Arun D. Ellis's Blog, page 46

Extract from the book 'Daydream Believers'

Something in the Wind 6

It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing.
The truth is much worse: they believe in anything.
Malcolm Muggeridge

Barry had upped the ante a bit with this one, moving the venue and taking a chance on filling it. Turned out to be no trouble at all; he could have gone for bigger. It was still word of mouth and a bit on Twitter; low key enough for Blackmore to believe he was still in control. For his own part he was a bit worried it was gaining its own momentum; might be difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. The money was good though and he was enjoying being part of something real.

The Preacher was in full swing and the audience was giving him their complete attention.

"In the 1930s the German nation's children were seduced by the grand assertion that they were the new master race, the young Olympians who would inherit the world, when in reality they were destined to a life of despair as their futures spiralled out of control. Such was the pitiless evil of the Nazi empire."

He looked around the theatre, larger than usual but with barely an empty seat, "But that was the 1930s and that was the Nazis. This is now and we live in completely different times, we live in a completely different world."

He raised his hands, "I would like to speak of my children, young adults now, my two sons and my daughter. I love my children as I'm sure you do yours, if you have them. I don't see them often since my divorce but I do know what they have become, and I'm sure that some of you would recognise the characteristics."

He stopped talking, this was obviously painful for him and very personal. There was silence whilst they waited for him to collect himself. Not much fidgeting, Barry noted; a good sign.

Then he raised his head and his voice rang out, "Glued to the TV, obsessed with ludicrous soap storylines, the drama being played out more real to them than real-life. On Xbox, playing the latest violent action-packed game that makes reality seem pale and insignificant. On one of those social sites talking inane drivel to their friends. Texting feverishly. They don't read and can't spell. They have no idea about the UK beyond the confines of their own town, know nothing of our history unless it's US biased cinema in glorious Technicolor. They drive rather than walk, leave lights on, bath instead of shower, and in short, don't give a damn. Does this ring any bells?"

There were nods of agreement from the older members of the audience, "But they do know about mobile phone contracts, in fact they have several mobile phones, I've even inherited some myself, the ones they no longer want, I actually took on their contracts so that they could upgrade. They have to have the latest tablets, the most up to date PCs, TVs ...the list goes on."

He paused and checked the nodding heads, "The ad men have seduced our young people; they have mesmerized them with photo shopped images of super models and ridiculously over-paid sporting personalities. Promoted as false idols these prescription meds addicted film stars, and singers who condone violence to women and who prostitute their talent for fame. Seduced them with a flashy, selfish, skin-deep alternative reality of stardom, fame and celebrity; the antithesis of hard work, stoicism and compassion. All of these things have been designed to turn our children into consumer addicts; believing themselves to be inheritors of the world by right; the modern-day Hitler Youth."

Barry was fascinated. He had no clue how to report this back up the line; the preacher was unique, a one-off and it was hard to gauge his impact. The audience was also hard to read; murmurings and mutterings but to what end? All he could say for sure was that they were still listening and no-one had walked out.

The Preacher wandered around the stage, "We have failed our young because we did not stop the Corporations seducing them with their adverts. Worse yet, we encouraged it by buying them the next new thing, by getting them the biggest and the best that money could buy simply because we could. Or was it because we wanted to get them the things we never had as children?"

He paused and looked around at the nodding heads, "We gave them cold, heartless, meaningless things and deprived them of emotional engagement."

He took a quick sip of water, "We bought them a colour TV and piped SKY® into their rooms and left them with a plastic and glass companion that had no soul. We left them to feed off inane US imports with their false concepts of wealth and greed and lust and promiscuity and gender confusion. We left them to absorb all this by themselves without guidance and discussion and challenge. We deprived them of the core concepts of love, compassion and communication. I ask you, what have we created?"

They were silent as they waited for him to continue, Barry could sense their discomfort but it was obvious they would sit it out to the bitter end. He noted with mounting concern that the mobiles were out, filming the speech. Christ, he'd be on YouTube® next...that might draw too much attention from Blackmore.

"We have created a generation of indifferent, avaricious, selfish, dysfunctional, celebrity adulating, trivia junkies who believe that the most important thing in the world is to tweet their latest sociopathic self aggrandizing thought."

This got him applause from parts of the theatre, some people were standing up.

He continued, "They buy ridiculously cheap products knowing that someone was forced to make it in near slave conditions for a pittance and they don't care."

He was on a roll as he worked the stage, "Billions of people are suffering in poverty, hundreds of thousands are dying needlessly every day, and all our kids want to do is watch TV, text, spend, eat crap food, burn fossil fuels with no regard for the consequences and generally lay around all day doing nothing. I ask you, are such individuals really worthy of life?"

There were a few concerned looks, Barry thought he'd gone too far even for this crowd, most of whom had clearly heard him speak before, "Our children are the new Nazis for they know that over a third of the world suffers so they can live a life of self indulgence and they don't care, worse still they think it is their birth right. Our children bitch and moan at us, we have spoiled them and we have allowed the media men to turn them into moribund social and economic leaches whose sole purpose is to consume and create waste."

His voice tailed off as he paused in the centre of the stage. "And so it is, we have sold our children's souls and created a social nightmare, we have given birth to a greedy self interested society that must be destroyed before the rest of humanity can live."

He walked off so quickly from the stage that even Barry was taken by surprise.

Extract from the book 'Corpalism'

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.

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Extract from my book 'Corpalism'

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?”

