clock’s tickin’, so get on with it, white boy.”

Terry waited a few seconds, “Okay, so we’re back in the 80s with Thatcher. I know everyone’s heard of Thatcher, hell one of the streets here is named after her, but what she did to this country takes some understanding so I’d like to run through it again so we can see how they achieved all of this,” He waved his arms, indicating all of them, the small hall, their small lives. Those gathered moved restlessly in their seats, some nervously, some irritably and some he noted, rather aggressively. Jimmy nodded to Paddy to move closer to the most restless group …all known bully boys. “Okay, first things first, Thatcher wasn’t the architect; that dubious honour belongs to Keith Joseph, Thatcher was a believer and a credible mouth piece.”

“Keith Joseph? Why’s he got two Christian names?” Sean hissed at the person nearest him who happened to be a Muslim, obvious to anyone but Sean, and one clearly not pleased with the assumptive reference to the infidel’s religion.

“Keith who?” whispered Don to Lawrence.

“Bit before my time,” said Lawrence, “no idea how Terry’s heard of him.”

“Probably his posh education,” sneered Dave, by no means a ‘Terry’ convert, and having taken a seat on the stage only in support of Donald’s son.

“Thatcher and her cronies told British workers that they weren’t competitive enough and then created the right circumstances for British industrialists and entrepreneurs to close their factories and businesses in Britain and then reopen them in poorer 3rd world countries where costs such as wages and rents were nonexistent,” said Terry, passion trembling in his voice.

He’d vented and decried the whole concept to whoever would listen throughout his adolescence. This was the first time he’d tried it out on a real audience, sod’s law it had to be one so hostile.

“The intention of economists at the time was that the private sector would create or develop a service based economy in Britain.” The room was quiet, all eyes on him. He took a sip of water, ‘Christ why am I doing this? “The rich invested in what was termed at the time ‘emerging markets’, namely, companies being set up in the 3rd world by western industrialists and Corporations.” He stood upright; he’d been leaning over the lectern as he spoke, trying to get his message across and putting his whole body into it. “The idea was that the west would invent, the third world would build and the western worker would buy.”

“Yeah, we get the idea,” said a female voice, the infamous widow “and we know already.”

“You should do,” said Terry, looking out across the room, trying to locate her “but somewhere along the way you’ve learned to live with it rather than resist the unfairness of what occurred.”

“Who’re you to talk?” said Jake, “what d’ you know about what we’ve learned to live with? Who the fuck is he, anyway?” He directed this at Don.

“Look please,” said Don,” If you’ll just bear with us for a bit longer.”

“Keep going,” said Ice Man, “I want to hear what you gotta say.”

Terry nodded, “So that was the plan they sold to the people…that the west would ‘invent’, the 3rd world would ‘build’ and the western worker , employed in the service industry which replaced the manufacturing base, would ‘buy’. Now, whether it was meant to be permanent or they had other long term plans, we’ll never know… but what we do know, and what should’ve been clear at the time, is that the ‘private’ sector didn’t create enough service based industry jobs.”

He took another sip of water, he didn’t like public speaking and his throat was painfully dry, “So people were out of work, not enough buying going on….to fill the gap the government created public sector service jobs, all governments did it, right or left; they had to reduce unemployment, to create demand for other services, to increase spending power, maintain the number of consumers for these goods being made in the 3rd world.”

The room came alive at that moment, throat clearing and murmurs of what? Dissent? Agreement? Terry couldn’t tell. Neither could Jimmy who made himself more visible and pointed organizing fingers at the door guards.

“Yeah, they created the national debt that we’re still paying off,” shouted someone,

“All of this was designed to make sure,” continued Terry, raising his voice against the catcalls now emerging from the crowd, “that the industrialist and the investor had their constant return of interest.” He paused briefly, ‘this is a nightmare. How’m I ever going to convince these people that they’ve been had.’

“You got this all wrong.” shouted someone else.

Don and Dave were on their feet; Lawrence still seated was making ineffectual calming hand gestures.

“What’s he on about?” hissed Sean to Brendan.

“Fucked if I know,” said Brendan, “I just hope he knows what he’s doing.”

“What d’you mean?”

“You been paying attention?” asked Brendan.

“Yeah.”

“Well, he’s pissed off just about everyone in the room, and if he don’t put it right there’s gonna be an awful ruckus.”

“So?” said Sean, “we can handle it.”

“Idiot,” said Brendan, “c’n you count?”

Sean scanned the room, “I’m not scared of any of these fat fucks.”

“Good,” said Brendan, “then you fight ‘em, all of ‘em.”

Ice Man stood up and signaled to the room for silence, and then he sat down again; an unexpected ally.

Terry took heart and continued, “In the end, a service based economy, shops, restaurants, hotels, holidays, is vulnerable to collapse when there’s a recession and that is exactly what happened, with the great banking disaster of 2008.”

He started to pace, coming out from behind the lectern and moving from one side of the stage to the other, his stride lengthening as his confidence grew. “I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of how the banks lost all the money, I’m just going to say that it put huge pressure on the world economies and governments when they were already exposed…most of them, just like the UK, had spent a lot on creating jobs that didn’t bring any financial return by way of Gross Domestic Product. The net result was that the economies of several countries collapsed and a desperate period of austerity began for all, except….”

He paused and took a drink before continuing, then recommenced his pacing, “It wasn’t actually austerity for all. It was austerity for the likes of you and me. The seriously rich are seriously rich still. The industrialist still had his factories in the 3rd world and the investor still had his money in emerging markets, all they had to do was find a new consumer for their products …which they did.”

Ice Man started to nod his head almost imperceptibly; it was not wasted on Don and the others.

“They made money more available to the workers in the 3rd world so they could become buyers as well as builders” he was almost shouting now, “Western governments told their people they’d over spent on their credit cards, bringing this recession on themselves” he paused, and then he did shout, a controlled burst of fury “but this was a lie.”

He checked the room, he had their attention. He softened his voice “The industrialists and investors wanted to maximize their return, so they put all their funds into the 3rd world. The result was massive unemployment and poverty in the west, western governments raised fewer taxes, and to top it off those same governments reduced the taxes for the rich, scared of the threat of them leaving if they didn’t.”

He walked over to the lectern and leaned against it, needing its shelter and all his energy for the finale. “Governments, like the UK government, hid behind ‘austerity measures’ to reduce services for the masses, like libraries and refuse collections, to privatise the NHS, to cut social benefits and scrap free public education, then they forced up property prices and cut out social housing.”

He glared round the room, his anger at the conspiracy fuelling the tirade. “You’ve all heard of the Occupy Movements? Ordinary people taking to the streets to protest peacefully about the 1% who own everything? People willing to stand up for the rest of us against the system and its weapons; pepper sprays, tear gas, water cannon, rubber bullets…”

“Yeah, we heard” Jake stood up and spoke, looking round at his fellow leaders, rallying support, “and where are they now? In prison, dead, destitute…”

Terry looked down from the stage and met his eyes. He nodded slowly, “Yes …they were crushed, deliberately and coldly crushed in the tidal wave of anti-terrorist laws brought in to combat so-called atrocities on our streets.” He lifted his arms “As was Colin Carpenter and the rest of the Independents, who were trying to achieve a fairer society using democracy, trying to occupy the political space…yet the real atrocity is here and now, in Boro and places like it all over the world, where hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people, are condemned to live their lives in squalor and penury while the world’s 1% still lives in obscene luxury.”

He stopped talking, took a deep steadying breath, wondered briefly if he was insane, and then continued, “They drove the poor to places like this; fenced them in, no way in or out without a pass, ghettos. The mass of the British people now live in places like Boro…I know this for a fact…” final pause, “because I used to work in Relocations.”

The hall erupted. Chairs overturned as their occupants leapt to their feet, a few were sent flying towards the stage. Jimmy and Paddy waded in, fists flying as some of those nearest the stage leapt on to it, trying to get to Terry. Dave happily gave as good as he got, standing back to back with Don who was enjoying himself for the first time since his dad’s disappearance.

Lawrence disappeared; physical violence had never been his strong point. Terry cleared the stage swiftly of the most ambitious attackers, a motley crew of barrel-bellied bullies who were used to size being important. He had the look of someone prepared to defend a position for hours if needs be and gradually the number of takers lessened.

It took a good fifteen minutes for tempers to cool and for people to settle down enough so that individual voices could be heard. By that time Sean and Brendan had cut a swathe through the section of the crowd who’d been luckless enough to sit their side of the hall. One of these had been Eric, apparently unrecognized in the mêlée and now unconscious on the floor. It was another twenty minutes before Terry felt able to reclaim his position at the lectern. The chairs had been righted and people who could sit comfortably were doing so, those more appreciably damaged were leaning against the walls and some, like Eric, had stayed down.

Ice Man had remained aloof from the fracas. He stood and made sure he was seen, “We’re gonna sit here a little longer, and you get to finish your little lecture but you better have something good at the end of it ‘cause if not, that little confession of yours is gonna cost you big time.”

“Fair enough,” said Terry, “but to be honest, I don’t really get why you’re all so upset with me, considering most, if not all of you, are informers.”

There was a collective intake of breath as Don moved swiftly to Terry’s side, “you can’t call them informers,” his voice a hiss.

“That’s not a thing for you to say,” Ice Man’s control was slipping, “and you’re asking for it, saying such a thing.”

