alternatehistory.com
Chapter One
A slight cheer went up throughout the room, and people turned to each other in hushed but energetic conversation as EBC shot through a rapid montage of the past two months of campaigning. The Minister-President smiling and shaking hands with voters in Czechoslovakia, a changing of the guard on the Polish/Soviet Border, black-clad volunteers handing out fliers covered in Union Jacks and European Flags, the Italian Leader of the Democrats kissing a baby and finally spinning around Big Ben and the EBC Head Office in London.
Panning down from rafters full of cameras, lights and an assortment of other gear, the television screen zoomed towards a red desk, behind which sat the ever-angry looking and slightly scruffy face of Charlie Brooker.
“Good Evening ladies and gentlemen,”
“Lord,” Hugh muttered, “why in Gods name did they think this fellow would be a good follow-up to old Dimbles?”
Artie shrugged. “ I like him, bet you anything he’s one of ours. They probably just wanted to spice it up a little”
“Tonight,” the face on the television continued, “from the Atlantic to the Danube the people of Europe will have their say in just who runs the Federation. With the polls tightening, it looks like we’ll be in for a busy night and to bring you the results we here at the EBC have assembled a crack team of experts, whiz kids and the occasional weirdo to bring you an in depth look at how and maybe why the votes were cast.”
Brooker tapped his pen against the table and the camera span around and down to a sofa below his platform. “Louis Theroux will be giving our guests a right grilling as the winners and losers find themselves on his sofa.” Theroux, clad in a neat suit and tie but bereft of the beard he’d been sporting for the last few months, cleared his throat and shuffled awkwardly.
“Thanks Charlie, yes tonight I’ll be joined by a series of British and European politicians as well as some commenters, pollsters and experts to give their thoughts on what goes down. Join me later when the Prime Minister and Leader of HM’s Opposition will be giving their thoughts on the results.” As the camera span away again, Annabel let out a deep sigh.
“God he’s hunky.”
“Not my type.” Mike muttered.
Before Arthur had the chance to berate her on her terrible taste in men, Brooker had moved on.
“And handling a series of no doubt subtle and tasteful CGI wonders are Huw Edwards over at the map room.” the camera cut to the somewhat grumpy looking Welshman standing like a bored god on a massive map of Europe, each country and province coloured white. “Yes, Charlie, here I’ll be mapping the votes as they come in but remember, Council Ministers are appointed proportionally within each country, small ones like Switzerland, Ireland or Finland have just 25 whereas Britain, France and Germany have 125, with lots of other countries in between. When a country is declared we’ll light it up in the colour of the winner so you can see the results rolling in from east” he gestured out in the direction of the Soviet Union, “to west.”, swinging an arm around to point at Britain. “It’s going to be a very exciting night!” Edwards smiled but seemed a little miffed that, again, he’d been passed over for the top presenting job.
Brooker seemed not to notice. “Thanks, Huw. And next, it’s Victoria Coren, who will be crunching the numbers for us.” For her part, Coren looked much more enthusiastic, stood, smiling, at the centre of a massive CG European Parliament. The massive white marble hall of the Federal Parliament held a thousand ornate chairs and the flags of each of the federations sixteen member states in a semicircle. Standing at the centre of all of these, was the even larger and raised chair of the Minister-President, flanked on either said by ten slightly less impressive seats for the various cabinet ministers. The entire digital production was empty bar Cohen, standing in the middle with a slab[2]-PDA[3] in hand.
“Hello, Charlie! Yes as the night goes on this hall will fill up with various figures to represent the newly elected Council Ministers from all across the Federation. Now,” she said walking from the digital podium to the edge of the empty seats “tonight not only will these figures be colour coded according to their party affiliation but for the first time we’ll be using the official logos and mascots of the party to fill the hall.”
Mike groaned at that but the rest of them smiled. Like everything in the European Federation, party logos had been standardised: simplistic animal designs with one colour. It made everything look pretty and neat but it was a little boring compared to the variety of the past. Some parties had chosen better than others.
“Seriously, they made us bloody bees!” Mike whined and threw back the rest of his watermelon cocktail. “Who the hell picks a bee? A green bee at that. How the hell do you show a bee in Parliament?”
Despite the audience protest, Cohen continued. “And here’s the makeup from 2014.”
From right to left of the great marble hemisphere they streamed in, a small huddle of black bulls, rampant and snorting: before navy lions, sat back with heads held high; sky blue eagles with wings folded neatly behind them; orange doves, looking somewhat cowed by their vicious neighbours; purple wolves with heads cocked to one side; green bees of a terrifying size that floated and swayed above the ground, and finally a thin line of crimson bears.