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Extract from my book 'Daydream Believers'

Something in the Wind 6

It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing.
The truth is much worse: they believe in anything.
Malcolm Muggeridge

Barry had upped the ante a bit with this one, moving the venue and taking a chance on filling it. Turned out to be no trouble at all; he could have gone for bigger. It was still word of mouth and a bit on Twitter; low key enough for Blackmore to believe he was still in control. For his own part he was a bit worried it was gaining its own momentum; might be difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. The money was good though and he was enjoying being part of something real.

The Preacher was in full swing and the audience was giving him their complete attention.

"In the 1930s the German nation's children were seduced by the grand assertion that they were the new master race, the young Olympians who would inherit the world, when in reality they were destined to a life of despair as their futures spiralled out of control. Such was the pitiless evil of the Nazi empire."

He looked around the theatre, larger than usual but with barely an empty seat, "But that was the 1930s and that was the Nazis. This is now and we live in completely different times, we live in a completely different world."

He raised his hands, "I would like to speak of my children, young adults now, my two sons and my daughter. I love my children as I'm sure you do yours, if you have them. I don't see them often since my divorce but I do know what they have become, and I'm sure that some of you would recognise the characteristics."

He stopped talking, this was obviously painful for him and very personal. There was silence whilst they waited for him to collect himself. Not much fidgeting, Barry noted; a good sign.

Then he raised his head and his voice rang out, "Glued to the TV, obsessed with ludicrous soap storylines, the drama being played out more real to them than real-life. On Xbox, playing the latest violent action-packed game that makes reality seem pale and insignificant. On one of those social sites talking inane drivel to their friends. Texting feverishly. They don't read and can't spell. They have no idea about the UK beyond the confines of their own town, know nothing of our history unless it's US biased cinema in glorious Technicolor. They drive rather than walk, leave lights on, bath instead of shower, and in short, don't give a damn. Does this ring any bells?"

There were nods of agreement from the older members of the audience, "But they do know about mobile phone contracts, in fact they have several mobile phones, I've even inherited some myself, the ones they no longer want, I actually took on their contracts so that they could upgrade. They have to have the latest tablets, the most up to date PCs, TVs ...the list goes on."

He paused and checked the nodding heads, "The ad men have seduced our young people; they have mesmerized them with photo shopped images of super models and ridiculously over-paid sporting personalities. Promoted as false idols these prescription meds addicted film stars, and singers who condone violence to women and who prostitute their talent for fame. Seduced them with a flashy, selfish, skin-deep alternative reality of stardom, fame and celebrity; the antithesis of hard work, stoicism and compassion. All of these things have been designed to turn our children into consumer addicts; believing themselves to be inheritors of the world by right; the modern-day Hitler Youth."

Barry was fascinated. He had no clue how to report this back up the line; the preacher was unique, a one-off and it was hard to gauge his impact. The audience was also hard to read; murmurings and mutterings but to what end? All he could say for sure was that they were still listening and no-one had walked out.

The Preacher wandered around the stage, "We have failed our young because we did not stop the Corporations seducing them with their adverts. Worse yet, we encouraged it by buying them the next new thing, by getting them the biggest and the best that money could buy simply because we could. Or was it because we wanted to get them the things we never had as children?"

He paused and looked around at the nodding heads, "We gave them cold, heartless, meaningless things and deprived them of emotional engagement."

He took a quick sip of water, "We bought them a colour TV and piped SKY® into their rooms and left them with a plastic and glass companion that had no soul. We left them to feed off inane US imports with their false concepts of wealth and greed and lust and promiscuity and gender confusion. We left them to absorb all this by themselves without guidance and discussion and challenge. We deprived them of the core concepts of love, compassion and communication. I ask you, what have we created?"

They were silent as they waited for him to continue, Barry could sense their discomfort but it was obvious they would sit it out to the bitter end. He noted with mounting concern that the mobiles were out, filming the speech. Christ, he'd be on YouTube® next...that might draw too much attention from Blackmore.

"We have created a generation of indifferent, avaricious, selfish, dysfunctional, celebrity adulating, trivia junkies who believe that the most important thing in the world is to tweet their latest sociopathic self aggrandizing thought."

This got him applause from parts of the theatre, some people were standing up.

He continued, "They buy ridiculously cheap products knowing that someone was forced to make it in near slave conditions for a pittance and they don't care."

He was on a roll as he worked the stage, "Billions of people are suffering in poverty, hundreds of thousands are dying needlessly every day, and all our kids want to do is watch TV, text, spend, eat crap food, burn fossil fuels with no regard for the consequences and generally lay around all day doing nothing. I ask you, are such individuals really worthy of life?"

There were a few concerned looks, Barry thought he'd gone too far even for this crowd, most of whom had clearly heard him speak before, "Our children are the new Nazis for they know that over a third of the world suffers so they can live a life of self indulgence and they don't care, worse still they think it is their birth right. Our children bitch and moan at us, we have spoiled them and we have allowed the media men to turn them into moribund social and economic leaches whose sole purpose is to consume and create waste."

His voice tailed off as he paused in the centre of the stage. "And so it is, we have sold our children's souls and created a social nightmare, we have given birth to a greedy self interested society that must be destroyed before the rest of humanity can live."

He walked off so quickly from the stage that even Barry was taken by surprise.

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Extract from my book 'Daydream Believers'

Something in the Wind 8

This multicultural approach,
saying that we simply live side by side and live happily with each other has failed.
Utterly failed.
Angela Merkel

The Preacher had been sitting in the centre of the stage, eyes closed whilst the theatre had slowly filled. He had yet to move from that position; the audience was getting a little restless. Just as Barry was considering an unprecedented appearance on stage to nudge his man into action, the Preacher sighed, got to his feet and began, "Today I speak on a thorny subject, one that most of you will take issue with, not because you disagree but because you think you should." He walked slowly along the front of the stage, "We are continuously being bombarded by politicians, by the media and by the church with the notion that we live in a multicultural society."

