Thande
Donor
David, Nick and Gordon walked onto the stage and took their positions at their lectern. Well, that was how David called them in his head. His advisors had assured him that no matter how bitter partisanship might get, mentally referring to his opposite numbers by their Christian names would lead to a more relaxed manner which the voters these days apparently loved. As with everything else that was in fashion in politics these days, it had come from the last American presidential campaign.
David missed Dimbleby’s introduction as he settled behind his lectern. Well, it would just have been the usual guff anyway. He gave an aside glance at the other party leaders. They both stood behind lecterns of their own, identical in every respect except for the monochrome party logos on the front. A democracy of ideas, well, if one ignored the parties that had been excluded.
His reverie meant he almost missed his cue, and he hastily pulled himself together. “This country stands at a crossroads,” he intoned. “We are facing the greatest financial crisis for generations. It is more crucial than ever that we have the right hand on the tiller of the ship of state.” He stared intently into the camera lens, another technique his advisors had got across. “Sometimes when a ship flounders amid the waves, the worst thing a captain can do is try to wrestle control of that tiller, for he will inevitably make things worse. He cannot fully see or understand the shapes of the waves and the complexity of the environment he finds his ship in. So it is with finance. Any attempt by a government to interfere with the forces of the market are doomed to failure. Only the indefatiguable principle of free trade, keeping only a loose hand on that tiller and allowing the ship to right itself and ride out the waves, will succeed. We cannot risk dashing ourselves on the rocks, as we have already come too close to doing.” He subsided. The naval metaphor should play well with those who had accused him of wanting to cut the new warship orders on the Clyde.
The truth was, he was nervous. He shouldn’t have been. He was experienced and it had been predicted that he would be by far the best positioned to benefit from this debate given his performances in Parliament. In a way that was the problem: he had more to lose. Oh, no-one expected anything spectacular from the gaffe-prone Prime Minister, but that meant that merely failing to fall over would be counted as a victory for him…and speak of the devil, Gordon was speaking now. “…not the time for uncertainty. Only clear continuity of government, keeping on the right path which my government has guided this country through the recession, will deliver us to the sunlit uplands of the future.” Referencing his own election posters, how gauche.
And now Nick was speaking. “We have seen once again the failure of the old two parties,” he said pompously. “You, the voters—” he looked even more deeply into the camera than David had managed, “—have seen this many times. But for the first time you have a way out. You have a choice. You have a party that will fight and work for you, not for established interests. Politics for the people, constructive politics, not a Punch and Judy show. Fixing the economy so that it will benefit ordinary working people, not bankers and the wealthy classes. That isn’t something you will get from either of my colleagues.”
Colleagues, David echoed in the privacy of his skull, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. But Nick was a threat, his party had tried to dethrone David’s before and this could be the crucial test that would decide that old fight one way or the other. The trouble was, they also might end up having to work together in a coalition when the dust had settled, so he had to judge his attacks carefully.
The first audience question was, predictably, about the economy. It was the dominant issue of the election, so each man more or less just repeated his opening statement. Gordon did manage to get in a few references to big infrastructure projects, which were attacked by Nick as being built on the backs of desperate people and by David for putting the country deeper into debt. Dimbleby then read out more questions. David’s nervousness returned slightly. The fact was, this was different to anything they had done before. Different to Parliament, different to the sort of informal one-on-one debate that occasionally happened on a constituency level. This would be broadcast to every corner of the country and beyond, and he and the others had no editorial control over what would be shown on screen. Another American innovation. David personally disliked the idea, even though he’d been assured that he would benefit the most from a personal debate, being rather more popular with the public than his party was. Still, it reduced the whole concept of parliamentarianism to a farce.
Inevitably there was a loaded public question on a subject they had all known would come up, even though it had mostly impacted on the Parliament before last. Some people just didn’t know when to let sleeping dogs lie. “Will the Prime Minister apologise for his government’s appalling decision to become involved in a war in the Middle East in a distant country of which we know little?”
Gordon frowned. “We have saved captive people from an oppressive government, and I make no apology for that,” he said, neatly sidestepping the original justification for the war.