“Come on, we all know you’re informers,” Terry persisted, shrugging away from Don, “you know it and I know it, the only ones who don’t know are your followers.”

Jake made a lunge onto the stage, Terry sent him flying backwards with a front push kick, resuming conversationally “Look, we can all end up fighting again but that’s not what this is about, we’re here to work together and find a real way forward.”

Don tried again, “you won’t get anywhere calling them informers.”

“Why not,” said Terry, “they are; how else you think their little empires run so smoothly?”

“They don’t have to be informers for that to be the case,” said Don, “look at dad and how he ran things.”

Terry looked at him without speaking, sighed then turned back to the audience, “Listen,” he shouted, reaching to the back of the room “I know you’ve just been trying to make things work for your people, trying to work out a set of rules with the pigs, trying to keep things calm in the ghettos to keep the riot squads out but that hasn’t worked, all that’s happened is they’ve left you here and swelled the size of the ghettos.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” yelled a voice from the back.

“Don’t you get it? You’re as much victims as anyone who’s ever been sent here, you’ve not been rewarded for your loyalty, with a big house, money, beautiful women fawning over you...”

“That’s what you fink” said the same voice, nursing a black eye and a grievance.

“He’s seen your Brenda, Mike, he must’ve.” laughed another.

Terry grinned but continued quickly, “you live here, with the rest of us, in a ghetto and you have probably lived here most of your lives. Some of you’ve had children here…but what are you getting out of the deal? What are you getting for your years of loyalty?”

“Quiet everyone,” yelled Ice Man, “as for you” he gave Terry a long, hard stare, “you’re talking yourself into a nice early grave, whitey.”

“He keeps callin’ him ‘whitey’, ain’t that racist, Brendan?” Sean whispered hotly into his brother’s ear, for once apparently thinking before he spoke.

“Sean, shut the fuck up” the subtlety evidently wasted on Brendan.

“Yeah, don’t I know it,” said Terry, “the authorities want me dead, you guys probably want me dead and if I don’t win you over, one of you will make certain that I am dead. So yeah, I’m taking a very big risk here but I’m prepared to do that for a better life, for a better way, for me and my friends. All I ask is that you let me finish.”

Ice Man stared at Terry for what seemed an age but was probably only a few seconds, and then he nodded and sat back down.

Terry continued, “What you might not know is there is more than one place in the UK called Boro” he stopped, waited for it to sink in, then continued, “there are three; Boro; Boro 2 and Boro 3, each with a total population of 5 million. Boro is a Triplet city.” There was a shared intake of breath and a shuffling of feet, but no-one spoke. “There are other cities, Liverpool, known as ‘the Pool’; Manchester aka Mancs, Newcastle or ‘Toontown’; all of them ghettos and all of them Triplets.”

He looked behind him at a noise from Don who shook his head quickly; he was just as appalled as the rest of them.

Interruption over, “The M4 corridor is now the UK’s dividing line; anything north of the line is a ghetto. Meanwhile the nouveau riche, those who belong to the new global aristocracy, the super rich, they all live south of the line, below the M4 corridor, in luxury.”

He pointed south for effect, “they have everything you can only dream of and it’s all financed by dividends from manufacture and sale in the 3rd world. They don’t need us anymore and that’s why the government doesn’t look after us, why there’s no investment in UK manufacturing.”

Ice Man rubbed his chin, “You claim to know a lot about us but we don’t know nothing about you ‘cept you claim to have worked in Relocations.”

“He did,” said Don, quickly defensive.

“There’s more to it,” said Ice Man, “no-one who just worked in Relocations would know all that.”

“You’re right, Ice Man, there is more.” Don and Dave leaned forward in their chairs, Lawrence put his head down, grimly awaiting this next revelation, “I’m Special Forces and I’m trained to infiltrate and destroy.”

Jimmy responded with a loud burst of amused annoyance, “I knew it, yer bastard!” He gestured to Paddy, “see, he’d never of taken us otherwise.”

Sean’s loud; “I told you he was a liar” was hushed swiftly by Brendan’s elbow to the gut.

Don and Dave looked shocked; Lawrence sat still and silent.

The community leaders, each of them an informant as Terry had said, all of them government plants, were equally stunned. What was going on? Why had the government sent a Special Forces operative to brief them like this?

“Were you sent here to tell us all this?” asked Ice Man, “or are you rogue?”

“Both,” said Terry.

“Which means what, exactly?” demanded Don, recovering and angry.

“I was sent here to contact community leaders, the government informants here” he waved his arm to indicate the whole group, now sitting as if pinned to their chairs. “I was to monitor the situation on the ground.” He paused and turned to face Don,

“However, I’m also rogue - I’m a member of a group trying to overthrow the current regime which is driving our country into the ground and destroying the lives of the vast majority of its people.”

“Are you accusing my dad of being an informant?” demanded Don.

“It is what it is,” stated Terry, “ask your friends here, they know.”

“What in hell’s going on?” demanded Eric, conscious now, having missed all but the last 5 minutes of the proceedings.

“This sounds well dodgy,” said Jake.

“It is,” said Ice Man, “Quiet everyone. Quiet. What are you up to, whitey?”

“You’ve got to listen to me and think about what I’m saying.” He broke off and stared out at the angry faces. “The state is meant to represent the will of the people, the will of the majority of people but today it only represents a few thousand people, everyone else is either ignored by or is a slave to the system. That’s it. That’s all there is. Whatever you were promised in the past, whatever you’ve been promised recently, none of it is real, none of it is ever going to happen, you are always going to be here enforcing their code and if you should ever question it or ask for your pay off… they will kill you.”

“And how do you know that?” asked Ice Man.

“Because I’m the man they’d send,” answered Terry.

Even Ice Man felt the need to get involved this time; he made it as far as two feet in front of Terry before a turning kick to the head floored him. The rest of the activities took place over him and next to him and he was quickly joined on the floor by a few colleagues who’d not taken heed of the warning afforded by his prone position. The fighting was over quicker second time round; Jimmy and Paddy were faster off the mark and isolated the worst troublemakers, Sean and Brendan’s side of the hall still hadn’t recovered from the first bout and most were too damaged to join in at all, others with a bit more energy threw a few punches but their hearts weren’t in it. The vocal arguments went on for a bit and then after some sub-debates, a bit of shoving and pushing everyone was back in their seat.

Recovered from his brief flirtation with unconsciousness, Ice Man took up Terry’s spot by the lectern, “Okay, okay” he said, flattening his hands in the universal signal of calm, “I don’t like him any more than you do” rubbing the side of his head as he spoke “but it seems to me he got a point. We been stuck in this shit hole for 20 years grubbing out a living and I don’t see anything changing, we still gonna be here another 20 years time.” There were murmurs of assent all round him and much nodding of heads. “I don’t like the idea that some fat banker is sitting on his arse laughing at us, thinking we too stupid to know what’s going on, that don’t sit well with me at all.” More nods, “but if we act, then we all gotta go the same way ‘cause if just one of us sings the wrong tune this place be crawling with Feds and we all be dragged out an’ shot.” He glared at Terry and then back at the crowd, “I don’t mean to get shot, so if anyone thinking to sell us out, he better know we’ll find out an’ when we get him he take days to die.”

“We’re all in this together,” shouted someone, “we all gotta make an oath.”

“An oath is good,” said Ice Man, “and it better be on the bible.”

“Not everyone’s religious, Ice,” said Jake.

“Don’t matter, they sell us out, we get them, the pigs hate this shit as much as us, they won’t take much persuading to come over, anyone does sell us, we get to them,” He tilted back his head, raised his eyes to the ceiling and opened his palms, “and they face the Lord or me.”

Terry walked to the lectern “Remember it won’t just be us in Southside, we need to spread word across the whole of Boro and to the other ghettos so there’s a general uprising.” There were shouts of agreement, “and remember, the people who have jobs and work within the system, the ones working to keep the rich and the ghettos in place are so heavily in debt and so screwed by their workloads that they will join us.”

“But can you be sure of that?” asked Eric.

“Oh they’ll join us, they might be slow off the mark because they don’t look outside their tiny bubble, but they will, once we make it clear to them that they, the workers, are serfs to a system, that their debt is the yoke that holds them, once they realise the reality they will rise with us.”

“They will rise,” intoned Ice Man.

“And remember,” said Terry, “We, the people are the state. So the 1% who have seized control of the nation and its money, they’ve committed an act of treason, treason against the people is the same as treason against the state.”

Don, Dave and Lawrence surrounded Terry, “We need to talk,” said Don.

“I know,” said Terry, but first we need to see this ends smoothly or we’re all dead.”

“We need to talk,” said Don.

“Okay,” said Terry, “tomorrow.”

“No, now,” said Don.

“Tomorrow, we gotta make sure this all ends well here tonight or else everything is lost.”

“You got a lot of questions to answer,” said Dave.

“Not really,” said Terry.

“Tomorrow?” said Dave.

“Tomorrow,” said Terry.

≈ ≈

Superintendent Bill Travers opened his emails. There was one marked high security. He opened it and entered his password. The message told him that over 30 local community informants had been gathered in one place with a number of known transgressors. He was instructed to resolve the issue. “What the fuck does that mean,” he muttered, “resolve the issue?”