He stopped and looked out at his audience, realising with a start of surprise that some in the front rows were familiar to him, he shrugged the thought away as distracting and continued, "We are told that the 21st century is dominated by the global economy and so multiculturalism is the future, but when I look back in history and search for successful examples of multiculturalism, I find none. What I find are civil wars such as took place in Nigeria in the late 60s; result: starvation and dislocation and its bedfellow, rampant criminality. When I look in today’s world for successful examples of multi-culturalism, I find none. I find intolerance and indifference, racism and hatred, callous rape and vicious murder and the underlying villain of the piece, abject poverty."

He took a breath, then "How does this affect us in the UK? We are told that this is Britain, we will not succumb to the weaknesses of the human condition; we won't go that way. That somehow as a race we are so advanced we can flourish in a social structure that no other society in history has ever survived."

He allowed them to digest his words for a few moments then, "What are the drivers of that complacency? Arrogance? Blatant stupidity? Criminal greed?"

He moved to the centre of the stage, "Look at the Balkans - racial hatred, look at Africa - tribal hatred, look at America - racial and cultural hatred. To say nothing of what happens when you toss religion into the mix." He paused, "If we look back into our own history we see that the country was divided up into kingdoms of different ethnicity, Vikings, Saxons, Danes, Picts and Celts and the land was constantly torn asunder by wars." He paused, "It was only when the Saxons emerged triumphant that we began to form a kingdom."

"What about William the Conqueror?" shouted a man from the front row.

"Of course," the Preacher flashed a rare smile, "We can't forget the Normans and their place in all this,"

He moved back to the front of the stage. "Consider...it was only when we had one culture, one religion, one language, one centre of political leadership that we finally became a strong and homogeneous peoples with but one aim, to be British."

There were several murmurings of disapproval but he ignored them, "But now we have a multicultural society and we are told it is good to have diversity. But I ask you, do we also not have an increase in opportunist crime? A divided language? Increased threats from home grown terrorists? A crumbling education system? Decline of our faith?"

He placed his hands together and breathed deeply, "I'd like to relate a personal experience of mine, from the work place, when many years ago I worked on a particular team. We worked under extreme conditions and brought in most of the money. We had a culture, a work ethic, an unwritten rule that everyone would stay until the last item was processed. We all pulled together to achieve the common objective so naturally we thought we were the best." He sighed, "In order to cut costs the management decided to run the section close to the bone, even though there was serious risk of loss. Not unexpectedly, we made an expensive error. In response they restructured the department, brought in new people from other teams."

He moved back to his chair and took a quick sip of water, "These new staff members came from teams where they had a more singular culture, where each person would get a bundle of folders and work through until the end of the day and then go home, no matter what. That was their work ethic," he returned to the front of the hall, "and the thing is, our unwritten rule was exactly that. It wasn't enforceable, it was just our culture, so when we got near the end of a time critical task all the new people went home and the only ones who remained to complete the tasks were those who had been on the original section. Although we were the 'indigenous' people we were unable to influence the new people into adopting our culture, our philosophy."

He waited for what he was saying to sink in, "Instead, the new people, arriving in such numbers, were able to impose their culture on the team. That was the end of our team culture, our team ethic." He started to move around the stage a bit quicker now, talking excitedly, "Now if that can happen in business just think what effect it can have on a society. We wouldn't know how deep that corrosion had gone until there was a crisis."

He was getting into it now, "Today!" he shouted, "we live in a time of supposed economic wealth, Britain still has an NHS, still has a state paid education system, still has a strong welfare system although all of the above have actually been crippled at their foundations by a lack of government funding, crippled to the extent that some time in the near future they will collapse."

He dashed to the side of the stage and dragged on a large globe, "Here is the industrial west," he was pointing to Europe, "and here is the impoverished third world," he added, "only it is no longer the case. The rich and the corporations have been allowed to invest heavily in the third world."

He tossed the globe aside, "This means that now, in the west, we are a service based economy and the third world has a manufacturing based economy. But it matters not to the rich. They get their divs from their investments in the new economic powerhouses south of the Equator."

He raised his hands skywards, "But it affects us, it will affect you and your children and your grandchildren because a service based economy cannot support the state or social programmes such as the NHS, education or welfare and the prime examples of that can be seen in history. The west was wealthy because it had a manufacturing base and the third world was poor because it was service based. Now that's all been flipped on its head. That's where the rich investors, where the Corporate Directors are driving the future."

He paused, then continued, "So what does that mean? And what's it to do with multiculturalism? Simple, our society is now rotten underneath and it is waiting for an event to implode it. That event will be unparalleled poverty. Once economies in the west collapse, which they will because there are now too many of us, once our social structures crumble beyond repair we will turn on our neighbours, we will allow our resentments and hatreds to rise to the surface, we will take to the streets and, as has happened in all other countries in such times, we will fall upon outsiders to our society."

He moved to the edge of the stage, "When once you decried the BNP or the EDL, saw UKIP as espousing old fashioned beliefs, yet soon they will appear as your only hope, just as all radical nationalistic groups have appeared to desperate peoples in the past. It's no good deluding ourselves into believing that somehow we are going to be better than those people. People are people and we all react the same, whether we like it or not. Thus when our economy finally collapses and we become a poor nation we will look around for those to blame or for those we can expel and it will lead to our own holocaust, that is where multiculturalism always leads", he dropped his voice to a near whisper, "and only fools delude themselves otherwise."