“Why wolves Art?” Hugh opined, “They’re rather ghastly beasts aren’t they?”
Arthur smiled and shook a finger. “I’m surprised an Old Etonian like you doesn’t know his Kipling. ‘Strength of the pack’ and all that.”
“I bet he prefers ‘White Man’s Burden.” Ann muttered.
As the whole digital chamber came into view, you could easily tell that the Eagles had the best of it. The seats were at least 30% sky-coloured and the sizable chunk of lions gave the blues a slim majority.
“As you can see,” Coren continued, “The CPP have the largest chunk of seats and with their Confederal allies were able to squeeze out a majority of 509. Now, if Minister-President Merkel wants to stay in power she’ll have quite a few options and whatever happens tonight it seems likely that she’ll be waltzing back into the Elysian Palace tomorrow morning.”
A brief chant of “Mutti! Mutti!” came up from the Christian Party supporters before being sushed down by the general audience.
“The CPP have formed governments with the Cons, Dems and even the now extinct Liberals in the past but in the 7 elections leading up to tonight, they’ve always been a part of the ruling coalition.” A few of the Soviets booed from the back. “From right to left we’ve got the Vigilant Coalition, mostly newcomers to the Chamber, they’ll be hoping to nab a few seats in Poland, Hungary and maybe even France. Even though the VA were polling well at the start of the campaign, even taking the lead once or twice, we’ve seen those numbers slip following controversial statements from Vigilant CMs. That’s coupled with a manifesto full of radical policies such as the repatriation of Soviet asylum seekers and an end to the European-Oceanic Alliance. There are even talks about building an alliance with Washington DC and the US but none of this has been official. Whilst Minister-President Merkel has strictly ruled out any power sharing arrangements with the Vigilant, they’ll be hoping to tip the scales in any right-of-centre government.”
From their dingy corner, the Vigilant backers started a dull chorus of “These Most Sacred Fatherlands”, although one particularly sloshed blackshirt seemed to be stuck on “Panzerlied”.
“Loving leftward, but not by much, we’ve got the Confederals.” A roar of WHEY when up from the Tories in the room. “Currently the biggest party in terms of UK support but lagging behind a lot of the others, they’re at 112 Council Ministers with 54 of them coming from the UK.”
“Tory scum!” Mike shouted through cupped hands and, whilst the bouncer outside gave him a nasty look, Leo simply turned up his nose.
“Of course moving on from them we have Mrs Merkel’s Christian People’s Party, currently on 397 and by far the largest group in the room. They’ve been having some trouble recently, both the Turkish Civil War and the Euro-shilling crash have hurt them and pilling suggests they could be on for their worst performance ever. We shouldn't discount the possibility, however, that Mrs Merkel’s own popularity might keep them afloat. To win, they’ll be looking for good performances in Germany, Sweden, Spain, Austria and Poland.”
“Moving over from Centre-Right to centre-left we come to the European Democrats or DEMS!”, Coren shouted the word as most people outside the party had taken to doing” as the rebrand insists.” Even the proudest Democrats shirked away from the new, bright orange “DEMS!” logo. Someone at the bar had it across the chest of their shirt and looked to be seriously considering streaking as a viable alternative.
“Now last time they had a good year, hitting 209 Councillors, forming the official opposition and winning their highest seat count since 1984. Controversy over their newest leader and a general sense of them being, to quote one Parisian commenter, “just a bit pathetic really”, has seen them trailing in the polls. Can they hold on to past gains? Their bases in France, the Netherlands and Denmark all need to stay firm if they’re in with any hope of being in government.”
“Onto the most ferocious looking of our animals, the Wolves of the Cooperative Party” Arthur cheered and held a fist high at the mention of his own party, even if he did refrain from bursting into song. “One of two parties tonight with British candidates at the helm, can their sacred Scotsman lead them into command of the Elysian Palace? They had a rough go of it in 2014, down from a solid 2009 performance to the rather smaller 191, slipping below the 200 mark for the first time since the 80s. Having said that, the Cooperatives have run a popular campaign and there's a lot of fuss online about their new leader, could this be their lucky year?”
“Coming onto our last two parties and reaching the definite left, the Left-Ecologists are hoping for a breakthrough tonight. They made good progress last year, up to 44, and are hoping to see that continue. Wales, Norway and Portugal are the places to watch for our watermelon bumblebees!”