Hope you enjoy the book and have a nice week

Cheers Arun

Uprising

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Set in a dystopian future; all wealth is in the hands of the Corporations, the 1% whilst the 99% live in economic debt or poverty on sink estates in the North. Terry works for Relocations, his job is to relocate undesirables to these estates. Unfortunately for Terry he is late for work once too often and is himself relocated to a sink. But Terry is not all he seems. Why is he there and who does he really work for?

Sample below:

Cramming the last piece of toast into his mouth Terry Jones grabbed his jacket and left his apartment for the office. He’d had the option of a high-rise within walking distance when he was first assigned to Relocations; his reasons for turning it down had seemed sound; cost = astronomical, space = minimal. Now, and not for the first time, he wished he’d taken it. That morning he’d set his alarm earlier than usual in the hopes of beating the rush hour traffic, problem was he never really managed to keep to his schedule (poor time management or lousy schedule?) and he found himself, yet again, bumper to bumper and yet again, late for work.
Brian Olsen made the final adjustments to his tie, jacket and hair before leaving the men’s room and heading to his desk; all the while diligently maintaining an erect 6ft 6in posture, a copy of today’s Times clamped under his right arm, his brief case gripped firmly in his right hand, and as he strode he repeated his mantra over and over in his head ‘today I will excel, today I will exceed all expectations, today I will excel, today I will exceed all expectations….’

Rain Morgan, stared at the free drinks machine for a few moments before selecting a cappuccino with sugar. Her actual name was Rainbow Sunset, her mother having one her odd moments, but she preferred Rain. She was quickly joined by Debby Jenna and Phillippa Djukovic; just time for a quick debrief of Phillippa’s date with Simon Brookes from Finance.
Peter Illyffe, the divisional manager for Relocations 1, left his office and headed for the usual 8:30 briefing in meeting room 3, aka the cupboard due to its lack of size and windows. His staff fell in behind, a well-rehearsed troupe, that is everyone except Terry Jones who was still driving fruitlessly round and round the car park.

The room filled quickly; those lucky enough to get in the door first grabbed a seat at the table, Peter at their head.

“Morning everyone,” he said, to which there were the usual responses of “morning, morning Peter,” a few nods and coughs and a silky “morning, Boss” from Brian, tall even when sitting down. “No Terry, I see?”

This too was greeted by the usual responses, initial silence, then embarrassed coughs or ums…. followed by a clear and unequivocal “he’s not in yet, Boss” from Brian. Peter made a note in the top corner of his meeting notes, as usual.

“Ok, everyone got a copy of today’s agenda?” general nods everywhere, “good, ok – item one then – the recent merger with Alderson’s. As per our meeting yesterday morning I’ve checked up the line and can confirm that Alderson’s Relocations are being wound down and we will ‘inherit their workload’.”

“Relocations are being relocated.” Phillippa’s quip was not altogether unexpected; there were a few groans.

“Thank you Phillippa,” said Peter.

“How big a workload we talking?” asked Rain.

“Approx half again our existing workload,” replied Peter.

“Will we be getting more staff?” Rain again.

“No,” said Peter.

“But how are we meant to cope with that?” asked Debby, saying what the others were thinking.

“By ‘working smarter’,” Brian jumped in, borrowing one of Peter’s ‘phrases of the moment’, “and if some people spent less time at the coffee machine talking then we’d get a lot more done.”

“Who’re you on about?” demanded Debby, realising too late that by asking the question she had singled herself out. Peter made another note at the top of his meeting papers.

“Moving on” said Peter, sounding tired, “there will be a further meeting at 2pm today with the team from Alderson’s so we can ‘manage the handover’ smoothly. Rain and I will attend that. Another quick point, the company will no longer be providing free drinks.”

There was a collective gasp, then “Why’re they changing it?” asked Debby, “I mean we’ve had free coffee for years now.” For some reason her mouth seemed to be working overtime this morning, in the absence of Terry it could be deemed she had assumed his mantle.

“As you all know we’re facing ever ‘stiffer competition’ out there, which is one of the reasons we’ve been merged with Alderson’s. The Efficiency Department has identified that the company could save almost £100,000 a year by moving to a ‘pay for your own’ drinks environment.”

“Can we bring a kettle and make our own drinks?” asked Phillippa.

“No,” replied Peter, “that would mean providing kitchen facilities – an added expense.”

“What about a flask?” asked Brian.

“Flasks are OK,” said Peter, flashing him a grateful smile.

“If you can drink anything from a flask,” muttered Rain.

“Everyone, now, come to order, please.” Peter was becoming irritated and the strain of not showing it was telling on his stress levels. At that point Terry opened the door and slipped into the room, “Ah! Mr. Jones, glad you could join us.”

“Sorry I’m late,” said Terry “couldn’t find anywhere to park.”

“There were loads of spaces when I got here at 8:00,” said Brian.

“I got held up in traffic,” offered Terry, his expression hopeful.

“Then might I suggest you leave earlier,” replied Brian, “we all make the effort to be here on time, it’s only ever you who’s late.”

“Thank you, Brian,” Peter interceded. “OK the final point, we’ve had a report from C.I.T, the Counter Intelligence Team,” he elaborated, staring pointedly at Phillippa over whose head most things of import were known to sail, “that we have a ‘heightened terror threat’ as a result of our merger with Alderson’s.” He waited for the information to sink in then continued by way of explanation, “Apparently we’re now the 3rd largest provider of labour resource in the EU so it makes us an even bigger target.” Phillippa looked on the verge of tears, possibly at being singled out for the stare, the rest were demonstrating variously dismay or affected disinterest but no-one spoke. “So everybody please ‘stay alert, stay vigilant’ and re-watch the compulsory DVD ‘Terror and Counter Terrorism’. Remember, ‘we’re all in this together’ and it’s up to each and every one of us to …‘keep the workplace safe’.”

Terry winced; he was convinced that Peter’s insistence on speaking in inverted commas and quoting the company watchwords at every opportunity had a damaging effect on his psyche.

“Did anyone see the news this morning?” asked Rain, too brightly. “There was an explosion in the town centre.”

“Yeah,” chipped in Debby, “near Macheson’s.”

“They said something about 20 casualties,” Rain added, “it’s awful”.

“Did they say who it was?” asked Terry.

“It’s a bit early for that kind of info,” snapped Brian.

“I dunno,” defended Terry, “they sometimes give a warning.”

“That’s the Red Freedoms,” said Debby, “the Black Hands don’t give a warning.”

“Which could imply the Black Hands,” said Terry, settling in for a natter on the merits and demerits of one terrorist organisation’s way of doing business versus another.

“OK,” interrupted Peter, forestalling further chat, “Any questions?”

“Parking,” said Terry, opportunistic as ever, “when are they doing something about parking?”

“As we said yesterday and the day before and, oh yes, as we’ve been saying every day in all these months since you joined us, they aren’t going to do anything about the parking, thank you, Terry.” Peter stared round the table, lingering on Phillippa, as if daring any more utterances.

“When are they going to fix the tower clock?” she asked, making a sterling effort to fight back tears.

“And they aren’t going to fix the clock, either, Phillippa. As we’ve already said it will cost too much to repair. Any more questions?”

Silence.

“Good, back to work all of you, except you Terry, if you could just stay back a minute.”
The others filed out of the room and closed the door behind them.

“You were late again Terry.”

“I know but it was the traffic….”

“Traffic is not an excuse, Terry,” said Peter, “you should know to factor that in to your plans. Also, as I recall, Human Resources offered you an apartment close by when you joined us, a much sought after facility that had only come available due to the unfortunate demise of your predecessor.” He fell silent, possibly in recognition of human frailty and the fact that the previous occupant had thrown himself ungratefully off the 7th floor balcony of the much vaunted facility. “You are paid to be here between the hours of 8:30 and 5:00. It’s up to you to get yourself here on time.”

“Yes,” said Terry, for once recognising a time when the less words said might be the better.

“Everyone else manages to be here. I have to come from further away than you so I leave earlier. Brian always gets here at 8:00.”

“I know,” Terry murmured, humbly, while thinking 'yeah but Brian hasn’t got a life…'

“And he doesn’t leave his desk until 5.45 whereas you are packed and out the door by 5:10 if you can get away with it.”

Again, Brian hasn’t got a life …“I always do my hours…”

“Do you want to see your clocking in sheet?” asked Peter. Terry ducked his head; he knew what it would show. “The thing is Terry, it’s not working out for us; I think we need to move you on.”

Terry grimaced “I’m sorry Peter, I promise I will get here earlier in future.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late, Terry, Galaxy has already collated your data and raised it with Human Resources. They’ve spotlighted you and put in the transfer request.”

“You mean I’m already on the List?” asked Terry. “That was quick.”

Peter gave him a look; he was a strange one and no mistake, “Should come through in a few days. …Obviously you can’t be on site when it comes through, that would create a conflict of interest so your employment with Peter Brookes will be terminated this morning.”

Terry placed his head in his hands; his date with Cathy in Finance had just gone down the pan.

“I’m sorry, Terry but you knew your stats were in the system. It was only a matter of time before Galaxy highlighted you. You know the drill; it’s out of my hands.”

“I know, I know,” said Terry.

“I’m afraid I have to escort you off the premises.” Terry nodded. “Straight from this meeting.”

“Right now? Don’t I get to say goodbye to anyone?”

“Afraid not, you will be clocked out …” Peter flicked through his paperwork, “5 minutes from now. Sorry but there’s nothing I can do.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Terry, “I know how the system works.”