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Extract from my book 'Daydream Believers'

Prologue

The world is governed by very different personages
from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.
Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1844)

Of all the women in the group, for Sir Digby Chalfont, a connoisseur, one stood out. She was tall, with impeccably cut gleaming bronze hair. He noted the Givenchy Pandora box bag slung over the shoulder of her black crepe trouser suit, a Tyrwhitt, if he was not mistaken, and the raspberry shirt that softened the aquiline face was certainly an Emilio Pucci. He imagined a crop twitching against her Eleonaro black riding boots; the thought causing him to smile as he homed in. He had no idea of her standing in the group, although the clothes gave a hint to her status, he cared little; she was the most attractive person in the room and he intended to make himself known to her; his newly acquired knighthood must be good for something.

The faint silk scent of the window drapes was now combined with the perfume of luxurious colognes. The Chairman, a portly man with a well-used face, experienced the effect without enjoyment; well used to the smell of money. Taking advantage of his central seat on the small platform he surveyed the room. He was impressed all over again at the power of the Committee; to summon two hundred people from the international political, military, industrial and social elites at such short notice and achieve their attendance was no mean feat. Clusters of men, mostly white and middle-aged, their dark, sombre suits offset by a few in full dress uniform, others in crisp white djellabas and several in multi-coloured dashikis. He noted the women; not enough to tip the balance. All were veterans of this type of gathering, some chatting easily to each other, most keeping their own counsel. At his nod, the man who'd been awaiting the signal detached himself from the group and walked to the podium; tall, slim, dark hair at the distinguished stage.

Kurt Silverman, Head of the Institute of Research. He cut an athletic figure; he looked good and he knew it. He also knew that he was amongst those for whom personal appearance mattered less than power and holdings; in that respect he was not their equal, he was there to serve them. The view offered to him from the uplifted podium was of rows of seats, each one occupied by a glossy A4 booklet he'd prepared and placed there earlier.

Gradually, as if in response to an unspoken suggestion, members of the group began to move to their seats. After a short time the Chairman rose to his feet, his dark grey Kiton suit struggling valiantly to contain and command his ample body. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome," he said, his voice carrying without effort to the back of the room. Given the ratio of male to female and, more pertinently, the balance of power he might have been forgiven for saying, 'welcome gentlemen'. Having caught the eagle eye of the auburn-haired woman in black, seated next to Sir Digby, such a lapse had been rendered impossible. He waved his hand towards the podium, introduced Kurt in a few crisp words and resumed his seat.

Kurt spoke, his voice betraying a slight nervousness; this was an august company and he would have been a fool not to have regard for their power, "Thank you for inviting me here to deliver, for your consideration, the proposed solution to the most pressing issue of our times; 'Peak Oil'."

He paused, making deliberate eye contact with the front row, then continued, "As you know, in the 70s it was estimated we would reach Peak Oil somewhere around 2015, after which the rate of production was expected to enter terminal decline, giving us a global fuel crisis somewhere about 2075."

He clicked a hand held device and the screen behind him came to life, showing a map of the location of the last known oil reserves, "However, increased warfare, rises in manufacturing and rampant population growth has meant a massively increased demand. We passed Peak Oil in 2005. As a result, we will reach the projected fuel crisis much sooner than expected."

He clicked again and the screenshot changed, "Of course, we took steps over the last few decades to try and contain the situation. Thanks to the work of the Neo Liberals in the eighties and nineties we were able to offset the increasing costs of oil production by shifting costs of manufacturing to the more cost effective labour force of the third world."

Kurt indicated with a smile the six-strong delegation from China, all male, in identical Prince of Wales check suits and to his eye, with identical faces. He gestured to the smaller group from India, two serious-looking men and one elderly, petite, sari-clad woman.

"You may recall it was estimated that we'd need a further three decades before the third world would be strong enough to take over the consumption of the West."

He paused before delivering the punch line, "I'm happy to say our recent studies have revealed that the new consumers are there in abundance as we speak, and more than able to take up the slack."

A few heads looked up at this revelation, most didn't react at all. Kurt had no time to wonder if they'd already had this information, he had to move on to the crux of the matter.

"This being the case not only have we no further need of the northern hemisphere labour market, we now have no interest in their continued ability to buy our products. In short we have no further need to sustain this part of the population."

Kurt was moving with poise now, as another chart appeared on the screen showing world population levels, "You will be aware of various natural phenomena supporting our aims of constraining population growth; the greatest of which are Aids and famine. The policy of appearing to work towards their eradication whilst achieving very little seems to be working. That takes care of Africa. Helpfully, Eastern and Southern European countries are being depopulated via sustained civil war and ethnic cleansing."

He paused, then, "Rapid economic cleansing is also underway; highly desirable areas of France and Spain are being de-populated and in the UK, London is being cleared to make way for settlement by the very wealthy, with the rest of the South-East to follow."

He couldn't prevent the smug grin that crossed his face; he'd recently snapped up some exquisite properties just outside Primrose Hill, so felt he had to follow up with, "Of course, you will get first pick of these prime slices of real estate as they become available. In fact, I believe you can book your plots now, is that right, Mr. Chairman?"

The Chairman rose awkwardly, caught out by the change of subject, but the words flowed with practiced ease, "Superior Homes has created an exclusive brochure, copies of which will be available in the foyer as you leave conference. You'll find outline plans for a deluxe chateau in an average lot size of 3,000 hectares in the new territories. "

An electric buzz swept the room.