Mike groaned as if his mum had just whipped out the baby photos and took a big swig of someone else's drink.
“Why couldn’t we be stags or badgers or something?” he demanded, “Anything but bloody bees.”
Coren, now having had quite the walk across what must have been a massive green-room seemed to be breathing heavily but persevered onto the final party.
“And last but not least, the Marxist Solidarity Front. Don’t let the size of these bears fool you, there’s only about a dozen of them in the chamber but with a new government in Leningrad and their French Firebrand at the helm, could the MSF finally get that breakthrough they’ve always been hoping for?”
Will tonight see the end of that Christian winning streak? Will the left make the breakthrough they’ve always wanted, or the Vigilant? Or will we be in for another centre-right win? It’s all to play for.”
The camera held on Coren for slightly too long as her smile went from enthusiastic to strained before Brookers face appeared back on screen. “Right and with the preview for Jungle Book 4 out of the way, it is-” Brooker glanced at his watch, “9.58 and 49 second which means I can reveal the exit poll and the first results in just over a minute. Remember, polls close at 10PM wherever you are. That means voting in the east ended at 8PM GMT and on the rest of the mainland at 9. It's just us Brits, the Portuguese and the Irish being awkward. The votes are already being counted in some parts of the Federation and in just a few seconds when Big Ben strikes ten, I’ll be able to give you the Preliminary results of our exit poll. This is a joint poll, conducted for EBC, F-SPAN and Sky by Ipsos Mori and is just a well-educated guess at how the night might turn out.” Checking the screen in front of him, “So in just a few seconds…”
All of a sudden the bells of Big Ben burst into life and the television screen jumped to a picture of the clock tower. In the Union Bar, silence fell and everyone instinctively leaned forwards. With excruciating slowness, the Bells chimed to a stop and a flash of white took over the screen, flying down from above the words, number and logo and logo slammed violently into view.
“And the results of our exit p- bloody hell!”
Brooker, the room and the entire continent fell silent for a second that lasted an hour. There, standing in front of them were the undeniable and impossible words:
A slight cheer went up throughout the room, and people turned to each other in hushed but energetic conversation as EBC shot through a rapid montage of the past two months of campaigning. The Minister-President smiling and shaking hands with voters in Czechoslovakia, a changing of the guard on the Polish/Soviet Border, black-clad volunteers handing out fliers covered in Union Jacks and European Flags, the Italian Leader of the Democrats kissing a baby and finally spinning around Big Ben and the EBC Head Office in London.
Panning down from rafters full of cameras, lights and an assortment of other gear, the television screen zoomed towards a red desk, behind which sat the ever-angry looking and slightly scruffy face of Charlie Brooker.
“Good Evening ladies and gentlemen,”
“Lord,” Hugh muttered, “why in Gods name did they think this fellow would be a good follow-up to old Dimbles?”
Artie shrugged. “ I like him, bet you anything he’s one of ours. They probably just wanted to spice it up a little”
“Tonight,” the face on the television continued, “from the Atlantic to the Danube the people of Europe will have their say in just who runs the Federation. With the polls tightening, it looks like we’ll be in for a busy night and to bring you the results we here at the EBC have assembled a crack team of experts, whiz kids and the occasional weirdo to bring you an in depth look at how and maybe why the votes were cast.”
Brooker tapped his pen against the table and the camera span around and down to a sofa below his platform. “Louis Theroux will be giving our guests a right grilling as the winners and losers find themselves on his sofa.” Theroux, clad in a neat suit and tie but bereft of the beard he’d been sporting for the last few months, cleared his throat and shuffled awkwardly.
“Thanks Charlie, yes tonight I’ll be joined by a series of British and European politicians as well as some commenters, pollsters and experts to give their thoughts on what goes down. Join me later when the Prime Minister and Leader of HM’s Opposition will be giving their thoughts on the results.” As the camera span away again, Annabel let out a deep sigh.
“God he’s hunky.”
“Not my type.” Mike muttered.
Before Arthur had the chance to berate her on her terrible taste in men, Brooker had moved on.