Happy reading, hope you have a good week.

Cheers

Arun

Uprising

Amazon .co.uk
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uprising-Aru...
Amazon.com
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The book 'Uprising' will be free from Monday 28th August to Friday 1st September 2017.

The book 'Uprising' will be free from Monday 28th August to Friday 1st September 2017. Please feel free to tell your friends

Hi

Amazon.co.uk
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uprising-Aru...
Amazon.com
https://www.amazon.com/Uprising-Arun-...

Extract below

Community Leaders

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

Thomas Jefferson


Three days later a group of community leaders from lower Boro, Southside made their way to a small community hall; 30 people give or take and each one had received a personally delivered verbal invitation, issued in the name of Donald Snr. Terry had insisted on all wards being represented and had borne impatiently the resultant delay. He’d been given the low-down on the leaders, including a vivid description of the one woman in the group; Irene, widow of one of the most feared men in Boro whose viciousness paled now besides the rumours that surrounded her name.

It was 19:00 hrs by the time the last one was seated. Jimmy had posted his brothers and several of their mates at the various doors; a dual purpose was served, keeping the selected in and the interlopers out. The community leaders understood the risks of such a large meeting and their attendance indicated implied acceptance, but the added burden of knowledge concerning the chip’s locator facility was known only to Terry, Don and the others.

Terry had positioned himself on the stage behind a lectern; a shield, a leaning post and a symbol of authority. Don was seated in one of the chairs in the row behind him, with Lawrence and Dave, stand-in father figures protecting Donald’s boy, positioned solemnly on either side of him. Eric was in the audience, his choice. Sandra had been persuaded to stay home, to be there in case Donald turned up had been Don’s argument, stoutly supported by Terry. He looked out over the assembly, thinking again how glad he was that Sandra was out of it, if this went wrong, it could go seriously wrong. Then he spoke his voice betraying none of this concern, “Gentlemen, and Irene, thank you for coming,”

She acknowledged the personal salute with the barest flicker, some in the audience nodded, others sat stony faced, and all wondered who Terry was.

“You’ve been invited here to talk about the future,” said Terry, “but before we can do that I have to raise a rather thorny issue, that of informants.”

“Where’s Donald?” demanded a large black man in the front; he’d caught Terry’s attention at the start, not just size but demeanour singled him out, this must be the feared Ice Man of whom he’d been told.

Moment of partial truth… “Donald’s not here yet,” said Terry

“Why not?” demanded a small wiry man from a few rows back, “and pardon my French, but who the fuck are you?”

“My name’s…” began Terry at which point Don stepped forward.

“It’s okay,” he said, “most of you will know me and for those who don’t, I’m Donald’s son.”

“So?” said someone.

“My dad would vouch for Terry,” said Don, “if he was here.”

“Well that’s dandy,” said Ice Man, “but not good enough.”

“It’ll have to be,” said Terry, “that is, until Donald gets here.”

“Where is Donald?” demanded the wiry man, getting into his stride.

“Late,” said Terry.

The room was filled with blank looks.

“Look,” said Terry, “you’ve all been invited here by people you know and trust, and Donald would be here if he could. You all know each other and you know Don or most of you know Don, so there should be no real problem.”

“If there is,” said Ice Man, “you’ll be the first to find out about it.”

“I’m sure I will,” said Terry.

“Okay,” said Don, “just give us a chance to explain, that’s all we’re asking.”

There was no reaction from the group so Terry chose to ignore the silent hostility and ploughed on, “First,” he said, “I’d like to tell you a story and I’d appreciate it there were no interruptions until the end, if that’s ok.”

“No it’s not,” said Ice Man, “I didn’t want to be here. I’m not about to sit here an’ let someone I don’t know talk at me.”

“Well,” said Terry, “that’s understandable but please, if you bear with me I think you’ll like what I have to say, eventually that is.”

“I’m with Ice Man,” said someone else, “this is a shit thing you got me into, O’Connell.”

Jimmy jumped in, “Listen, you might not like being here but this needs to be done, things need to be said, we ain’t none of us gettin’ nothin’ outta the way things run round here and it’s about time we did something about it.”

“Is that right?” said Ice Man, rising to his full 6’ 6”.

“Okay ‘Ice Man’,” said Terry, “we can all see how big you are but what are you doing for your community? How are your people coping with the shortages?”

“I’m doing just fine,” said Ice Man, “ain’t no whitey gonna try and slip into my territory and take over.” Having said his piece he folded himself back onto the chair.

“That’s not what this is about, Ice,” said Don, “it’s about all of us acting together, to change things.”

“Ah, this is a waste of time,” said someone from the back of the hall, rising to leave, “you ain’t gonna change nothin’. It’s been like this for years and it’ll always be like this.”

“Sit down Jake,” snapped Jimmy as Brendan readied himself to bar the exit.

Terry thought quickly, recalling the bios he’d been given. If memory served, Jake controlled a small ward, not mission critical; he could use him as a test case. “It’s okay Jimmy, if he wants to leave, let him, at least we’ll know which side of the fence he’s on.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” demanded Jake.

“It means the sinks are crawling with informants,” said Terry, “and anyone who isn’t interested in changing things for the better is more than likely an informant.”

“I ain’t no informant,” said Jake, “and I’ll kill any man who says I am.”

“No one’s saying you are an informant, but,” said Don, turning his hands up in the classic questioning pose, “if you’re not interested in improving things then it’s a bit sus.”

“Sit down Jake,” said Ice Man, “first we’ll hear what little whitey has to say and then if we don’t like it,” he paused for effect, “we’ll kill him.”

Jake grunted a bit, then nodded and sat.

“Okay,” said Terry, “let’s begin at the beginning shall we, where this war really started.”

“War?” demanded someone, “What war?”

“Please, gents,” said Don, “just listen.”

“Yeah, but you said there was a war,” said the same voice, thin and reedy, anxiety paramount.

“He didn’t mean between us, Tim,” said Eric, turning in his chair to look at a young man three rows behind him, “just listen and you’ll see where he’s going.”

“Give me a chance; all of you” said Terry, “please.”

There was a brief silence.

Then “We’re listening whitey,” said Ice Man, “but we ain’t patient types.”

“Okay,” said Terry, “the beginning then. Back in the 80’s,”

“Are you taking the piss? What the fuck do you know about the 80’s?” said someone.

“Look,” snapped Terry, “The world outside your little ghetto is turning to shit and if you really want to change things for your community now’s the time to jump on board.”

“That’s cute, whitey,” said Ice Man.

“Well, you might think so, but it doesn’t seem so cute to me, whilst you people are stuck here, barely scraping a living, d’ you have any idea how the rich are living? How much they have? How completely different your lifestyles are? They live like gods and you live like slaves so listen up, ‘cause this is a wakeup call.”

Ice Man stared at Terry for a full 30 seconds before leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms, “I ain’t no slave … and the clock’s tickin’, so get on with it, white boy.”

Terry waited a few seconds, “Okay, so we’re back in the 80s with Thatcher. I know everyone’s heard of Thatcher, hell one of the streets here is named after her, but what she did to this country takes some understanding so I’d like to run through it again so we can see how they achieved all of this,” He waved his arms, indicating all of them, the small hall, their small lives. Those gathered moved restlessly in their seats, some nervously, some irritably and some he noted, rather aggressively. Jimmy nodded to Paddy to move closer to the most restless group …all known bully boys. “Okay, first things first, Thatcher wasn’t the architect; that dubious honour belongs to Keith Joseph, Thatcher was a believer and a credible mouth piece.”

“Keith Joseph? Why’s he got two Christian names?” Sean hissed at the person nearest him who happened to be a Muslim, obvious to anyone but Sean, and one clearly not pleased with the assumptive reference to the infidel’s religion.

“Keith who?” whispered Don to Lawrence.

“Bit before my time,” said Lawrence, “no idea how Terry’s heard of him.”

“Probably his posh education,” sneered Dave, by no means a ‘Terry’ convert, and having taken a seat on the stage only in support of Donald’s son.

“Thatcher and her cronies told British workers that they weren’t competitive enough and then created the right circumstances for British industrialists and entrepreneurs to close their factories and businesses in Britain and then reopen them in poorer 3rd world countries where costs such as wages and rents were nonexistent,” said Terry, passion trembling in his voice.

He’d vented and decried the whole concept to whoever would listen throughout his adolescence. This was the first time he’d tried it out on a real audience, sod’s law it had to be one so hostile.

“The intention of economists at the time was that the private sector would create or develop a service based economy in Britain.” The room was quiet, all eyes on him. He took a sip of water, ‘Christ why am I doing this? “The rich invested in what was termed at the time ‘emerging markets’, namely, companies being set up in the 3rd world by western industrialists and Corporations.” He stood upright; he’d been leaning over the lectern as he spoke, trying to get his message across and putting his whole body into it. “The idea was that the west would invent, the third world would build and the western worker would buy.”

“Yeah, we get the idea,” said a female voice, the infamous widow “and we know already.”

“You should do,” said Terry, looking out across the room, trying to locate her “but somewhere along the way you’ve learned to live with it rather than resist the unfairness of what occurred.”

“Who’re you to talk?” said Jake, “what d’ you know about what we’ve learned to live with? Who the fuck is he, anyway?” He directed this at Don.