Nick wouldn’t let him get away with that, of course. He reached into his pocket and absently, a second-nature move, withdrew a cigarette and lit it, puffing away as he injected a rant about playing games with the lives of British servicemen. David’s hand almost reflexively moved for his own pocket but he stopped it with a scowl. That would look too much like he was copying Nick. At least from Gordon’s pained expression—well, slightly more pained than normal—he was also suffering.
The attack on Gordon’s party’s record on the war continued. David was sorely tempted to pile on, it would be a good tactical move even if it might seem hypocritical given his record, but no, this was an issue he had too much of a passionate personal investment in. “I reiterate that the previous Prime Minister made the right decision,” he said reluctantly, “and I would have done the same in his place.” Now how many votes had that lost? How many had it gained for Nick? Over in America the President had got elected in part because he hadn’t voted for the war, even though that was likely only because he hadn’t been in a position where he could vote for or against it at the time.
Nick’s name came up first for the next question, about the expenses scandal. Typical. David was worried about this one. The press had mainly attacked Gordon and his party over it, but David’s had been just as guilty, and there were older scandals like the cash for peerages one they could dredge up. Nick’s hands were clean by the same virtue as the President’s, his party hadn’t been close enough to power to get interestingly corrupt. At least nobody brought up the nepotism angle, David had been dreading that. David tried the argument about the Chartists campaigning for MPs to be paid in the first place, attacking the simplistic populist message Nick was using, but had a feeling it hadn’t made a mark.
One of the cameras rattled and ground to a halt, but the BBC had thought of that, and a backup one was quickly swung into place. A technician pulled the damaged one out of the way and wheeled it across the studio, leaving a trail of smoke behind him. Was the camera burning or had the technician just taken the opportunity to copy Nick? The latter, David could see him dripping ash on the floor. At least no-one would judge him. David’s fingers twitched towards his pocket again.
Then there was a question about infrastructure. Gordon was trumpeting the new high speed rail network that was being planned. David pulled up old talking points about the war on motorists and that there were many isolated parts of the island—coincidentally which often voted for David’s party—which the railway network would not reach to. Nick meanwhile attacked MPs for travelling on first-class tickets when people were starving, trying to propagate his advantage from the previous question.
But his advantage didn’t last for long. “Foreign relations,” Dimbleby said. “What is your opinion of the Member for Harrow’s proposal for closer integration with our European neighbours?”
A tricky question for David for historical reasons, but fatal for Nick, who had never quite grasped how unpopular his stance on the issue was. “Under the proposal in question, our labour markets would be swamped with cheap labour from the Continent,” he said baldly. “It would be nothing less than a criminal act to take the terrible situation that the British working man currently finds himself in and worsen it further by undercutting him with foreign imports—who, of course, would also end up being mistreated,” he added as an afterthought.
That wouldn’t cut it, David thought with an internal smile. He knew what he was talking about, for his party had once won an election partly thanks to a message attacking the opposition’s treatment of Chinese labour. Even in times of personal trial the British people remained somewhat sympathetic to such causes. He quickly got in a reference to that, neatly rebounding against Gordon’s party by dredging up that old scandal while he was at it. “What the Continent does show us is an abject lesson,” he said. “Look at Germany—a decade ago she was sunk in a stagnant economy and was struggling with a delicate reunification. Now the Chancellor has turned that around into a boom time. Why cannot we do the same? Do we lack sufficient leadership at the top?”
Gordon retaliated by bringing up the elephant in the room. “Foreign relations are a complex subject,” he said, “and cannot be reduced to facile snippets. What of relations with the United States for example? Are we to embark on a trade war with President O—”
“The idea that a trade war could even be contemplated shows insufficient devotion to free trade,” David interjected sharply. “I have the greatest respect for the President, who has shown that America has moved on from its old prejudices and that a member of a minority can be entrusted with the reins of government—”
“Such as yourself?” Nick said abruptly, prompting a shocked glance from Gordon.
“Moving on,” Dimbleby said hastily before matters could escalate. “I’m afraid we are now out of time, gentlemen, so if you would care to give your closing statements…”
“Thank you Mr. Dimbleby,” said Gordon, beginning thanks to the previously agreed order. “Tonight we have seen the potential risks this country faces with the other two choices. A devotion to ideological purity on the free market over the needs of the people of Britain who need protectionist tariffs here and now, or nothing more than puerile ill-informed statements. Suffice to say, I don’t agree with Nick.” That one might get a laugh or two at the back of the picture-house. “Only a renewed mandate for the Unionist government will return England to the days of prosperity. Thank you.” ‘England’, not Britain. A common enough phrase delivered unconsciously from the lips of an Englishman, but Gordon wasn’t really English, so it was probably meant as a deliberate jab at David.