“And handling a series of no doubt subtle and tasteful CGI wonders are Huw Edwards over at the map room.” the camera cut to the somewhat grumpy looking Welshman standing like a bored god on a massive map of Europe, each country and province coloured white. “Yes, Charlie, here I’ll be mapping the votes as they come in but remember, Council Ministers are appointed proportionally within each country, small ones like Switzerland, Ireland or Finland have just 25 whereas Britain, France and Germany have 125, with lots of other countries in between. When a country is declared we’ll light it up in the colour of the winner so you can see the results rolling in from east” he gestured out in the direction of the Soviet Union, “to west.”, swinging an arm around to point at Britain. “It’s going to be a very exciting night!” Edwards smiled but seemed a little miffed that, again, he’d been passed over for the top presenting job.
Brooker seemed not to notice. “Thanks, Huw. And next, it’s Victoria Coren, who will be crunching the numbers for us.” For her part, Coren looked much more enthusiastic, stood, smiling, at the centre of a massive CG European Parliament. The massive white marble hall of the Federal Parliament held a thousand ornate chairs and the flags of each of the federations sixteen member states in a semicircle. Standing at the centre of all of these, was the even larger and raised chair of the Minister-President, flanked on either said by ten slightly less impressive seats for the various cabinet ministers. The entire digital production was empty bar Cohen, standing in the middle with a slab[2]-PDA[3] in hand.
“Hello, Charlie! Yes as the night goes on this hall will fill up with various figures to represent the newly elected Council Ministers from all across the Federation. Now,” she said walking from the digital podium to the edge of the empty seats “tonight not only will these figures be colour coded according to their party affiliation but for the first time we’ll be using the official logos and mascots of the party to fill the hall.”
Mike groaned at that but the rest of them smiled. Like everything in the European Federation, party logos had been standardised: simplistic animal designs with one colour. It made everything look pretty and neat but it was a little boring compared to the variety of the past. Some parties had chosen better than others.
“Seriously, they made us bloody bees!” Mike whined and threw back the rest of his watermelon cocktail. “Who the hell picks a bee? A green bee at that. How the hell do you show a bee in Parliament?”
Despite the audience protest, Cohen continued. “And here’s the makeup from 2014.”
From right to left of the great marble hemisphere they streamed in, a small huddle of black bulls, rampant and snorting: before navy lions, sat back with heads held high; sky blue eagles with wings folded neatly behind them; orange doves, looking somewhat cowed by their vicious neighbours; purple wolves with heads cocked to one side; green bees of a terrifying size that floated and swayed above the ground, and finally a thin line of crimson bears.
“Why wolves Art?” Hugh opined, “They’re rather ghastly beasts aren’t they?”
Arthur smiled and shook a finger. “I’m surprised an Old Etonian like you doesn’t know his Kipling. ‘Strength of the pack’ and all that.”
“I bet he prefers ‘White Man’s Burden.” Ann muttered.
As the whole digital chamber came into view, you could easily tell that the Eagles had the best of it. The seats were at least 30% sky-coloured and the sizable chunk of lions gave the blues a slim majority.
“As you can see,” Coren continued, “The CPP have the largest chunk of seats and with their Confederal allies were able to squeeze out a majority of 509. Now, if Minister-President Merkel wants to stay in power she’ll have quite a few options and whatever happens tonight it seems likely that she’ll be waltzing back into the Elysian Palace tomorrow morning.”
A brief chant of “Mutti! Mutti!” came up from the Christian Party supporters before being sushed down by the general audience.
“The CPP have formed governments with the Cons, Dems and even the now extinct Liberals in the past but in the 7 elections leading up to tonight, they’ve always been a part of the ruling coalition.” A few of the Soviets booed from the back. “From right to left we’ve got the Vigilant Coalition, mostly newcomers to the Chamber, they’ll be hoping to nab a few seats in Poland, Hungary and maybe even France. Even though the VA were polling well at the start of the campaign, even taking the lead once or twice, we’ve seen those numbers slip following controversial statements from Vigilant CMs. That’s coupled with a manifesto full of radical policies such as the repatriation of Soviet asylum seekers and an end to the European-Oceanic Alliance. There are even talks about building an alliance with Washington DC and the US but none of this has been official. Whilst Minister-President Merkel has strictly ruled out any power sharing arrangements with the Vigilant, they’ll be hoping to tip the scales in any right-of-centre government.”
From their dingy corner, the Vigilant backers started a dull chorus of “These Most Sacred Fatherlands”, although one particularly sloshed blackshirt seemed to be stuck on “Panzerlied”.
“Loving leftward, but not by much, we’ve got the Confederals.” A roar of WHEY when up from the Tories in the room. “Currently the biggest party in terms of UK support but lagging behind a lot of the others, they’re at 112 Council Ministers with 54 of them coming from the UK.”