“Look please,” said Don,” If you’ll just bear with us for a bit longer.”

“Keep going,” said Ice Man, “I want to hear what you gotta say.”

Terry nodded, “So that was the plan they sold to the people…that the west would ‘invent’, the 3rd world would ‘build’ and the western worker , employed in the service industry which replaced the manufacturing base, would ‘buy’. Now, whether it was meant to be permanent or they had other long term plans, we’ll never know… but what we do know, and what should’ve been clear at the time, is that the ‘private’ sector didn’t create enough service based industry jobs.”

He took another sip of water, he didn’t like public speaking and his throat was painfully dry, “So people were out of work, not enough buying going on….to fill the gap the government created public sector service jobs, all governments did it, right or left; they had to reduce unemployment, to create demand for other services, to increase spending power, maintain the number of consumers for these goods being made in the 3rd world.”

The room came alive at that moment, throat clearing and murmurs of what? Dissent? Agreement? Terry couldn’t tell. Neither could Jimmy who made himself more visible and pointed organizing fingers at the door guards.

“Yeah, they created the national debt that we’re still paying off,” shouted someone,

“All of this was designed to make sure,” continued Terry, raising his voice against the catcalls now emerging from the crowd, “that the industrialist and the investor had their constant return of interest.” He paused briefly, ‘this is a nightmare. How’m I ever going to convince these people that they’ve been had.’

“You got this all wrong.” shouted someone else.

Don and Dave were on their feet; Lawrence still seated was making ineffectual calming hand gestures.

“What’s he on about?” hissed Sean to Brendan.

“Fucked if I know,” said Brendan, “I just hope he knows what he’s doing.”

“What d’you mean?”

“You been paying attention?” asked Brendan.

“Yeah.”

“Well, he’s pissed off just about everyone in the room, and if he don’t put it right there’s gonna be an awful ruckus.”

“So?” said Sean, “we can handle it.”

“Idiot,” said Brendan, “c’n you count?”

Sean scanned the room, “I’m not scared of any of these fat fucks.”

“Good,” said Brendan, “then you fight ‘em, all of ‘em.”

Ice Man stood up and signaled to the room for silence, and then he sat down again; an unexpected ally.

Terry took heart and continued, “In the end, a service based economy, shops, restaurants, hotels, holidays, is vulnerable to collapse when there’s a recession and that is exactly what happened, with the great banking disaster of 2008.”

He started to pace, coming out from behind the lectern and moving from one side of the stage to the other, his stride lengthening as his confidence grew. “I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of how the banks lost all the money, I’m just going to say that it put huge pressure on the world economies and governments when they were already exposed…most of them, just like the UK, had spent a lot on creating jobs that didn’t bring any financial return by way of Gross Domestic Product. The net result was that the economies of several countries collapsed and a desperate period of austerity began for all, except….”

He paused and took a drink before continuing, then recommenced his pacing, “It wasn’t actually austerity for all. It was austerity for the likes of you and me. The seriously rich are seriously rich still. The industrialist still had his factories in the 3rd world and the investor still had his money in emerging markets, all they had to do was find a new consumer for their products …which they did.”

Ice Man started to nod his head almost imperceptibly; it was not wasted on Don and the others.

“They made money more available to the workers in the 3rd world so they could become buyers as well as builders” he was almost shouting now, “Western governments told their people they’d over spent on their credit cards, bringing this recession on themselves” he paused, and then he did shout, a controlled burst of fury “but this was a lie.”

He checked the room, he had their attention. He softened his voice “The industrialists and investors wanted to maximize their return, so they put all their funds into the 3rd world. The result was massive unemployment and poverty in the west, western governments raised fewer taxes, and to top it off those same governments reduced the taxes for the rich, scared of the threat of them leaving if they didn’t.”

He walked over to the lectern and leaned against it, needing its shelter and all his energy for the finale. “Governments, like the UK government, hid behind ‘austerity measures’ to reduce services for the masses, like libraries and refuse collections, to privatise the NHS, to cut social benefits and scrap free public education, then they forced up property prices and cut out social housing.”

He glared round the room, his anger at the conspiracy fuelling the tirade. “You’ve all heard of the Occupy Movements? Ordinary people taking to the streets to protest peacefully about the 1% who own everything? People willing to stand up for the rest of us against the system and its weapons; pepper sprays, tear gas, water cannon, rubber bullets…”

“Yeah, we heard” Jake stood up and spoke, looking round at his fellow leaders, rallying support, “and where are they now? In prison, dead, destitute…”

Terry looked down from the stage and met his eyes. He nodded slowly, “Yes …they were crushed, deliberately and coldly crushed in the tidal wave of anti-terrorist laws brought in to combat so-called atrocities on our streets.” He lifted his arms “As was Colin Carpenter and the rest of the Independents, who were trying to achieve a fairer society using democracy, trying to occupy the political space…yet the real atrocity is here and now, in Boro and places like it all over the world, where hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people, are condemned to live their lives in squalor and penury while the world’s 1% still lives in obscene luxury.”

He stopped talking, took a deep steadying breath, wondered briefly if he was insane, and then continued, “They drove the poor to places like this; fenced them in, no way in or out without a pass, ghettos. The mass of the British people now live in places like Boro…I know this for a fact…” final pause, “because I used to work in Relocations.”

The hall erupted. Chairs overturned as their occupants leapt to their feet, a few were sent flying towards the stage. Jimmy and Paddy waded in, fists flying as some of those nearest the stage leapt on to it, trying to get to Terry. Dave happily gave as good as he got, standing back to back with Don who was enjoying himself for the first time since his dad’s disappearance.

Lawrence disappeared; physical violence had never been his strong point. Terry cleared the stage swiftly of the most ambitious attackers, a motley crew of barrel-bellied bullies who were used to size being important. He had the look of someone prepared to defend a position for hours if needs be and gradually the number of takers lessened.

It took a good fifteen minutes for tempers to cool and for people to settle down enough so that individual voices could be heard. By that time Sean and Brendan had cut a swathe through the section of the crowd who’d been luckless enough to sit their side of the hall. One of these had been Eric, apparently unrecognized in the mêlée and now unconscious on the floor. It was another twenty minutes before Terry felt able to reclaim his position at the lectern. The chairs had been righted and people who could sit comfortably were doing so, those more appreciably damaged were leaning against the walls and some, like Eric, had stayed down.

Ice Man had remained aloof from the fracas. He stood and made sure he was seen, “We’re gonna sit here a little longer, and you get to finish your little lecture but you better have something good at the end of it ‘cause if not, that little confession of yours is gonna cost you big time.”

“Fair enough,” said Terry, “but to be honest, I don’t really get why you’re all so upset with me, considering most, if not all of you, are informers.”

There was a collective intake of breath as Don moved swiftly to Terry’s side, “you can’t call them informers,” his voice a hiss.

“That’s not a thing for you to say,” Ice Man’s control was slipping, “and you’re asking for it, saying such a thing.”

“Come on, we all know you’re informers,” Terry persisted, shrugging away from Don, “you know it and I know it, the only ones who don’t know are your followers.”

Jake made a lunge onto the stage, Terry sent him flying backwards with a front push kick, resuming conversationally “Look, we can all end up fighting again but that’s not what this is about, we’re here to work together and find a real way forward.”

Don tried again, “you won’t get anywhere calling them informers.”

“Why not,” said Terry, “they are; how else you think their little empires run so smoothly?”

“They don’t have to be informers for that to be the case,” said Don, “look at dad and how he ran things.”

Terry looked at him without speaking, sighed then turned back to the audience, “Listen,” he shouted, reaching to the back of the room “I know you’ve just been trying to make things work for your people, trying to work out a set of rules with the pigs, trying to keep things calm in the ghettos to keep the riot squads out but that hasn’t worked, all that’s happened is they’ve left you here and swelled the size of the ghettos.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” yelled a voice from the back.

“Don’t you get it? You’re as much victims as anyone who’s ever been sent here, you’ve not been rewarded for your loyalty, with a big house, money, beautiful women fawning over you...”

“That’s what you fink” said the same voice, nursing a black eye and a grievance.

“He’s seen your Brenda, Mike, he must’ve.” laughed another.

Terry grinned but continued quickly, “you live here, with the rest of us, in a ghetto and you have probably lived here most of your lives. Some of you’ve had children here…but what are you getting out of the deal? What are you getting for your years of loyalty?”

“Quiet everyone,” yelled Ice Man, “as for you” he gave Terry a long, hard stare, “you’re talking yourself into a nice early grave, whitey.”

“He keeps callin’ him ‘whitey’, ain’t that racist, Brendan?” Sean whispered hotly into his brother’s ear, for once apparently thinking before he spoke.

“Sean, shut the fuck up” the subtlety evidently wasted on Brendan.

“Yeah, don’t I know it,” said Terry, “the authorities want me dead, you guys probably want me dead and if I don’t win you over, one of you will make certain that I am dead. So yeah, I’m taking a very big risk here but I’m prepared to do that for a better life, for a better way, for me and my friends. All I ask is that you let me finish.”

Ice Man stared at Terry for what seemed an age but was probably only a few seconds, and then he nodded and sat back down.

Terry continued, “What you might not know is there is more than one place in the UK called Boro” he stopped, waited for it to sink in, then continued, “there are three; Boro; Boro 2 and Boro 3, each with a total population of 5 million. Boro is a Triplet city.” There was a shared intake of breath and a shuffling of feet, but no-one spoke. “There are other cities, Liverpool, known as ‘the Pool’; Manchester aka Mancs, Newcastle or ‘Toontown’; all of them ghettos and all of them Triplets.”

He looked behind him at a noise from Don who shook his head quickly; he was just as appalled as the rest of them.

Interruption over, “The M4 corridor is now the UK’s dividing line; anything north of the line is a ghetto. Meanwhile the nouveau riche, those who belong to the new global aristocracy, the super rich, they all live south of the line, below the M4 corridor, in luxury.”

He pointed south for effect, “they have everything you can only dream of and it’s all financed by dividends from manufacture and sale in the 3rd world. They don’t need us anymore and that’s why the government doesn’t look after us, why there’s no investment in UK manufacturing.”

Ice Man rubbed his chin, “You claim to know a lot about us but we don’t know nothing about you ‘cept you claim to have worked in Relocations.”

“He did,” said Don, quickly defensive.

“There’s more to it,” said Ice Man, “no-one who just worked in Relocations would know all that.”

“You’re right, Ice Man, there is more.” Don and Dave leaned forward in their chairs, Lawrence put his head down, grimly awaiting this next revelation, “I’m Special Forces and I’m trained to infiltrate and destroy.”

Jimmy responded with a loud burst of amused annoyance, “I knew it, yer bastard!” He gestured to Paddy, “see, he’d never of taken us otherwise.”

Sean’s loud; “I told you he was a liar” was hushed swiftly by Brendan’s elbow to the gut.

Don and Dave looked shocked; Lawrence sat still and silent.

The community leaders, each of them an informant as Terry had said, all of them government plants, were equally stunned. What was going on? Why had the government sent a Special Forces operative to brief them like this?

“Were you sent here to tell us all this?” asked Ice Man, “or are you rogue?”

“Both,” said Terry.

“Which means what, exactly?” demanded Don, recovering and angry.

“I was sent here to contact community leaders, the government informants here” he waved his arm to indicate the whole group, now sitting as if pinned to their chairs. “I was to monitor the situation on the ground.” He paused and turned to face Don,

“However, I’m also rogue - I’m a member of a group trying to overthrow the current regime which is driving our country into the ground and destroying the lives of the vast majority of its people.”

“Are you accusing my dad of being an informant?” demanded Don.

“It is what it is,” stated Terry, “ask your friends here, they know.”

“What in hell’s going on?” demanded Eric, conscious now, having missed all but the last 5 minutes of the proceedings.

“This sounds well dodgy,” said Jake.

“It is,” said Ice Man, “Quiet everyone. Quiet. What are you up to, whitey?”

“You’ve got to listen to me and think about what I’m saying.” He broke off and stared out at the angry faces. “The state is meant to represent the will of the people, the will of the majority of people but today it only represents a few thousand people, everyone else is either ignored by or is a slave to the system. That’s it. That’s all there is. Whatever you were promised in the past, whatever you’ve been promised recently, none of it is real, none of it is ever going to happen, you are always going to be here enforcing their code and if you should ever question it or ask for your pay off… they will kill you.”

“And how do you know that?” asked Ice Man.

“Because I’m the man they’d send,” answered Terry.

Even Ice Man felt the need to get involved this time; he made it as far as two feet in front of Terry before a turning kick to the head floored him. The rest of the activities took place over him and next to him and he was quickly joined on the floor by a few colleagues who’d not taken heed of the warning afforded by his prone position. The fighting was over quicker second time round; Jimmy and Paddy were faster off the mark and isolated the worst troublemakers, Sean and Brendan’s side of the hall still hadn’t recovered from the first bout and most were too damaged to join in at all, others with a bit more energy threw a few punches but their hearts weren’t in it. The vocal arguments went on for a bit and then after some sub-debates, a bit of shoving and pushing everyone was back in their seat.

Recovered from his brief flirtation with unconsciousness, Ice Man took up Terry’s spot by the lectern, “Okay, okay” he said, flattening his hands in the universal signal of calm, “I don’t like him any more than you do” rubbing the side of his head as he spoke “but it seems to me he got a point. We been stuck in this shit hole for 20 years grubbing out a living and I don’t see anything changing, we still gonna be here another 20 years time.” There were murmurs of assent all round him and much nodding of heads. “I don’t like the idea that some fat banker is sitting on his arse laughing at us, thinking we too stupid to know what’s going on, that don’t sit well with me at all.” More nods, “but if we act, then we all gotta go the same way ‘cause if just one of us sings the wrong tune this place be crawling with Feds and we all be dragged out an’ shot.” He glared at Terry and then back at the crowd, “I don’t mean to get shot, so if anyone thinking to sell us out, he better know we’ll find out an’ when we get him he take days to die.”

“We’re all in this together,” shouted someone, “we all gotta make an oath.”

“An oath is good,” said Ice Man, “and it better be on the bible.”

“Not everyone’s religious, Ice,” said Jake.

“Don’t matter, they sell us out, we get them, the pigs hate this shit as much as us, they won’t take much persuading to come over, anyone does sell us, we get to them,” He tilted back his head, raised his eyes to the ceiling and opened his palms, “and they face the Lord or me.”

Terry walked to the lectern “Remember it won’t just be us in Southside, we need to spread word across the whole of Boro and to the other ghettos so there’s a general uprising.” There were shouts of agreement, “and remember, the people who have jobs and work within the system, the ones working to keep the rich and the ghettos in place are so heavily in debt and so screwed by their workloads that they will join us.”

“But can you be sure of that?” asked Eric.

“Oh they’ll join us, they might be slow off the mark because they don’t look outside their tiny bubble, but they will, once we make it clear to them that they, the workers, are serfs to a system, that their debt is the yoke that holds them, once they realise the reality they will rise with us.”

“They will rise,” intoned Ice Man.

“And remember,” said Terry, “We, the people are the state. So the 1% who have seized control of the nation and its money, they’ve committed an act of treason, treason against the people is the same as treason against the state.”

Don, Dave and Lawrence surrounded Terry, “We need to talk,” said Don.

“I know,” said Terry, but first we need to see this ends smoothly or we’re all dead.”

“We need to talk,” said Don.

“Okay,” said Terry, “tomorrow.”

“No, now,” said Don.

“Tomorrow, we gotta make sure this all ends well here tonight or else everything is lost.”

“You got a lot of questions to answer,” said Dave.

“Not really,” said Terry.

“Tomorrow?” said Dave.

“Tomorrow,” said Terry.

≈ ≈

Superintendent Bill Travers opened his emails. There was one marked high security. He opened it and entered his password. The message told him that over 30 local community informants had been gathered in one place with a number of known transgressors. He was instructed to resolve the issue. “What the fuck does that mean,” he muttered, “resolve the issue?”

Hope you enjoy the book and have a nice week

Cheers Arun

Uprising

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Extract below

The Independents - What price democracy?

The meeting organiser approached the rostrum, he paused and waited for the cheering to stop, and then he spoke, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this, the very first meeting of the Independent candidates. It’s wonderful to see so many of you here in one place. We’ve selected a few people to speak with you today from the hundreds of offers we had …for those of you disappointed this time, we have a list for our next meeting and gradually we hope to give everyone who wants to speak a platform.”

The applause rose again as he gestured to a slightly built, sandy-haired man standing to the side. “Now, please give a rousing welcome to the man who started it all, our inspirational mentor and guide… Colin Carpenter.”

The delegates rose as one and cheered and clapped as the man moved confidently to the centre of the stage and took up position behind the rostrum. As he did so a single file of people walked on stage and sat in the row of chairs behind him.

“Thank you, Chris, for that introduction.” Colin said, beaming, the lights glinting off his glasses, “It’s been a long hard struggle but now we’re here, a visible force to be reckoned with, so…” There were more cheers from the hall. “WELCOME,” he shouted raising both arms, “today is the day we begin to change everything. Today we lay down the marker whereby we reclaim our country, reclaim our world, today is the day we start the new era of real rule of the people, by the people and for the people.”

There were more cheers and scatterings of delegates stood to applaud him; then more followed until the whole assembly was on its feet.

“No longer will we tolerate a corrupt, locked in party system; no longer will we tolerate their machinations, their duplicity, their constant deceptions, and their fake party divisions. We know they’re all the same, that they represent the same hidden wealthy few who own this country, we know they all rub shoulders with this clique of scoundrels and that they pander to their every whim. We will resist, we will stand against these corrupt servants of the rich and we will win.”

There were shouts of ‘win’ from the floor. Colin gestured that they should sit as he prepared to begin his speech proper. He waited a few moments until all were seated and the hall was quiet.

“I set out on this trail barely a year ago, not knowing where it would lead. Like many of you, I watched the Occupy movement in its struggle to take back control from those who hold us in thrall. I admit it, I watched rather than joined them; I supported them in spirit.” He paused, “I tried to make a stand by myself. I tried to keep my business going; I was trading on fumes. I cut costs and used inferior materials, I streamlined processes until there was no slack, I had to lay off staff who’d been with me for years and make the ones I kept work a 3 day week. We missed deadlines and our quality dropped – in the end I closed it down. Rather than be associated with what we were being forced to produce, rather than re-locate to China and do what my competitors had done – take advantage of slave labour in the East, rather than sacrifice my principles, I closed down the business I had started from scratch 10 years ago.”