Kurt judged the time was right for the big announcement, "However, attritional reduction of population in these areas is not enough for our needs. We must contain America, the biggest oil consumer on the planet." Kurt looked round the room, then invested his voice with strength, "We now need to move into the last phase of our plan, which we are calling 'Operation Downsize'. I'd like to introduce General Nathan Goldhirsch of the US Army who will explain it to you."

The US contingent stirred in their seats and a tall man in full dress uniform rose to his feet and headed towards the platform. "That's US Marine Corps, Kurt," he said, smiling. There was a smattering of laughter, quickly suppressed.

"Okay," said the General, his frown bringing them back to complete order, "let's get down to business. We need to reduce the US of A population by at least 25% and we can't pussy-foot around. Economic destabilisation brings its own problems and we have one helluva civilian army out there, all armed. If they get a sniff of what's going on all hell will break loose. So, we gotta do it quickly." He turned to the screen and pointed at the image that appeared, "This here is La Palma, one of the Canary Islands."

A hush settled on the room, this was where it started to get serious.

The screen changed. "And this is the Cumbre Vieja volcano, it is extremely volatile." The screen changed again, "This is the western face of the volcano, which is gradually collapsing. One day, in the natural course of things this side will fall into the sea creating a mega tsunami which will sweep across the Atlantic, ravage the Bahamas and reach the Eastern seaboard in a matter of hours."

He allowed the magnitude of the pronouncement a few moments to settle then delivered the coup de grace, "Well, we don't have time to wait for the natural course of things, ladies and gentlemen, so we intend to blow the whole damn thing sky high. And we're doing it soon."

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Extract from my book 'Corpalism'

7:25 p.m.

“All I’m saying,” said the Pirate, “is that the super heroes stick up for the establishment.”

“They do not.” said Mr. Spock.

“No, no,” said the Pirate, “hear me out, they all fight to preserve the status quo and thus defend and preserve the rights of the rich.”

“Rubbish,” said Mr. Spock.

“Okay,” said the Pirate, “what about Batman?”

“Well, he’s rich anyway,” said Mr. Spock, “so it’s hardly surprising.”

“All the villains, who’ve had what can only be described as a raw deal, are all victimised by this dude with loadsa cash who has the law in his back pocket and can spend as much as he wants on god knows what kind of weapons.” said the Pirate.

“OK, but look at the Penguin and the Joker,” said Mr. Spock, “They were pretty evil dudes, man.”

“Really?” questioned the Pirate, “I’d like to see how you turned out if your parents dumped you down a sewer just for being deformed and ugly… Batman’s parents loved him but were gunned down, he inherited a fortune and look at what kind of nut job he turned into.”

“Oh what?” said Spock, “Penguin and Joker are insane, they have to be put down or they’ll kill everyone just for laughs.”

“It still doesn’t change my point,” said the Pirate, “all super heroes stick up for the establishment, there’s never one that fights for the rights of the ordinary man.”

“What about the Hulk?” said Mr. Spock, “He’s always attacking the establishment?”

“Yeah, but not with purpose,” said the Pirate, “it’s always random and chaotic.”

“So?” said Mr. Spock, “It still disproves your point.”

“No, because the Hulk isn’t fighting for anyone or any particular cause and he’s portrayed as bad for what he does; the establishment is always portrayed as being on the side of right.”

“Yeah, but you always feel sorry for the Hulk though, don’t you,” said Mr. Spock.

“That’s not the same thing, that’s just sympathy for another poor sucker who got screwed by the establishment.”

“Okay, Spider Man,” said Mr. Spock, “He fights villains and he protects everyone.”

“Hey, you two” Charlie Chaplin interrupted with a bang of his glass, “any chance we can talk about something else?”

“But again,” said the Pirate, “he’s fighting crime and geezers who are stealing huge amounts of money from the banks or the state. He’s maintaining the status quo.”

“No he’s not,” said Mr. Spock, “he’s always defending the little guy.” Charlie Chaplin nodded vigorously, and nudged the Lone Ranger to do likewise.

“Only because the little guy gets in the way of the action,” said the Pirate, “the real plot is always about power, wealth and greed and that is way above the average person’s status so it has to be about protecting the rich again, about protecting those with all the wealth against those who are trying to take it.”

“That’s bollocks,” said Mr. Spock, “Okay what about Superman, he’s always sticking up for the man in the street.”

“Again,” said the Pirate, “that’s only because the little man gets in the way.”

“Rubbish,” said Mr. Spock, “this is all just silly twaddle.”

“No it’s not,” said the Pirate, “and I can prove it.”

“Okay prove it,” said Mr. Spock.

“Yeah, prove it” mimicked Charlie.

“Okay,” said the Pirate, “all of the super heroes, they
all have special powers, right?”

“Right.”

“Which lifts them above all others, am I right?”

“Yeah, that’s right, that being the point of super powers….”

“And enables them to fight crime?”

“Right.”

“Right” echoed Charlie, now seriously bored.

“But the only crime they fight is against the poor down and outs who are resorting to the only means they have available, namely violent crime, to get ahead in this warped and twisted world. Does Batman ever arrest a banker? Does Superman ever grab hold of a devious politician? Does Spiderman ever…..”

“Oh what?” said Charlie, “now, that’s just silly…hey, Tranny isn’t he bein’ silly…” He looked across at the Transvestite who was completely absorbed, trying to win back all the money he’d lost on the fruit machine “oh, don’t bother…”

“No, it’s not,” said the Pirate, “everyone knows that the real crime is white collar crime.”

“He’s right, you know” said Hiawatha.

“What?” said Mr. Spock, “I didn’t even know you were even listening?”

“I wasn’t,” said Hiawatha, “but it’s our round so the Lone Ranger is getting ‘em in.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Spock, “but you’re both wrong.”

“No, we’re not,” said Hiawatha, “it’s all just part of our social conditioning and it starts when we’re young.”

“Here we go,” said Charlie, “Karla Marx is off and running.”

“No,” said Hiawatha, “I’m not going to say anything else other than that the whole deal with super heroes, as the Pirate says, is to protect the rich, protect the powerful, maintain the state and to punish the poor villain who is just trying to get ahead.”

“Poor villain who’s just trying to get ahead?” wailed Mr. Spock, “are you completely mad, woman? We’re talking about some real sick fucks here.”

“Actually we’re talking about comic books,” said Hiawatha, “which isn’t quite the same thing…and don’t call me ‘woman’.”

“Huh,” sighed Mr. Spock, “well you’ve ruined that simple pleasure for me, haven’t you.”

“No,” said Hiawatha, “because the underlying truth remains the same, comic book heroes and the spin off films are all designed to get us to relate to the rich and the wealthy and to want to fight to maintain the status quo, to fight to keep the rich and the poor in their accustomed place.”

“No!” hissed Charlie, “that’s a big leap!”

“She’s right,” said the Pirate, “and as I was saying, these super heroes have super powers but do they ever use them to lead the people in a revolutionary war of freedom?”

“A what?” said Mr. Spock.

“A revolutionary war of freedom, he said” Hiawatha responded crisply, “and I agree…does Superman ever fly to Thailand and free the kids slaving in the sweat shops owned by the rich corporations? No, he doesn’t. Does Batman ever break into prison and free the wrongfully convicted and over sentenced black man whose rights were trampled on when he was incarcerated? No, he doesn’t. Does Spider man ever break into a house in suburbia and beat up the abusive and violent husband? No, he doesn’t.”

“Do the Fantastic Four ever fly out to third world countries and defend the rights of the poor civilians against greedy American corporations? No, they don’t,” said the Pirate, not to be outdone.

“They’re all just tools used by the state to maintain the status quo,” said Hiawatha.

“But they are entertaining, though,” said Charlie, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

“The truth is, we’ve forgotten who the real heroes are,” said Hiawatha, “all we have now are fantasy heroes, rich celebs, movie stars who are just pretending to be heroes, pop stars and sports stars. What happened to real heroes like William Wilberforce or Lord Shaftesbury or Abe Lincoln or Washington or….?”

“Washington was a traitor,” said the Pirate, “and he led the revolution against us.”

“Against the King,” said Hiawatha.

“Oh yeah,” said the Pirate, “That’s okay then.”

“Oh, that’s ok then” mimicked Charlie, making a silly face, quite difficult to spot when dressed as a clown.

“And Oliver Cromwell, and …” said Hiawatha.

“My favourite,” said the Pirate, “Ollie Cromwell, cut off that bastard king’s head.”

“Oh yeah and what about Danton, Robespierre and Napoleon?” said Mr. Spock, “heroes or villains?”

“Ask the French,” said the Pirate.

“Yeah right,” said Mr. Spock, “you just use the argument you want.”

“Actually I think the French revolution was good for the people,” said Hiawatha, “Okay it got a little out of hand….”

“A little out of hand?” said Mr. Spock, “Napoleon tried to take over the world.”

“Well he wouldn’t’ve done if the monarchies hadn’t tried to crush the revolution and tell me, what was so different between the French revolution and the American Revolution and our own revolution?” demanded Hiawatha.

“Well…” began Mr. Spock.

“Wow, it’s a crush up there” said the Lone Ranger returning to the table, drinks in hand, “If any of you lot want crisps say so now before it gets really chocker…”

“Yeah,” said the Pirate, “salt’n’vinegar.”

“Pork scratchins please,” said Mr. Spock.

“Oh yeah, me too,” said the Pirate.

“Make up your bloody mind,” said the Lone Ranger.

“I’ll have salt and vinegar as well,” said Hiawatha.

“As well as who? I’m having pork scratchins.”

“Cheese and Onion,” said Charlie Chaplin.

“What about Tranny?” asked the Lone Ranger.

“He’s in his own world,” said the Pirate, nodding over at the fruit machine, “just get him salt’n’vinegar.”

“He likes plain,” said Hiawatha.

The Lone Ranger gave her a dark look.

“Well, I can’t help it,” she muttered, “I’m just sayin’.”

Extract from my book 'Daydream Believers'

P.A.C.T - 31

This is no time for ease and comfort.
It is time to dare and endure.
Winston Churchill

As is traditional on the State Opening of Parliament an MP from the Commons presents himself to the Queen as hostage, on this occasion it was Prentice Prendergast, MP for Morecambe; a potential leadership rival for the PM. He had been surprised to be chosen; but Sir Philip had been adamant and no one cared enough to argue. Once he arrived at the Palace and was safely ensconced, a hostage against potential harm to the Monarch at the hands of Parliament, the Queen, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall left the Palace and made their way to Parliament.

Once there the Queen was draped in the Parliament Robe of State and the Imperial State Crown was placed carefully on the iron grey curls. Finally the Royal procession was able to start for the Lords; preceded by the Earl Marshal, the Leader of the House of Lords carrying the Cap of Maintenance on a white rod, another peer carrying the Great Sword of State and finally out in front marched the Lord Great Chamberlain with his white stick raised aloft.

The procession entered the Lords, the Queen sat upon the throne and said, "My Lords, pray be seated."

"Waste of time," muttered the Duke, seated at her side, "I'm too bally old for this."

"Be quiet, Philip," hissed the Queen through a clenched teeth grimace.