“What we have seen tonight,” Nick said, “is how hidebound the two old parties are. There are no new ideas, just refighting the old irrelevant battles of the past while the country burns around them. Well I think you, the people—” that looking into the camera again, “are fed up with that. You have a new choice, a new party that will fight for ordinary workers, prosperity at home and peace abroad. And that is why you should vote Labour on the 27th of October.”
Finally Dimbleby turned to David. He tried to outdo Nick in staring into the camera, and almost overbalanced on the box discreetly hidden behind his lectern. “When we look around the world, what do we see? We see strong leadership dealing with the economic crisis, leadership strong enough to know when not to interfere for the sake of looking like one is doing something, and ending up making it worse. For all the criticism of Mr Baldwin's decision to intervene in the Middle East to protect the Armenians from the Turk, that showed bold leadership, but Mr Baldwin is gone. Now America has President O’Mahoney and Germany has Chancellor Schleicher. Who does Britain have? With all due respect to my counterparts, is the son of a Manx novelist whose brother belongs to another party an appropriate leader for this crisis? Or a trade union baron?” The last word got a reaction from Nick; good. “If this country is to weather this crisis as it has so many others, we need to give the people their hope back. A vote for the Liberal Party on October 27th is a vote for hope.”
“Thank you,” said Frederick Jabez George Dimbleby, his own hand twitching for his pocket. He turned to the camera, though this would probably just be a voiceover against a text card on the final newsreel. “We have heard from the Right Honourable Gordon Ralph Hall Caine, Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party; from the Right Honourable David Lloyd George, leader of the Liberal Party; and from Mr Joseph Nicholas Bell, leader of the Labour and Co-operative Party. Which of their visions will decide how Britain will be governed in the new decade of the nineteen-thirties? That choice now rests with you, the voters.”
David finally, gratefully went for his pocket, overbalanced and fell off his box. Thank God the cameras had already rattled to a stop, imagine if that had been seen in every picture-house of the Empire…
David missed Dimbleby’s introduction as he settled behind his lectern. Well, it would just have been the usual guff anyway. He gave an aside glance at the other party leaders. They both stood behind lecterns of their own, identical in every respect except for the monochrome party logos on the front. A democracy of ideas, well, if one ignored the parties that had been excluded.
His reverie meant he almost missed his cue, and he hastily pulled himself together. “This country stands at a crossroads,” he intoned. “We are facing the greatest financial crisis for generations. It is more crucial than ever that we have the right hand on the tiller of the ship of state.” He stared intently into the camera lens, another technique his advisors had got across. “Sometimes when a ship flounders amid the waves, the worst thing a captain can do is try to wrestle control of that tiller, for he will inevitably make things worse. He cannot fully see or understand the shapes of the waves and the complexity of the environment he finds his ship in. So it is with finance. Any attempt by a government to interfere with the forces of the market are doomed to failure. Only the indefatiguable principle of free trade, keeping only a loose hand on that tiller and allowing the ship to right itself and ride out the waves, will succeed. We cannot risk dashing ourselves on the rocks, as we have already come too close to doing.” He subsided. The naval metaphor should play well with those who had accused him of wanting to cut the new warship orders on the Clyde.
The truth was, he was nervous. He shouldn’t have been. He was experienced and it had been predicted that he would be by far the best positioned to benefit from this debate given his performances in Parliament. In a way that was the problem: he had more to lose. Oh, no-one expected anything spectacular from the gaffe-prone Prime Minister, but that meant that merely failing to fall over would be counted as a victory for him…and speak of the devil, Gordon was speaking now. “…not the time for uncertainty. Only clear continuity of government, keeping on the right path which my government has guided this country through the recession, will deliver us to the sunlit uplands of the future.” Referencing his own election posters, how gauche.