He stopped talking, leaving a gap as if mourning a lost dream then he spoke again, quietly but with deep passion, “I was deeply unhappy and desperate to do something to make these rogues realise and stop what they were doing; it was something that seared into me until I could stand it no longer. I spent hours thinking about what I could do; without a revolution I couldn’t see anything changing. Then it hit me – I could ‘occupy’ the Political Space! I could stand on an ethical platform as an independent at the next general election.”

He looked slowly round the hall, making eye contact where he could. “I am a loyal Briton, my lineage reaches into all corners of these great islands of ours and I have always loved this country and all it has stood for. I love its people and our culture. I can no longer sit idly by whilst the greedy rich dismantle it, whilst they remove all investment from the UK and place that investment in areas of the world where they use slave labour, I will not tolerate it.”

There were shouts of support from the floor and again people were standing in their excitement.

“It is intolerable that the uncontrolled greed of the few should impact so heavily on the many. It is unacceptable that the political jackals should spin their concoction of lies to justify their plans to run down the state of Britain. It is deplorable that they should think themselves free to consign workers of the west to destitution whilst enslaving the workers of the 3rd world. It is unacceptable that they seek to return us to the same conditions as existed in the Middle Ages, a time when the rich elite was served by destitute serfs. They must think we don’t have a thought in our heads.” There was a rapturous round of applause. Colin grinned and added, “They must think we’re STUPID!”

The applause continued, accompanied now by excitable foot stamping.

“They clearly believe that the years of watching junk TV, of listening to their constant lies about the economy, about economics, the GDP, the unions, the balance of payments, the national debt, the so called ‘scrounging poor’, the so called ‘benefit cheats’, the communists, the NHS, the welfare state, state run education, Muslims, world terrorism, our lack of productivity and competitiveness, has shrivelled our brains and blinded us to the real truth, the reality behind all this.” He paused, took a breath then thundered out, “We, the masses, are being sold out by rich greedy psychopaths.”

More clapping from the floor.

“There is a precedent for all this but they hope we’re too stupid to see it, that we have no knowledge of history, that we’re so wrapped up in ‘reality’ TV that we miss what is happening, miss the correlation with the past.”

He poured some water from the jug on the table before him, allowing a few moments for his words to sink in, “The Roman Empire which for centuries was the dominant power, had legions that controlled vast territories of the known world, and then we’re told, all of a sudden, Rome collapses.”

He paused, then raised his voice slightly, “I say to you, Rome didn’t collapse, Rome did not fall – the wealthy and powerful families of Rome took advantage of prevailing winds and reorganised.”

He glanced out across the hall, checking the attention of the audience, “They recognised that maintaining legions to hold territories was costly, and they had a new weapon in their arsenal - religion. Caesar became the Pope, the leading families entered religion, the Roman Empire transitioned into the Roman Catholic Church collecting more revenues than a thousand legions could gather. That’s what happened to the Roman Empire, that’s what happened to Rome.”

He banged the table abruptly, startling a few people in the front rows, “But what happened to the ordinary people of Rome, to the plebeians, the out of work soldiers? They were reduced to penury as the Rome they knew disappeared from the map. As they starved, these legions that had made Rome great, the wealthy Romans, the patricians, the upper classes became richer than ever and the Pope found he was able to control the whole world with a few monks and threats of excommunication, of burning in hell for all eternity.”

He paused and took a quick sip of water, he knew that making the link was vital and these concepts were new to most of his audience.

“And that is what is happening to us…though it’s not belief in God that’s the new export, the new method of raising gold for the new aristocracy, the new export is a new religion altogether, and is called ‘consumerism’ or the ‘market’. The rich have exported our jobs to the 3rd world where wages are minimal, where land costs are minimal, where there are autocratic leaders and armies willing to crush the workers who ask for more, where there are billions of potential economic slaves to serve them and gain them even greater wealth.”
Someone in the crowd called out ‘Apple’ and a couple of others picked it up.

He nodded, “A good example, thank you” he said quietly, then raising his voice continued, “There’re one million people employed in sweat shop factories in China producing Apple products…think about it, one million jobs that could’ve been situated in the West but for the fact of having to pay minimum wage and provide decent working conditions.”

He stopped and stared out at the crowded hall, his eyes burning, “Wealth, that’s what this is all about, it’s what it’s always been about, the creation of wealth for the very few, for the greedy psychopaths who want to own everything and drive the masses into the gutters so that they can lord it over them; in order to feel rich they have to have the poor.”

Colin studied his audience, “So what of the British worker? What of the US worker? What is intended for us? In the recent past we had service industry jobs, easily accessed credit and the creation of massive debt, all this was done to ensure a smooth transition from production and purchase from the West to the East. It was no accident; it’s part of a plan and exactly what they intended and so far they have been successful. They have managed to transfer most of production from the West to the East and during that time the Western worker had artificial service industry jobs to ensure that there was still a market for products being made in the East. However, we have reached an end of the first phase - the credit bubble in the West has burst, the western worker is no longer able to provide the buying power required to maintain supply and demand so the wealthy few and their economic and political servants are looking to provide easier credit to the worker in the East, where there is a potential new market for debt.” ...................

Happy reading, hope you have a good week.

Cheers

Arun

From Democracy to Dictatorship

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The Independents

You say ‘evasion’, I say ‘avoidance’

“Hello fellow Independents, my name’s Marissa Phillips, I’m a Tax Accountant” she smiled at the anticipated mock groans from the audience, “and I’ll be standing for Parliament in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.” She was easy on the eye, no doubt about that, one of those tall, effortlessly willowy women, ‘arm candy’ but she seemed to have a head on her shoulders so possibly worth the time taken to hear her out; this was demonstrated in the friendly applause from the floor. “I’m going to talk to you about the massive deception being wrought upon us; the myth that there is no money to support public services, to support the NHS, to fund proper state education, to provide social care for the less well off, that we are a 3rd rate nation unable to compete in the world.”

“It’s not that hard to expose the deception, although you wouldn’t believe it hearing the constant double talk, the economic mumbo jumbo coming from all parties.” she laughed lightly, “listening to them you’d think money, taxation, economics and government expenditure were the most complicated things in the world. Well they’re not; they make it sound complicated in the hopes they’ll convince us to leave them to get on with what they’re doing, without bothering to question anything. The shocking thing is that it works. Now, why is that?”

She paused and looked around the hall, waiting for a few moments to let the question sink in, “It works because we are predisposed to accept that it’s complicated, we believe in the concept that our leaders are special, that they are exceptional, that what they are struggling with is beyond our humble abilities to resolve. But we deceive ourselves,” she stopped, appearing to reflect, “or are we being deceived? I think they plant the seed and we allow it to grow. I think that they want us to believe that only they, the political class, can resolve the nation’s ills but in truth, it is they who make the problems in the first place. It is they who have set this country on its current course and they’ve done it for a reason… so, what is the reason?”

She pivoted 900 on skyscraper heels, and indicated their mentor, “Colin has said it’s all about money, it’s all about theft, it’s all about how the wealthy classes can extract as much money as possible from the system for themselves whilst leaving the rest of us and the country in a state of penury, it’s about creating a class of super rich by stealing from the state, by robbing the people of what’s rightfully theirs.”

“On the other hand, there are those who say that they are merely taking what is rightfully theirs, what they’ve earned by their own efforts” she scanned the room, ensuring she had their attention, “and I’ve met, worked with and worked for many of those in my time.”

She paused for a sip of water before continuing, “I’m a Tax Accountant as I said in my introduction and I’ve helped some of the richest people in the country use all the loopholes I could find to avoid paying tax.”

There was a collective gasp, she’d expected a reaction but this was a bit more tangible than a few people, it felt like the whole room had grown cold. She glanced over at Colin who nodded, Catherine smiled at her encouragingly and Maurice, the next one up, winked. She turned back to the audience, buoyed and feisty.

“Note, I said ‘avoid’ which is legal, not evade which is not. However…” she raised her hands to quell the rising tide of irritation emanating from the front rows, “however, tax avoidance on the scale to which these people have become accustomed is immoral, anti-social and repugnant and I quit my job six months ago for that very reason.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath then she continued “I know from 1st hand dealings that these people have no scruples, no loyalty and no conscience. They have quadrupled their wealth by investing in emerging markets and enslaving 3rd world workers whilst starving the UK of investment. They have off shored their bank accounts, registered companies abroad so that they don’t have to pay UK taxes and the political class has let them do this because it, more than any other section in society is willing to sell itself to the highest bidder…”

The applause returned; a light smattering at first then more focused; she was winning them round.

“But I get ahead of myself…Let’s consider the context here, let’s discuss the deception and the premise that comes with it: that the UK government can no longer support the services we have become used to, that government doesn’t have the funds anymore. Well the obvious question is... How can that be so? How can it be so?” she repeated, her hands outstretched, incredulity in every line of her body, “How can this country have less money now than it did just after the Second World War when we were virtually bankrupt? Yet at that time we could afford to establish the NHS which we are told today is too big to support.”

There were growls of support, and murmurs of ‘hands off our NHS’.

“The answer is simple, though you won’t find a single politician who will admit it, you won’t find one solitary MP who will tell the truth about the finances of the state and the reason is this; if they did then there would be a revolution.”