Camilla leaned over and whispered in Prince Charles' ear, "That should be you, you know." It was a well-rehearsed argument, pointless but she found it impossible to refrain.

"What can I do? Mummy just won't go," he responded, managing to speak without appearing so to do, something he'd practised since his Gordonstoun days, "she's going to sit there forever being bloody Queen. She loves it, look at her up there, lording it over everybody."

He wanted to slump, rest his head in his hands, groan out loud at the unfairness of it all; he remained upright and expressionless.

The Queen nodded to the Lord Great Chamberlain and he signalled for Black Rod to summon the members of the Commons. Black Rod, escorted by the Door-keeper of the House of Lords and a Police Inspector, set off for the Commons; the inspector bearing the peculiar responsibility of ordering 'Hats off strangers' to whomsoever they met on the way regardless of the fact that no-one now wore a hat in Parliament.

Upon reaching the Commons the doors were slammed shut and Black Rod banged forcefully on the door three times, at which point the doors were opened, Black Rod and his escort then approached the dispatch box and addressed the House, "Mr Speaker, The Queen commands this Honourable House," as he spoke he bowed to both sides, "to attend Her Majesty immediately in the House of Peers."

Outside Parliament stood a long line of red coated Grenadier Guards, their impractical bearskin hats nestling deep on their brows, blurring their vision. Behind them were hundreds of avid spectators who had gathered for the return journey of the Queen's carriage.

Off to the North in Bridge Street a large coach was parked. It bore the insignia of the Women's Institute. Unusually, the windows of the coach were blacked out. Inside the coach, her thin face alight with excitement, stood Cynthia, hair newly coiffed, a fetching shade of mauve, resplendent in a beige Hardy Amies dress of indeterminate age and draped in her best jewellery, talking quietly but enthusiastically to Esmé. They made an incongruous pair with Esmé kitted out in khaki combats and Doc Martens she'd had in her cupboard for three decades. She was in her element, every nerve ending tingling and feeling exactly as she had all those years previously, when faced with a barbed wire fence at the RAF base at Greenham Common that had had to be breeched.

Fiona was looking at her askance; why a grown woman would want to be seen in public in such an awful get up was beyond her. She herself was immaculate in a dark green Barbour over a calf length camel skirt (kick pleat at the back for ease of movement) and a dark brown cashmere twin-set (pearls left at home in case of breakage). She was shod in (sensible for running although with her knee as it was she wasn't likely to be doing too much of that) Oxford brogues.

Dora had pushed herself to the front of the coach near the driver, an old friend of Pete's dragooned into duty, but enjoying being surrounded by women again. For all the world Dora resembled a coach party courier, huge and quivering in her custom made jacquard coat dress, bright red so she would stand out she'd told Vera. Vera, in a comfortable and serviceable ensemble of navy waterproof jacket, topping a jumper and trousers in subtle shades of grey and pink, had thought spitefully that she didn't need to wear red in order to stand out but hadn't said it out loud.

They'd given up their dream to attack McDonalds; had been forced into acquiescence by the combined eloquence of Alb, Tom and surprisingly Pete, who'd told Fiona privately that he wanted her to be where he could 'keep an eye' on her.

Now Dora was addressing the group, thirty women of varying ages, shapes and sizes, all brought in for the purpose, many of them Esmé's old cronies, all willing to die for the cause.

She spoke passionately, "Ladies, today we act for our grandchildren, today we act to return this nation to them, today we act to save their jobs and their standard of living, their hopes and dreams for the future." She paused, tired from the effort, face as red as her dress, then launched again, "Today we act as we should've acted before, to stop these greedy, self-serving people from selling off more of our national estate to foreign powers." She stopped again and looked across at Vera, Cynthia, Esmé and Fiona then, on her signal, they all chorused, "Today we strike a blow for freedom!"

The rest of the women cheered, raising their assorted weaponry and clutching at one another, smiling, eyes bright with fervour. Fiona shivered slightly; she was of the huntin', shootin', fishin' brigade but most of these women looked as though they'd have trouble telling one end of a gun from the other. On the long coach journey she'd tried to impart the rudiments but had given up; too much to learn, too little time. 'Point and shoot' she'd told them in the end.

Another shout rent the air, in response to some other nonsense from Dora; self appointed spokesperson and rabble rouser. Outside the coach a few passers-by exchanged perplexed expressions before going about their business.

"Dora?" called a mousy, frail-looking woman from the back. Although she'd had her moments in the past, been a minor activist against vivisection and the like, she had long since settled for a slow, painful ignominious decline into senility. When Esmé had given her the call she'd answered it as a life-saver, though it would likely culminate in her death.

There was so much commotion that Dora could barely hear, "Quiet!" she barked.

The mousy woman raised her arm again, "erm, I know the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have a free pass but what about Prince Charles and that dreadful woman?"

"Let me reiterate," said Cynthia, having worked her way into a position beside Dora; Little and Large, together at the end. She waited until she had their full attention, "The Queen and the Duke must be left unmolested, but Prince Charles and Camilla are fair game."

There was a general cheer, "But don't concentrate your efforts on them," stressed Fiona, her voice commanding in its lack of effort so to be, "remember, we're primarily here for the treacherous Politicians."

∞

Meanwhile, parked up just in front of Winston Churchill's statue was a van in the colours of Westminster City Council. Johnno had inveigled it from an old acquaintance who had stored it in a lock-up for them. After their strange Viagra fuelled night Wilf's team had gone early to the lock up and, using the paint Johnno's friend had supplied, had managed to disguise it sufficiently to pass first inspection.

The plan revolved around them being accepted as volunteer gardeners; in an effort to look the part they'd got hold of a few trays of young plants and Johnno, Pete, Bill and Ron were mooching about trying to place them. Up till now they had successfully resisted all requests from the Police to 'move on', a feat achieved primarily due to their age.

Dave and Sticky were sitting together on a bench some way off, sulking about the change of plan. It transpired this was the reason they had chosen to be on Wilf's team; they'd set their hearts on taking out a mosque and couldn't be reconciled. Also, they were both exhausted after the antics of the night before; Wilf had not mentioned the after-effects of Viagra before plying them with copious amounts of the drug.

Wilf, meantime, had made himself comfortable in a prone position in the back of the van. He had already scoped out the arc of fire and intended to pick off the MPs as they fled the assault. Alb and Gerry had worked mightily to dissuade him from this course but he wouldn't let it go, he felt he could get more of the buggers this way before being taken out himself. He'd had a last-minute go at persuading Jonesey to join him in the van; as an ex-sniper he thought he'd have jumped at the chance, but no, more fool him, he'd committed to be with Alb.

"What do you think of planting the lobelias along the front here?" Pete asked, peering at the label hoping for enlightenment.

"What colour are they?" replied Ron, poking desultorily at the soil, trying to look knowledgeable and failing.

"I'm not sure," said Pete, "it doesn't say but they trail, apparently."

"Johnno," said Ron, "what colour are lobelias?"

"Blue," said Johnno, "but don't put them there, I was going to plant the....."

"What are you lot on about?" demanded Bill, "it doesn't matter where you plant the bloody things does it? No-one's going to care, are they?"

"Well, I care," stated Pete, truculently.

"Me too," said Ron, "if a jobs worth doing, it's...."

Goaded, Bill asked, "Do you want me to call Mad Dog over?"

Pete cleared his throat, "Err....urm...I suppose anywhere will do."

Johnno pulled a face and put down the tray he'd been carrying; he was having a problem breathing and he really needed a sit down and a cuppa.

∞

Meanwhile, Tom, and his son Dickie had parked Dickie's beat up Nissan Hardbody truck, also now bearing the Westminster City Council colours, at the bus stop just in front of the statue of Abraham Lincoln, situated behind Parliament Square. Dickie's mates had promised to join them later, arriving by myriad means to avoid detection. Dickie had let the air out of one of the tyres just in case the police should try to move them on and was engaged in an apparently fruitless attempt to undo the wheel nuts.

In the back of the open truck were three large vats of tar, already steaming, and several sacks of feathers; despite all Alb's urgings to the contrary, no one in the group had wanted to kill anyone and they still felt a massed tar and feathering was enough to get the message across.

On arrival Ken had clambered out of the van in a state of discomfort and dishevelment; after stretching and bemoaning his back's frailty for several minutes he had finally leaned in and helped Val to do the same. He felt a frisson of pride as she exited to stand beside him on the pavement; she was a good looking woman despite her age and he felt privileged that she'd chosen to be in his group when she could have gone with Alb.

Harry, having come up with Gray, Gill and Reg, was there to greet them, and he gave Val the once-over, Ken noted. They'd arrived by train then taxi; Reg had the money he had told them over and over, his voice querulous with age and irritation, and he was damned if he was travelling to his death in anything less than 1st class.

∞

Just round the corner from Parliament Square, on the patch of grass outside Westminster Abbey, three ex-RAF squadron leaders, friends of Vera's from her days in the WRAF, roped in to great effect at the last minute, had set out their twenty Spitfire replica models. The engines were running, the flaps were working and the Semtex was onboard. They just needed the off from Alb.

∞

Alb, Gerry and Mags were positioned round the corner with their team, Jonesey, Lenny, Frank, Nobby and Mort, on the edge of Parliament Square. Mags had insisted on being with them rather than on the WI coach. The only absentee from what Alb had always thought of as his Eden Hall gang was Sticky; inexplicably he'd chosen to go with Wilf and Johnno to take pot shots at people from inside a bloody van.

Alb looked along the line. All but one of them were dressed like the Long Riders from the Jesse James movie, in specially imported drovers coats. This had been Gerry's idea, him being a fan of westerns.

Beneath this all encompassing outer wear they wore fatigues with full battle webbing. Each had an AK47, an Uzi, a nine millimetre pistol and half a dozen grenades concealed amongst the folds of the floor-skimming coats.

All but one; Mort had ruined the look. Ok, Jonesey was in his slippers but he was a martyr to his corns and wanted to die comfortable. Ok, Gerry had been adamant about his flat cap, but Mort, having insisted on dressing himself, and despite having managed to get the webbing right using a long distant memory lodged somewhere in his brain, on leaving the apartment had mistaken his dressing gown, a green and red check woollen affair, for his long coat.

Although the outfits had been Gerry's idea it was Alb who had been incensed. He'd announced abruptly that Mort could no longer be part of the op but he'd been overruled in the end; it was too late for anyone to accompany him back to the Village, no-one knew what he might do on his own and they didn't want to take the chance. Besides, no-one wanted to impose the indignity of being left behind on anyone, especially on a suicide mission.

∞

At the same time as the members of the Commons began piling into the Lords eight wheelchair bound octogenarians started to wheel their way from Victoria Tower Gardens towards the Monarch's entrance. Each of these wheelchair volunteers was determined that their final breath be expended defending Britain from the greedy leaches leading the nation. Eyes fixed, jaws set the old men and women of the Octogenarian Suicide Squad, or the OSS as they liked to call themselves headed for their positions in the tree line just south of their target.

When they were all in place one of them sent a text to Alb who then sent a message to the ex-RAF boys, 'GO!'

 

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