And now Nick was speaking. “We have seen once again the failure of the old two parties,” he said pompously. “You, the voters—” he looked even more deeply into the camera than David had managed, “—have seen this many times. But for the first time you have a way out. You have a choice. You have a party that will fight and work for you, not for established interests. Politics for the people, constructive politics, not a Punch and Judy show. Fixing the economy so that it will benefit ordinary working people, not bankers and the wealthy classes. That isn’t something you will get from either of my colleagues.”
Colleagues, David echoed in the privacy of his skull, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. But Nick was a threat, his party had tried to dethrone David’s before and this could be the crucial test that would decide that old fight one way or the other. The trouble was, they also might end up having to work together in a coalition when the dust had settled, so he had to judge his attacks carefully.
The first audience question was, predictably, about the economy. It was the dominant issue of the election, so each man more or less just repeated his opening statement. Gordon did manage to get in a few references to big infrastructure projects, which were attacked by Nick as being built on the backs of desperate people and by David for putting the country deeper into debt. Dimbleby then read out more questions. David’s nervousness returned slightly. The fact was, this was different to anything they had done before. Different to Parliament, different to the sort of informal one-on-one debate that occasionally happened on a constituency level. This would be broadcast to every corner of the country and beyond, and he and the others had no editorial control over what would be shown on screen. Another American innovation. David personally disliked the idea, even though he’d been assured that he would benefit the most from a personal debate, being rather more popular with the public than his party was. Still, it reduced the whole concept of parliamentarianism to a farce.
Inevitably there was a loaded public question on a subject they had all known would come up, even though it had mostly impacted on the Parliament before last. Some people just didn’t know when to let sleeping dogs lie. “Will the Prime Minister apologise for his government’s appalling decision to become involved in a war in the Middle East in a distant country of which we know little?”
Gordon frowned. “We have saved captive people from an oppressive government, and I make no apology for that,” he said, neatly sidestepping the original justification for the war.
Nick wouldn’t let him get away with that, of course. He reached into his pocket and absently, a second-nature move, withdrew a cigarette and lit it, puffing away as he injected a rant about playing games with the lives of British servicemen. David’s hand almost reflexively moved for his own pocket but he stopped it with a scowl. That would look too much like he was copying Nick. At least from Gordon’s pained expression—well, slightly more pained than normal—he was also suffering.
The attack on Gordon’s party’s record on the war continued. David was sorely tempted to pile on, it would be a good tactical move even if it might seem hypocritical given his record, but no, this was an issue he had too much of a passionate personal investment in. “I reiterate that the previous Prime Minister made the right decision,” he said reluctantly, “and I would have done the same in his place.” Now how many votes had that lost? How many had it gained for Nick? Over in America the President had got elected in part because he hadn’t voted for the war, even though that was likely only because he hadn’t been in a position where he could vote for or against it at the time.
Nick’s name came up first for the next question, about the expenses scandal. Typical. David was worried about this one. The press had mainly attacked Gordon and his party over it, but David’s had been just as guilty, and there were older scandals like the cash for peerages one they could dredge up. Nick’s hands were clean by the same virtue as the President’s, his party hadn’t been close enough to power to get interestingly corrupt. At least nobody brought up the nepotism angle, David had been dreading that. David tried the argument about the Chartists campaigning for MPs to be paid in the first place, attacking the simplistic populist message Nick was using, but had a feeling it hadn’t made a mark.
One of the cameras rattled and ground to a halt, but the BBC had thought of that, and a backup one was quickly swung into place. A technician pulled the damaged one out of the way and wheeled it across the studio, leaving a trail of smoke behind him. Was the camera burning or had the technician just taken the opportunity to copy Nick? The latter, David could see him dripping ash on the floor. At least no-one would judge him. David’s fingers twitched towards his pocket again.
Then there was a question about infrastructure. Gordon was trumpeting the new high speed rail network that was being planned. David pulled up old talking points about the war on motorists and that there were many isolated parts of the island—coincidentally which often voted for David’s party—which the railway network would not reach to. Nick meanwhile attacked MPs for travelling on first-class tickets when people were starving, trying to propagate his advantage from the previous question.
But his advantage didn’t last for long. “Foreign relations,” Dimbleby said. “What is your opinion of the Member for Harrow’s proposal for closer integration with our European neighbours?”