She turned to the panel and saw smiles of encouragement along the line, “It would be obvious to each and every one of us that the rich are sucking all the money out of our country before they desert us to live in their Caribbean paradises and we would REVOLT against it.”

The audience seemed shocked at the sudden vocal change on the word ‘revolt’, she’d seemed quite languid up until that point. Clearly she was more robust than she looked.

She took another sip of water, “Let’s consider how the process actually works or, should I say, is meant to work. Fact: Government has no money, any government has absolutely no money, for the simple reason that governments don’t make anything and they don’t sell anything. Ergo, everything they set in motion is a cost to the nation and it has to be paid for by the nation.” She paused and looked round the hall, “That’s where taxation comes in, that’s what taxation is all about, that’s why they take our money in the first place and why they take it in direct taxation, at source. The simple truth is that the government can only spend what it raises by way of taxation.” She paused again, “and it is a system that works or at least it worked in the past. However, in the last few decades those revenues have shrunk, the government has raised fewer funds via taxation.”

“Now, here…” she said, narrowing her eyes, trying to get her timing right, “here is where it all gets a bit murky or at least where they try to make it opaque so you won’t ask, why?....Why, at a time when there is more money than ever before floating around in the UK, when the number of UK billionaires stands at 73, and the country is richer than it’s ever been in its history, when there so many people in the country of working age, when there are more taxes foisted on us than ever before, why is it that the government says it doesn’t have the funding to carry on paying for things like the NHS?”

She stopped talking for a moment, obviously struggling, she drank from her glass and refilled it, then coughed, her emotional attachment to the argument becoming clear to all, “Why can’t we afford the social care bill? Why must we charge our children for the higher education that we had for free? We managed to afford it whilst we were still paying off the national debt for the Second World War, when there were fewer people in this country eligible to pay tax, when there were fewer taxes; no VAT for instance, less duty on petrol, cigarettes, alcohol. Why is it, that at a time when there was less money in the system as a whole, the government had more to spend than it does now, when there is more money in the system as a whole? Why? …Why?”

Marissa paused to look around the hall and waited for her words to settle into every corner, find a place in each mind. People started cheering and calling out “Why?”

She allowed the noise to peak before she started to wave for silence, “the answer’s simple, the answer’s obvious, logical, a child could tell you the answer yet we constantly allow the politicians to deceive us, to delude us, to lie to us, to paint a false picture for us. We let them tell us that we as a people are too greedy, that we have priced ourselves out of a job, that we expect too much of the NHS, that the NHS itself has become too expensive, that we pay too many people Social Benefits, that there are more old people weighing the state down with pensions, that we are a nation of scroungers living in million pound houses paid for by benefits, that we can’t compete with rising economic power houses like China and India but they LIE!”

More applause and cheering from the hall.

“They LIE, I tell you!” she thundered, her slight frame trembling, “They lie; and when you realise the truth you will be shocked at of the depth of duplicity involved, the magnitude of the sheer greed involved, the despotism it represents, the evil psychopathic nature it hides, the blatant manipulation that has been occurring, the involvement of the politicians, our politicians who are meant to represent the will, the wishes, the needs of the people, at the realisation that believing in the integrity of the political class is totally naive for they are by nature deceitful, scheming, egotistical, self serving tyrants.”
The audience was with her now; the applause self-sustaining, ripples dying away as new clapping started so that the effect was a constant sigh of sound.

She waved for quiet, “Back in the 50s there were rich people but they weren’t obscenely rich and there were poor people but they weren’t destitute. Everything was more equal; everyone paid tax and everyone paid their fare share, result, the government had more than enough money to spend. There was little personal debt, people took pride in owning what they had and many people lived in council houses or privately rented accommodation. That’s how it works when the money is evenly distributed, that’s how societies grow, and that’s how cultures develop. I’m not saying it was perfect but it appeared fair; and this continued and took us into the 60s.”

She glanced round the hall, noting the nods of agreement for her assessment of the situation in those times, “However by the early 70s the ordinary person was being encouraged to ‘buy’ their own home. The enthusiasm with which this was taken up was due partly to the lack of affordable rented accommodation, and partly to the promise of ownership. There was promulgation in 95% mortgages, a relaxation of checking mechanisms on actual earnings; the multipliers were relaxed to enable previously ineligible couples to borrow heavily.”

She took a breath and continued briskly, “By the late 70s we were starting to feel the pinch; old inefficient factories, competition from Japan and Germany who’d had massive post-war US investment in new ‘fit for purpose’ build. We’d had hospitals for so long those buildings needed replacement; the UK infrastructure needed reinvestment, revitalising, a little TLC. What we got in the 80s was a wicked evil person who said it was all the workers doing; it was they who were to blame for the lack of investment and the threats of foreign competition. She told everyone that there was no such thing as society; that it was everyone for him or herself; that the prize belonged to those best able to ‘get on their bikes’ and grasp it. This individualist premise was supported by a political determination to unpick the seams of society, to unravel the threads that hold people together, to break the bonds of unity that encourage generosity of spirit and altruism. Once that selfish argument took hold the weak became a sniveling millstone, the poor a grasping nuisance, the old an unloved burden. Added to that, the selloff of council houses had a two-fold effect reducing social housing stock and increasing home ownership amongst people to whom that level of debt had been hitherto unthinkable. Home became an investment rather than somewhere to put down roots and bring up a family; a ‘buy and sell’ commodity and we became nomadic in an attempt to attain wealth, more money-oriented and less family focused.”

She allowed a few moments for that to sink in, then continued, “Accompanying this permission to abandon societal ethics came de-regulation and authorisation to off shore manufacturing to countries unfettered by social conscience, where people were treated as slaves, where wages were insignificant, where rents were negligible, where a bribe could give the greatest financial returns to the most unscrupulous who were willing to profit from the suffering of others.”

She paused and scanned the hall, “So what are the lies that are the instruments of this deception? One such lie is that we priced ourselves out of the manufacturing market so that employers had no choice but to go abroad. NOT TRUE – there is always a choice - the choice to be made was between excessive profit and employment of your countryman, and PROFIT won out.”

Her face was stern, “Another lie they fobbed us off with for years was that the resultant millions, rendered unemployed when manufacturing was taken from this country, could be absorbed into a service based industry; that we could pay each other for doing service jobs for each other…self-evidently not true if you look at the numbers of long-term unemployed.”

She made a negating gesture with her hand, chopping it through the air, her tone scornful, “It was never the case that a service industry could support a nation, it has never been the case, it could never be the case and there is no working model which could ever prove the case, it’s a LIE! And they knew it to be a lie when they spun it.”

“And they told the lie to buy them time; time to build the infrastructure of their new economic empires in the 3rd world, to allow them to ensure they would have the mechanisms in place to guarantee them high returns on their investments when the economic structures started to collapse in the west, here in the UK. Over the years they have created a massive pool of unemployed, so much so that the benefits bill is astronomic, they reduced wages to the extent that a middle class family struggles to get by with two earners and has massive debt, where a middle class family in the 50s only required one wage earner and had no debt; this is what they have achieved.”

She paused, “And these unscrupulous rich, the evil 1%, are so greedy that they don’t want to pay tax on their incomes, they don’t want to contribute to the British nation so they off shore their bank accounts or they register as domiciled abroad in countries where the tax laws are more lenient and they can bribe officials. They do all this so they can keep all the money to themselves; so that they can have five mansions, with swimming pools, tennis courts and hundreds of acres of land, apartments in Paris and New York, villas in the Antibes. So that they can have million pound yachts, private jets, so they can own a fleet of the most expensive cars, they do all of this so that they can have lots of everything, more than any individual could ever use or ever need or ever really want and they do it so that they can have not just millions but billions.”

She took a deep breath, then continued her voice shaking, “They don’t care about world hunger, they don’t care that workers in their factories are suffering, they don’t care that a child dies every 3 seconds of a preventable disease, they don’t care about the unemployed, they don’t care about health care and education for the masses, they don’t care about social benefits for those less able …they care about themselves because as a self opinionated politician once said, ‘there is no such thing as society’.”

More applause from the hall.

“And the net result of their greed for the UK? less people working, less companies manufacturing, less exports even though the companies producing products in the 3rd world are British owned or British funded, with the greedy psychopathic 1% hoarding all of the money … there is less taxable money in the system.”

She took a moment to gain her breath, accepting the applause with a smile. Colin approached the table, whispered something in her ear, causing her to smile more broadly. He sat down again.

“I need to wrap this up,” she said, with a quick look of apology at the Panel, “I’ve overrun a bit …. So to finish, because most of the money is now in the hands of the greedy 1% and they have worked it so that they either don’t pay tax or they pay a negligible amount of tax, the government has less money. That’s why the government can’t afford the NHS, that’s why the government can’t afford the social benefits bill, that’s why libraries are closing, that’s why students have to pay for their own education, that’s why our troops, our sons and daughters are starved of equipment that could save their lives in the field, that’s why we have such a huge national debt, that’s why we have austerity.”

She took a last look round the hall, “And make no mistake, we are NOT in this together… politicians in the main are all independently wealthy, they rub shoulders with the rich and the super rich. Our politicians have had a taste of vast wealth and power and they want more; and because they want more they have sold out the 99% for their 30 pieces of silver, they have sold their souls for greed, but we will not let them get away with it!”

The hall erupted with applause and cheers.

Hope you enjoy the book and have a nice week

Cheers Arun

From Democracy to Dictatorship

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