“Tory scum!” Mike shouted through cupped hands and, whilst the bouncer outside gave him a nasty look, Leo simply turned up his nose.
“Of course moving on from them we have Mrs Merkel’s Christian People’s Party, currently on 397 and by far the largest group in the room. They’ve been having some trouble recently, both the Turkish Civil War and the Euro-shilling crash have hurt them and pilling suggests they could be on for their worst performance ever. We shouldn't discount the possibility, however, that Mrs Merkel’s own popularity might keep them afloat. To win, they’ll be looking for good performances in Germany, Sweden, Spain, Austria and Poland.”
“Moving over from Centre-Right to centre-left we come to the European Democrats or DEMS!”, Coren shouted the word as most people outside the party had taken to doing” as the rebrand insists.” Even the proudest Democrats shirked away from the new, bright orange “DEMS!” logo. Someone at the bar had it across the chest of their shirt and looked to be seriously considering streaking as a viable alternative.
“Now last time they had a good year, hitting 209 Councillors, forming the official opposition and winning their highest seat count since 1984. Controversy over their newest leader and a general sense of them being, to quote one Parisian commenter, “just a bit pathetic really”, has seen them trailing in the polls. Can they hold on to past gains? Their bases in France, the Netherlands and Denmark all need to stay firm if they’re in with any hope of being in government.”
“Onto the most ferocious looking of our animals, the Wolves of the Cooperative Party” Arthur cheered and held a fist high at the mention of his own party, even if he did refrain from bursting into song. “One of two parties tonight with British candidates at the helm, can their sacred Scotsman lead them into command of the Elysian Palace? They had a rough go of it in 2014, down from a solid 2009 performance to the rather smaller 191, slipping below the 200 mark for the first time since the 80s. Having said that, the Cooperatives have run a popular campaign and there's a lot of fuss online about their new leader, could this be their lucky year?”
“Coming onto our last two parties and reaching the definite left, the Left-Ecologists are hoping for a breakthrough tonight. They made good progress last year, up to 44, and are hoping to see that continue. Wales, Norway and Portugal are the places to watch for our watermelon bumblebees!”
Mike groaned as if his mum had just whipped out the baby photos and took a big swig of someone else's drink.
“Why couldn’t we be stags or badgers or something?” he demanded, “Anything but bloody bees.”
Coren, now having had quite the walk across what must have been a massive green-room seemed to be breathing heavily but persevered onto the final party.
“And last but not least, the Marxist Solidarity Front. Don’t let the size of these bears fool you, there’s only about a dozen of them in the chamber but with a new government in Leningrad and their French Firebrand at the helm, could the MSF finally get that breakthrough they’ve always been hoping for?”
Will tonight see the end of that Christian winning streak? Will the left make the breakthrough they’ve always wanted, or the Vigilant? Or will we be in for another centre-right win? It’s all to play for.”
The camera held on Coren for slightly too long as her smile went from enthusiastic to strained before Brookers face appeared back on screen. “Right and with the preview for Jungle Book 4 out of the way, it is-” Brooker glanced at his watch, “9.58 and 49 second which means I can reveal the exit poll and the first results in just over a minute. Remember, polls close at 10PM wherever you are. That means voting in the east ended at 8PM GMT and on the rest of the mainland at 9. It's just us Brits, the Portuguese and the Irish being awkward. The votes are already being counted in some parts of the Federation and in just a few seconds when Big Ben strikes ten, I’ll be able to give you the Preliminary results of our exit poll. This is a joint poll, conducted for EBC, F-SPAN and Sky by Ipsos Mori and is just a well-educated guess at how the night might turn out.” Checking the screen in front of him, “So in just a few seconds…”
All of a sudden the bells of Big Ben burst into life and the television screen jumped to a picture of the clock tower. In the Union Bar, silence fell and everyone instinctively leaned forwards. With excruciating slowness, the Bells chimed to a stop and a flash of white took over the screen, flying down from above the words, number and logo and logo slammed violently into view.
“And the results of our exit p- bloody hell!”
Brooker, the room and the entire continent fell silent for a second that lasted an hour. There, standing in front of them were the undeniable and impossible words:
VIGILANT LARGEST PARTY
406 Seats
Co-Op - 368
CON- 101
CPP - 50
L-E - 38
MSF - 22
DEMS! - 19
406 Seats
Co-Op - 368
CON- 101
CPP - 50
L-E - 38
MSF - 22
DEMS! - 19
- Major Crimson
- Word Count: 2.3k