A tricky question for David for historical reasons, but fatal for Nick, who had never quite grasped how unpopular his stance on the issue was. “Under the proposal in question, our labour markets would be swamped with cheap labour from the Continent,” he said baldly. “It would be nothing less than a criminal act to take the terrible situation that the British working man currently finds himself in and worsen it further by undercutting him with foreign imports—who, of course, would also end up being mistreated,” he added as an afterthought.
That wouldn’t cut it, David thought with an internal smile. He knew what he was talking about, for his party had once won an election partly thanks to a message attacking the opposition’s treatment of Chinese labour. Even in times of personal trial the British people remained somewhat sympathetic to such causes. He quickly got in a reference to that, neatly rebounding against Gordon’s party by dredging up that old scandal while he was at it. “What the Continent does show us is an abject lesson,” he said. “Look at Germany—a decade ago she was sunk in a stagnant economy and was struggling with a delicate reunification. Now the Chancellor has turned that around into a boom time. Why cannot we do the same? Do we lack sufficient leadership at the top?”
Gordon retaliated by bringing up the elephant in the room. “Foreign relations are a complex subject,” he said, “and cannot be reduced to facile snippets. What of relations with the United States for example? Are we to embark on a trade war with President O—”
“The idea that a trade war could even be contemplated shows insufficient devotion to free trade,” David interjected sharply. “I have the greatest respect for the President, who has shown that America has moved on from its old prejudices and that a member of a minority can be entrusted with the reins of government—”
“Such as yourself?” Nick said abruptly, prompting a shocked glance from Gordon.
“Moving on,” Dimbleby said hastily before matters could escalate. “I’m afraid we are now out of time, gentlemen, so if you would care to give your closing statements…”
“Thank you Mr. Dimbleby,” said Gordon, beginning thanks to the previously agreed order. “Tonight we have seen the potential risks this country faces with the other two choices. A devotion to ideological purity on the free market over the needs of the people of Britain who need protectionist tariffs here and now, or nothing more than puerile ill-informed statements. Suffice to say, I don’t agree with Nick.” That one might get a laugh or two at the back of the picture-house. “Only a renewed mandate for the Unionist government will return England to the days of prosperity. Thank you.” ‘England’, not Britain. A common enough phrase delivered unconsciously from the lips of an Englishman, but Gordon wasn’t really English, so it was probably meant as a deliberate jab at David.
“What we have seen tonight,” Nick said, “is how hidebound the two old parties are. There are no new ideas, just refighting the old irrelevant battles of the past while the country burns around them. Well I think you, the people—” that looking into the camera again, “are fed up with that. You have a new choice, a new party that will fight for ordinary workers, prosperity at home and peace abroad. And that is why you should vote Labour on the 27th of October.”
Finally Dimbleby turned to David. He tried to outdo Nick in staring into the camera, and almost overbalanced on the box discreetly hidden behind his lectern. “When we look around the world, what do we see? We see strong leadership dealing with the economic crisis, leadership strong enough to know when not to interfere for the sake of looking like one is doing something, and ending up making it worse. For all the criticism of Mr Baldwin's decision to intervene in the Middle East to protect the Armenians from the Turk, that showed bold leadership, but Mr Baldwin is gone. Now America has President O’Mahoney and Germany has Chancellor Schleicher. Who does Britain have? With all due respect to my counterparts, is the son of a Manx novelist whose brother belongs to another party an appropriate leader for this crisis? Or a trade union baron?” The last word got a reaction from Nick; good. “If this country is to weather this crisis as it has so many others, we need to give the people their hope back. A vote for the Liberal Party on October 27th is a vote for hope.”
“Thank you,” said Frederick Jabez George Dimbleby, his own hand twitching for his pocket. He turned to the camera, though this would probably just be a voiceover against a text card on the final newsreel. “We have heard from the Right Honourable Gordon Ralph Hall Caine, Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party; from the Right Honourable David Lloyd George, leader of the Liberal Party; and from Mr Joseph Nicholas Bell, leader of the Labour and Co-operative Party. Which of their visions will decide how Britain will be governed in the new decade of the nineteen-thirties? That choice now rests with you, the voters.”
David finally, gratefully went for his pocket, overbalanced and fell off his box. Thank God the cameras had already rattled to a stop, imagine if that had been seen in every picture-house of the Empire…
Last edited:
