A Modest Proposal

Eek. Shades of Perceval there at the end.

Another PM Powell - I envy your ability to nod to your other projects so skilfully.

I'm assuming Foot or Powell are the target of the shooting - but not the victim, given what we already know...

Very glad to see this continuing.
 
Shit, it appears, is hitting the fan in earnest now. Also, is the "promising young backbencher" supposed to be someone? I thought it might be Eric Morecambe, but that's mainly just WMG.
 
Nine
1963


“News? Anything?” Foot paced anxiously up and down the abandoned works canteen. With circumstances such as they were, his sentences had taken on something of an uncharacteristic brevity.

Parliament was a funny place, a medieval compound labyrinthine at the best of times. There were worse places Foot could think of from which to escape an armed ambush. He remembered his instinctive collapse, and taking cover behind the dispatch box as the incipient panic reigned all around. He also remembered shepherding Enoch and a few of the other ministers along, up past the Speaker’s chair, and towards the relative safety of the lobby. After that it was all something of a blur in his mind, which was odd because he had definitely planned an escape route for just this scenario. While there was no reason to suppose that he hadn’t taken that route, the absence of memory concerned him. Maybe he had had to improvise, to evade the assassin, or the agent of whichever power…

“There must be some information!” Foot snapped. If he couldn’t rely upon his own account – well he’d damn well better have someone else’s.

“Nothing yet Michael” Powell replied, levelly.

“That’s ridiculous. Parliament is right there!”

Foot gestured towards the window. The window they dared not step any closer towards. Outside lay views of the Thames, and in the distance, wreathed in smoke, of St. Steven’s Tower.

“And we are here. Where we would be wise to remain and wait.”

As if to demonstrate his point, Powell pulled out a chair and seated himself at a table. Retrieving a small notebook from his jacket pocket he began to translate into Greek the chalked words of the canteen menu. Upon having completed that task once in the style of Thucydides – and having had some not inconsiderable trouble over ‘Spotted Dick’ – he turned the page and began again in the style of Herodotus. A state of pure intellectual concentration thus attained, Powell did not look up again.

Foot by contrast continued to pace uncertainly. He patted down his jacket for the seventeenth time, in the forlorn hope that it contained a single hoarded dog end. He was to have no such luck. Perhaps a successful escape from the mounting chaos across the river had exhausted his luck for the day. He looked again to the window. There was less smoke than before – meaning perhaps only a few isolated fires, rather than the conflagration he’d feared. Blasts of gunfire still came fast and frequent. The sounds of automatic weaponry, some British, some of a foreign calibre judging from the difference in pitch. Or perhaps that was just distance, distorting the sound, rendering it into a heterogeneous patter? There would have to be some news through soon, assuming that their lines of communication hadn’t been completely cut.

A vacant office complex made as good a safe house as any. Back in the National Government days the resistance had smuggled in supplies, well disguised as innocuous paperwork, right under Butler’s nose; within spitting distance from the notional seat of Government. The accountancy firm which then occupied most of the building had unknowingly provided an effective front for resistance activities. Now that firm was gone, as was (at least until approximately five hours ago) the resistance’s need for total secrecy. All that remained was the abandoned canteen, and a now hastily repurposed hideout. Still, it had been here when they needed it, for Foot, Powell, and the four loyal bodyguards stationed in the corridor outside. The ‘official’ plan held for a rendezvous point in Westminster tube station – but Foot had judged that plan to be too widely known. If a gunman – more than one gunman as it turned out – could get right into the Commons chamber, it paid to be cautious. He knew that at least one of the guards would be keeping an ear to the radio. That radio would be receiving only, it was far too risky to transmit. They must have heard something by now…

As if to answer Foot’s frantic internal monologue, there was a knock at the door. As a precaution Foot reached for his revolver. The old resistance stockpiles were proving their worth time and again.

“Come.”

The door opened. Montague Woodhouse stepped in. “Only myself, sir” he reassured, as Foot visibly relaxed.

“Any news?” he ventured hopefully.

“Yes sir, there’s been a coup.” The bodyguard replied bluntly.

“A coup?” Foot’s face rushed into a dozen unanswered questions. Powell even looked up from his translations, despite having only just moved on to Ionic.

“Rather an attempted coup that is, sir. My apologies, I did not intend to alarm unnecessarily.” Woodhouse turned to Powell. “Are you comfortable Prime Minister?”

“He makes a living.” Foot answered, as Powell‘s upper lip twitched. “So the coup is being defended against?”

“It would appear so, sir. With your permission I should like to resume intelligence gathering”

“Yes, that’s fine. Just tell Lee and Brooks to remain on the door. And have John bring the car around, but don’t tell him why.”

“Yes sir.”

“Oh, and see if there’s anything coming from St. James. I want to know which way they‘ve fallen.”

“Will do sir.”

“And make sure there aren’t any Tiger IV’s coming ashore in Margate.”

“Yes.” Woodhouse paused. “Will there be anything else sir?”

“No, just that for now Monty. Thank you.”

Woodhouse offered the traditional salute, before turning and exiting the room. Foot slumped down into one of the chairs. Exhaling noisily, he ran a hand through his long greying hair. Powell looked over to him, fixing him with an unsettlingly firm stare.

“You know what this most likely means, don’t you Michael?”

“Fascists on the beaches?” Foot replied, with off-hand flippancy.

“Perhaps.” Powell replied, in a tone which suggested he felt this to be by far the least likely outcome. “But the Nationals would only do something so extreme as to invite German intervention in the very last resort. They will not act while the option not to act remains open. Tell me, in thirty years did you ever know them to make a quick and decisive choice?”

Foot snorted. “A first time for everything.” He smiled mirthlessly.

“No. They have always acted in the manner of men who believe that they can just talk their way back into the nation’s confidence. You heard the clichéd words of that mediocre mind Hyde earlier today.”

“I felt he put up a decent show.” Foot offered charitably, before realising that Hyde had been, knowingly or otherwise, the bait in the National’s trap.

“Poor reasoning is not something which can be excused by showmanship alone, even if it can be concealed so.”

Foot shrugged. “Fine, so the Nationals are all talk and no trousers, but can we be so certain that the Germans won’t still play their hand?”

“Can’t we? We both know that they could have invaded our shores at any time in recent years, had they but wanted to do so.”

Painful though it was, Foot could only acknowledge the truth of Powell’s statement. The substantial increases they had made to defence spending in the previous twelve months would take a further few years to show any results. Yes they could have resisted in 1940 – that was an article of faith for Foot, Powell, and all good men – but in the years since? Who could tell by how much the Guilty Men had let things slip.

“So I suppose that there will be Swastikas over Kent before sunset?”

“There won’t be.” Powell countered “Because Speer does not want an invasion. Speer wants to be invited in. He wants the world – or rather the Americans - to believe that Germany once again respects Westphalia. Only a legitimate government can invite him in.”

“An odd way to obtain legitimacy” Foot observed. “Massacring half the Commons.”

“Precisely” Powell remarked, without further elaboration, before he returned once again to his intellectual distractions.

Foot considered the question of legitimacy. There was no way that he, Powell, or Parliament would be inviting the Germans ashore. And that, surely, would be the end of the matter? Parliamentary sovereignty was, after all, absolute. The exercise of the royal prerogative on the part of the executive, well that ultimately depended upon royal assent, even allowing for precedent and convention...

A ripple of realisation passed through Foot’s brain. His Majesty was as constitutionally ineffective as he was unobstructive. He was also the Head of State. Even allowing for his increasing frailty, and his elder brother’s second exile, King George VI carried substantial influence. What if he now sent for Butler? What if another National was already on his way to the palace, on a promise to restore order ‘by whatever means’? What better way to legitimise a coup d’etat?

How could he be sure that it wasn't already happening? Enoch's logic was impeccable.

Foot grimaced. Britain’s constitutional tapestry had been unravelled quite enough in the past. Her institutions had been tarnished. Her shining lights of civilisation had become dimmed in the eyes of the world. How could he let this decay continue? How, when they had only just started to rebuild?

But if, as he now feared, the King declared for the coupists, matters would be greatly complicated. He had long been suspicious of where His Majesty’s true sympathies lay – a genial and modest man, but one who had never spoken out against the National decline. Would he fall in with the coup? And what then? If – if – it went that way… Well, there were contingencies… Parliament had to prevail, the constitution had to be preserved.

Sometimes to save the whole you have to destroy the part.

Though it would be a cruel necessity.
 
Shit, it appears, is hitting the fan in earnest now. Also, is the "promising young backbencher" supposed to be someone? I thought it might be Eric Morecambe, but that's mainly just WMG.

Eric Varley, an OTL Labour figure from the 1970s and early 1980s.

All characters with the exception of Hyde the opposition spokesman are historical figures, including Foot's driver (who Iain correctly identified).
 
Well, that's all of my previous questions answered!

I really like the use of George VI here; the man adhering to his constitutional duty, and no-one is sure if it's because or in spite of his personal beliefs - whereas the Duke of Windsor is the head of some nebulous movement of exiles. It's a deft inversion of the usual 'Nazi Britain' tropes.

I'm really excited to see how the end-game plays out.
 
Ten
1970


“Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged”.



A dreary wash of sleet fell over Cornish moorland, barely illuminated by the December sun. Michael Foot watched the scene idly through wide sashed windows. The warmth of an open fire across the room detached his senses from even the mild winter climate. In a couple of weeks’ time the NUM would be presenting their next pay claim, allowing for overtime of course; members needed their overtime. Robert – or most likely one of his junior ministers – would then explain how that just created more coal for the export trade. They would talk of finally escaping the confines of autarchy, of a booming global market of free socialist labour. And they would forget Occupied Ukraine and the cheapness of minerals where human life was cheaper still.

Michael was dragged from his melancholy, perhaps unwillingly, by the clinking of a whiskey glass. He glanced back towards the room, to where his oldest brother stood. To the drinks cabinet.

“A glass Michael?” Dingle Foot asked.

“No, thank you. Not before lunch.” Familial affection kept the harshness and - Michael hoped - the judgement from his voice. Where had that cabinet come from? It could never have been there while their father was alive… In all other ways Pencrebar remained a shrine to Isaac Foot; unchanged for the past decade at least, and longer still so far as Michael could remember. He hadn’t visited as often as he should have.

“You really should, you know. It’s a good malt this one. Scottish, obviously.” Dingle flickered a half smile. “Old friends in Dundee still send a bottle down from time to time.”

The elder brother took a seat in one of two large armchairs facing the fireplace. He gestured for Michael to join him. Reluctantly Michael did so. Absent a glass in his hand, he instead looked towards the fireplace: the only wall of the room that wasn’t covered floor-to ceiling in bookshelves – save also for the windows and the drinks cabinet: that cuckoo in the bibliophilic nest.

Dingle raised his glass to his mouth once again, before he noticed Michael’s neutral expression. He correctly interpreted it as disapproval.

“We all have our vices Michael” the elder brother began softly. “Seventy Woodbines a day can’t be good for you either, if what Mrs Morgan tells me is true.”

“Setting the housekeeper to spy on your own brother now?” Michael shot back, affecting incredulity.

“Now now, nothing out of the ordinary for a Minister of Information I should imagine.” Dingle replied with a sly smile. His voice softened once more into conciliation as he continued. “In all seriousness, no, of course I haven’t been spying on you Michael. This is your family home as much as it is mine. You may do as you please while you are here.” Dingle paused as Michael calmed somewhat, before adding “Think of here as a little island of liberty.” His lips formed into the thinnest of smiles.

Before Michael could launch into the flurry of counterpoints, points which his orator brain was already formulating, the ringing of a bell summoned them both to dinner.


Dinner was a far less austere affair than it had been when Isaac was the family patriarch. Now it was more festive, and rather less puritan. A domestic scene more in keeping with the rest of the nation, anticipating the New Age Of Plenty promised of the nineteen seventies. What had slipped in a retrograde manner was the level of familial warmth; inevitable perhaps, as the Foot brood’s shared childhood receded further and further into the past. Now they were seven adults of advanced middle age, their interests as divergent as their career paths. Yet still the sons and daughters of Isaac Foot gathered every year at Pencrebar.

Dingle now sat at the head of table, a refilled scotch glass never far from his hand. To his left sat Hugh, on his left John. Then came Jennifer and Sally, the former happily relieved for the day from her own life of domestic duties. It had been a full year since Michael had last seen any of them, a realisation which now filled him with some small measure of guilt. He made a special attempt to speak to Sally, but she avoided his gaze. Their inevitable conversation, whatever it would be, was best not had in front of the rest of the family. His long exile in the ‘fifties had hurt her, clearly; had curtailed their previous closeness. She had not been well for over a decade, and their relationship had barely begun to repair. In any case the table settings were not arranged in a way which favoured their interaction. Michael was to be sat at the very end of the table, opposite Christopher. He tried not to read anything meaningful in that.

Dingle led them in a short prayer, more out of tradition than piety. Like Michael, most of the Foots had long ago reached their own theological accommodation with doubt. An old family friend had once remarked that a day in the Foot household was one of ‘Bacon for breakfast, Liberalism for lunch, and Deuteronomy for Dinner’. To which part of this tradition would Dingle now adhere? As Michael pondered the metaphor, the literal food arrived. It was simple fare. Against the substantial culinary influence from the subcontinent in recent years – which Michael had eagerly encouraged – Pencrebar kept with tradition.

With food and drink at hand, conversation flowed between the elder three Foot brothers. In any other household there could reasonably be expected to be a list of proscribed topics of conversation, especially at a time of ‘occasion’, for the purposes of keeping the peace over the dining table. Not so at Pencrebar. While there was to be no Deuternomy; among Members of the Bar and of Parliament, there could be no avoiding Liberalism or the topic of politics in general. Michael sat in silence, feigning disinterest. The conversation for now remained within the (relatively) safe territory of historical discussion. Dingle was holding forth on Lloyd George’s interwar career; a popular topic of his, as Michael wearily recalled. While the quixotic Welshman had long been a family hero of sorts, Dingle had if anything become an even greater advocate of the last Liberal Prime Minister’s legacy. His long friendship with Megan was likely the cause, with the two of them now sitting together in Parliament, awkwardly upon the Opposition benches – neither part of the Government nor of the vestigial National Party. The former Liberal and the former Independent Liberal, whatever that made them together. Perhaps they had hoped to emulate the Wizard?

Now the conversation had moved on, and Hugh was talking. Michael had once tried in vain to keep Hugh on in the diplomatic service, and possibly even bring him into the Government. But their differing views on the Middle East had prevented that.

“Oh course, I will see what I can do in service to the League. I understand that they are having yet another enquiry on Palestine. The settler issue is becoming explosive.”

“I am given to understand that the situation on the ground much as it was in ’36. Is that so?” Dingle asked.

“Worse.” Hugh replied “Though the numbers are fewer, the ferocity is greater. It has been that way ever since the Exodus arrived in Haifa.”

“The League will do nothing.” John added dismissively. “They have been moribund these past thirty years. Who, even among friendly nations, still adheres to them?”

“I understand that New Zealand still sends a delegation.” Michael chipped in sardonically. The other three looked to him blankly. “Well? You were trying to draw me in weren’t you?”

“I don’t know what you mean Michael.” Dingle replied levelly. “You may join the conversation as and when you please.”

“You are too kind, dear brother. Because you know well enough that the Exodus left these shores with my full-hearted support.” Michael allowed himself a smirk.

“A rather reckless act in hindsight, no? Something of a provocation?”

“That is what the American press called it. A ‘provocation’, ‘an act designed to upset the delicate balance of power and to grant succour to the foreign enemies of a continental rival’. Yes, I did read that particular editorial. Rather poorly written if I recall, though I’ll grant them that one good turn of phrase.”

Dingle shook his head. “And precisely what good comes from such a stunt?” But before his younger brother could respond, he waved his hand dismissively. “Bah, I known what you’re going to say – if you’d had your way you’d have named the ship the Mayflower II.”

Dingle rose from the table in search of a refill. Michael leaned in immediately for the rebuttal.

“I’d be very much inclined to say, that precisely such a stunt is a worthy end in itself” – Dingle scoffed – “insofar as we keep the flame of resistance ablaze for all the world to see. And what’s more -” Dingle at this point made a frustrated attempt at interruption, and in his failure compensated himself with a generous measure. Michael, attaining momentum, powered on; a steam engine of eternal subclauses. “-I might be so bold as to consider it a good thing that, through our efforts, that small part of European Jewry which remains should have a hope of survival, in a land of their own.”

“But it isn’t their land alone!” Hugh at last managed to interject. Hugh had always cleaved to the Colonial Office’s traditional pro-Arab policy. When that had faltered, as Whitehall’s glacial acceptance of Michael’s regime eventually advanced to the doors of that particular department, an untidy fudge had been the result. Two conflicting idealisms clashed where pragmatism had always supposedly reigned.

But Michael had already moved on, and Continuity Liberal Party opposition to the 1968 Sovereignty Act was now in his sights.

“It had also been my very great hope that I might have relied upon the support of all parties in rekindling our own national radicalism.”

He didn’t mention Dingle or Lady Megan by name. He didn’t have to.

“But its gesture politics Michael! Words and symbols and England uber alles. It doesn’t do anything whatsoever for our dire economic situation. It doesn’t confer even a sliver of additional liberty upon any of our citizenry.” Dingle fumed. “And at what cost to our relations with the Neutral states?”

“The Neutrals are no better than a forelock-tucking floor-scraping assembly of eunuchs – more neutered than neutral.”

Their other brothers and sisters watched, as the heated sparring escalated. The personal weaved into the political, poisonous invective drawn from the historical streams which had set brother apart from brother.

“Who do you think you are,” Dingle began, “to so arrogantly award yourself that Cromwellian title, to trample so recklessly on our uncodified constitution? Have you ever considered the damage that you have done?”

Michael set a face of defiance. “It needed to be done.”

“What needed to be done? Regicide? Political murder? The slandering of all political opposition while you warm up the tepid brew of small island nationalism? Aided and abetted by that nasal opportunist.”

“I think you are ignoring the scale and nature of our opposition these past thirty years. A barrister’s quick wit may be entertaining, but it is no defence against a German assassin.” Michael attempted to reason. “Against that, and against Fortress Europa, I have promoted remarkable tolerance.”

Dingle pushed on “But is our country to remain a democratic country in which the right of free criticism and free debate is not merely tolerated but encouraged? Or are the rank and file of the party to be bludgeoned or cowed into an uncritical subservience towards the leadership?”

“The difference between us Dingle, is that you are a Liberal who believes in freedom in the abstract. I have made it a reality.”

“And how many have lost their freedom, or their lives, to buy it for you? What happened to Sir Richard? Or to Nye Bevan? Or Douglas-Home? Hell, what happened to Peggy Duff, Michael? Where along the path to power did you let them all fall by the wayside?” Dingle half-slurred the names of his old parliamentary colleagues.

Michael shouted back “We have won back our national independence! It is a victory that has been darkened by loss, but it is a victory nonetheless!”

“And you really think that your blood-stained path was the only way?”

Michael fell silent. His eyes fell to the ground. To achieve what he had… well, it was inevitable that there should be regrets. All those who had stood aside in 1940, they had made it inevitable. Eventually he looked back across the table.

“Yes. It was the only way.”


There had been a moment, perhaps, in 1940, when family and nation could have united behind Lloyd George. Or had there been, really? Three decades set a misted veil over recollection; what had and hadn’t happened, what was fact and what was comfortable myth, what might or might not have been…

“If Labour had stood behind Lloyd George in 1931…” Dingle began, the opening of a well-worn long-aired contention. The contention that their country might have averted the long drawn out depression of the thirties, that a genuinely National government might have triumphed in the European war, or better still prevented it entirely. It was a contention that earned only scorn from Michael. Dingle’s obsession with the hypothetical, an obsession strongly accentuated in recent years, won him no credit, no mitigation for his past actions.

“If you hadn’t fallen in line with Halifax and the rest of them…” Michael began. He left the rest of the implication unsaid, though he had already gone too far.

There followed raised voices and rancour, displaced crockery, an atmosphere of liberal dissent and free enquiry tarnished forever. Somewhere a scotch glass shattered, not thrown but set down with clumsy haste. Accusation. Recrimination. The sundering of the strongest bond of all.

There could be no turning back.
 
Eleven
1977



Lord Mountbatten had a decision to make.

Military life had been full of decisions. So, to his eventual satisfaction, had proven civilian life. Too often politics appeared to be little more than faceless grey men arguing around a table – and he had seen plenty of scenes like that – but ultimately there was always a decision to make.

He’d been in the job for barely a month. A frenetic, breathless month of base inspections, briefings and meetings with a multitude of subordinates. There just weren’t enough hours in the day. On the face of it though, he’d been impressed. Their island truly was the armed camp that propaganda asserted. A professional army unseen since the Great War, and a navy which could inspire genuine pride, even allowing for a paucity of capital ships. Then there was the air force, with its untested doctrines of interception, and faith in the ‘Aluminium Wall’. He’d been rather thrown at first by the open retention of royalist names and insignia among the regiments, even in Foot’s Republic. But he supposed that the Lord Protector had never really cared for the detail of military organisation. After inaugurating “The Second Model Army”, earnest naming reforms had effectively ceased. The British Navy had also made its own uneasy accord with Foot’s English Radicalism; as the presence in Portsmouth of HMS Bellerophon, HMS Bonaventure, and of course HMS Plymouth attested.

His new subordinates had briefed him, the perceptible flicker of both fear and hope in their eyes. Fear, because what Foot and Powell had told him of a new orbital threat was all too true. Hope because they all invested that Pandoran emotion in him, a man whom some of them had once served under all those years ago. Artificial satellite-mounted missile arrays, each tipped with a dozen warheads. Each capable of being armed and fired from any top tier command centre in the Reich. Against such a threat there could be no defence, could there? Had their country gone through all the upheaval of past decades only to return, full circle, to a position of helplessness before German arms? Mountbatten had assured the British forces as best he could, though it was clear that they would be playing technological catch up for years to come. What little intelligence they knew apparently came by way of a Russian informant; the last laugh of Judeo-Bolshevik science.

Mountbatten had pulled himself away from all that, if only for a morning, to return to the building he still thought of as Admiralty Arch. Cabinet was meeting, for such traditions still held. A civil servant led him to yet another panelled ante-room, where he’d met – in some cases only for the first time – his Cabinet colleagues. At length Foot, whose own timekeeping was elastic at best, called them inside. They sat around a table - one which might well have been taken straight from Downing Street. Foot opened Cabinet, welcoming them all as graciously as ever, but thereafter he played little role in the discussion; his mind apparently even more absent than usual. Delegated to by default, it was his Deputy Powell who led the meeting.

Chancellor Maxwell rose first to deliver a report which, if one filtered out half-truths and some rather creative interpretation of economic statistics, amounted to very little whatsoever. Production figures were on target, the export trade was booming. Creative industries were undergoing a renaissance (though whether that included the Chancellor’s own efforts was left unclear). Exchange controls might be relaxed, and the ration might be increased on certain “luxuries”. Mountbatten always considered himself to be a fair judge of both men and of their character. By the end of the five minute presentation he had decided that Maxwell was not a man he would want under his command – no matter his nautical skills.

Exilic propaganda always held that the Commonwealth of Great Britain was a nation in severe economic hardship, where otherwise common goods were rare and essential foodstuffs subject to continual shortage. The supply of industrial resources was supposedly choked off every winter. All luxuries were Ersatz at best. Well, that was the myth. Mountbatten had been pleased to learn that things were never quite so dire. Yes, admittedly there was rationing, particularly of foodstuffs, but these rations were generous (certainly more so than those of 1940s Burma), and by most accounts were seen almost as a public good. The new cadets he had met were fit and healthy. Being no economist, he couldn’t judge the situation much more than that. Eventually he concluded that the truth lay somewhere below Maxwell’s fantasy, though far above Ottawa’s horror stories.

The Home Secretary followed, a young man by the name of Cooke – probably too young to even remember Mountbatten’s war. Cooke spoke softly in a Midlands accent. By all accounts he was a ‘liberal’ and something of a protégé of Foot. Cabinet were told of the latest foreign conspiracy to be unmasked – a rabble of would-be coupists supposedly funded by German gold. Mountbatten knew full well that the Germans had laundered the last of their genuine gold via Zurich decades ago, but decided against introducing this fact to those assembled. It was just about possible, he supposed, that some delusion Salopians had been paid in painted lead. Regardless, they would be on their way to the re-education camps by the end of the week.

One thing Mountbatten had come to expect over the previous fifty years, as the old monarchies had crumbled and become supplanted by the dictators, was the secondary language of political euphemism. “Pacification” and “resettlement”, “harmonisation” and “national entrenchment”. All hid a litany of sins, and made murder sound positively benevolent. And so Mountbatten imagined was the case with “re-education”, which could really only mean propaganda-filled brainwashing at best.

And yet it wasn’t so. The camps, which were admittedly set in the barren isolation of the Outer Hebrides, were genuine centres for education and – to his greater surprise – free thought and free speech. Mountbatten would not have believed it, had it not been revealed to him by those with no love for the regime and thus presumably no incentive to lie. Perhaps Foot and Powell genuinely believed in the self-evident righteousness of their cause? All that these errant fellows needed was the time and environment in which to realise it? Another paradox of the regime.

Cooke wrapped up. Youthful and clearly lacking in confidence, he carried little weight in the room; a shame, Mountbatten felt, as he seemed a genuinely thoughtful figure when set against the fantasist Chancellor.

Stan Orme by contrast was a formidable character, a figure who reminded Mountbatten of an old Bristolian trade unionist he’d once met. Orme was Foreign Secretary, and the regime’s third most prominent figure on the world stage. While Foot’s radicalism was essentially English, Orme flew the internationalist flag. Mountbatten had met him before, many years ago. Another interminable summit in South Africa, where Pretoria’s three-way neutrality had been strained and every delegation looked set for disappointment. Orme had somehow turned things around – while minority rule obviously persisted, the Afrikaner rulers ultimately prevaricated on joining the German bloc.

Orme had just come from a meeting with the Indian ambassador. As rapprochements steeped in historical irony went, perhaps only the Entente Cordiale could match the Mumbai Accords. Mountbatten vividly remembered the old newsreel footage of overladen helicopters taking off from the roofs of Government House, when the old Raj had collapsed into an inferno of its own stubborn making. And now, barely two decades on, India was England’s staunchest ally. As Orme began his report on the summit, Foot stirred temporarily from otherwise total detachment.

“…And I have every confidence that our technological exchanges will considerably strengthen the Persian frontier.” Orme remarked, to general approval around the table. The Shah was of course an American puppet, and suspiciously close to the Exiles.

The Director of Economic Planning, silent until now, piped up. “I still think we should have insisted upon greater reciprocity in our deal-”

“The terms of the agreement were conveyed to Cabinet last month, and so previously agreed” Orme interrupted.

“I just worry that we are selling short the fruits of our scientific talent” the Director persisted.

“Yes Denis, and you made that point quite clearly – and emotionally – at the time of our last meeting.”

“That coloured women could back-stab us at any time, and you know it! You can’t trust them.”

Orme only shook his head, while Powell looked daggers at the Director. With the reaction time of an opening crypt, Foot broke the silence.

“India is our friend and ally. We don’t make commercial bargains with our friends, comrades! What is more, Mrs Gandhi is a close personal friend of mine. I will have no further discussion on the subject.”

Foot’s entreaty, such as it was, fell upon deaf ears, as both Director and Foreign Secretary continued to snipe back and forth. Only Powell, nostrils flaring, managed to bring them back into line by slamming a clenched fist upon the table. The abruptness of this action made every other member of the Cabinet, bar Mountbatten, jump slightly in their seats. Foot appeared to have already drifted back into his private musings. A thin roll-up idly burned away in his left hand.

“Mr Orme, in your full estimation can we rely upon the steadfastness of our Indian allies?” Powell asked without leading.

“Yes. We need only support them now in their regional quarrels – quarrels may I add where they are most overwhelmingly in the right – and we shall have their loyalty through into the next century. Their growing industrial and military potential will only strengthen our alliance.”

“Let it be so then, the Indian may yet be the armourer of parliamentary democracy.”

“You may well be right, Deputy Lord Protector.” Orme agreed.

“Then Cabinet is agreed.” Powell concluded levelly, and falsely. “Do proceed.” He looked to Mountbatten. “Unless… the new Defence Secretary has anything to add?”

Mountbatten considered for a moment. He had been content until now to absorb information in silence. A conclusion could always be formed later.

“I wouldn’t for a moment doubt the fighting prowess of the common Indian soldier” he replied. Powell appeared to twitch, unsatisfied at the non-committal remark. Mountbatten continued “It isn’t for me to set our geopolitical priorities, but I can see sound strategic value in an Indian alliance.”

Around the table wary nods of assent followed. Powell kept a fixed look on Mountbatten, if only for a few seconds. There was no smile this time, only the thinnest hint of approval.

Orme’s summary of the rest of world affairs drew few comments. Cabinet could have been forgiven for thinking that the Atlantic lacked a western shore, such were the brevity of the Foreign Secretary’s remarks on that hemisphere. There was scattered laughter at President Carter’s latest supposed misfortune, laughter which Mountbatten felt to be both forced and unfair. Yes, it was true that Carter was a Washington outsider. It was also true that Hollywood was a rare background for an elected President. But President Ann Carter had ridden her underdog campaign all the way from California to the White House. That in itself surely deserved some credit. The existence of the unwilling Great Power could not just be willed away.

“And Ireland?” Powell prompted, as Orme began to wrap up.

“I defer to Roy on that.”

In the short time since his return to British politics, Mountbatten had already heard at least a dozen names touted as rising stars – rather foolishly, as vacancies into which to rise were seldom created. Roy Hattersley was one of those names. No member of the Footite old guard, nor a sycophantic climber, Hattersley might just have warranted such an optimistic epithet. Perhaps that was why he had been lumbered with such a dead end department. Since when did Ireland make the headlines?

Hattersley spoke, in a somewhat distinctive manner. Powell’s eyes flicked with an unhappy intensity, though he remained quiet. Foot was effectively absent. Murmurs of dissent quickly spread around the cabinet table; talk of dual sovereignty was anathema, no matter the enthusiasm of a few fringe nutters. That hadn’t stopped Dublin’s latest putative offer, which of course had to be entertained with a sliver of sincerity. On and on went the diplomatic three- (or four-)way tug of war between the power blocs, and all based on the utterly paranoid suggestion that the Taoiseach was one slight away from signing a Hiberno-German pact to turn his country into the world’s largest airstrip. But then there was a lot of that about…

“… but the strategic benefits aside, I wonder if their might not be a moral case for considering the future of Northern Ireland on a more bilateral basis.”

Powell, who had continued to watch the young minister from behind a countenance of firm scepticism, now spoke up. “How exactly do you mean?”

“Many of my constituents are Irish, or of Irish ancestry. It would be a very popular move within that part of our population.”

“And what of our Union?” Powell demanded. Hattersley returned only a blank look.

“We haven’t struggled all these years as a free nation to suddenly do an about turn and begin selling off our constituent parts, for whatever bargain is most politically expedient.” Powell continued, his voice rising in both tempo and volume as he rose from his seat. “This Government will ensure that neither by word nor deed do we treat the membership of the Six Counties in the Commonwealth as negotiable. Every word or act which holds out the prospect that their unity with the rest of the Commonwealth might be negotiable is itself, consciously or unconsciously, a contributory cause to the destruction of that unity.”

Now stood fully upright, Powell glowered at the rest of the Cabinet. None of them said a word, though a few eyes did make furtive glances at Foot, in the futile hope that the old man might yet intervene. No such intervention came, but even so Powell’s control was not absolute. Already there were murmurs of renewed discontent. ‘Direct Rule All Round’ was not the rallying call of a latter-day Chamberlain after all.

“Dr Powell”, Mountbatten spoke up, intervening now for a second time. “I should expect that Mr Hattersley was only considering the hypothetical. After all, is that not the practice of a good strategist or logician? To consider every option in turn, and by process of reason, to eliminate all but the superior course of action?”

Powell sniffed impatiently. “Then Mr Hattersley’s reason should have counselled him to eliminate that particular option before he brought it to this Cabinet.” He resumed his seat. The tension in the room abated, if only partially.

“And what of Germany?” Powell prompted. Mountbatten at last took what he inferred to be his cue.

“As cabinet may know, I have spent this past month reviewing our country’s defensive capabilities. I am pleased to report that these capabilities are in excellent form. I do not believe that this country has ever been stronger or more able to defy threats from without.”

Powell beamed. Foot… well, Foot appeared to be smirking… Mountbatten continued.

“However, I do have some causes for concern. Forgive me, if these factors do not fall entirely within my departmental remit, but I believe they are integral to our strategic situation. Firstly, it is apparent that we are isolated diplomatically. Fairly or unfairly, we are seen by much of the world as little more than a troublesome little nation adrift in the North Atlantic.”

“A price worth paying for freedom!” a minor Cabinet minister heckled.

“Perhaps so, but we have to realise that it may also cost us our freedom. Supposing that Germany makes her long threatened third attempt on these isles, who then should come to our aid? Who even would protest? Might not some of those Exiles - whom half of you no doubt suspect me of being in league with - might they not encourage such a prospect? The last laugh of bitter old men…”

Around the table there were scandalised cries at such a suggestion. Powell banged the table top furiously in an attempt to restore order. He was unsuccessful, but Mountbatten’s firm voice powered through.

“And in turn, what of our economy? It is stagnant. It muddles along against low expectations, sufficient to fulfil our basic needs, but what else beyond that? Our armaments, which are sorely needed, must be funded somehow. How can I be certain that under the strain of approaching war, the whole system won’t come tumbling down?”

“Exile propaganda!” came another shout, this time from the Chancellor. And in part it was, but Mountbatten, a politician of all of four weeks, could surely indulge himself in a little rhetorical flourish.

“Finally, I fear that I have now discovered the greatest of our weaknesses. It is in leadership. A Cabinet which argues and fights among itself, over even the smallest items of business, and a leader absent in all but name.” He turned now towards Foot. The Lord Protector appeared to just about acknowledge what was now being said.

“Mr Foot, you’ve led this nation for fifteen years now, and you’ve turned it from a path which we can both agree was the wrong one. Circumstances have seldom been in your favour and I recognise your past actions for what they were at the time, for when the choice facing all good men was between the unpalatable and the disastrous. Perhaps history will indeed judge you kindly, for your genuine commitment to freedom and to the independent sovereignty of this nation.

“However, for all the good you have done, I feel that you have now sat here for too long. This country needs fresh leadership. It is time for you to go.”

Mountbatten let his words hang in the air. Silence enveloped the Cabinet room; the prelude to seemingly inevitable mayhem. His full diagnosis had all been stated so calmly and so bluntly, without the half-truths and euphemism that were Cabinet’s normal currency. There has been no angry flourishes. No theatrics. This wasn’t what they expected at all. It would take a moment to sink in.

Powell, predictably, was the first to respond vocally.

“I had hoped that we might be able to count upon your loyalty for more than a month!” he snarled. “Will you be taking the honourable course and submitting your resignation?”

Admiral Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, former Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command, now Secretary of State for Defence for the British Commonwealth, rose slowly from his chair. A tall man, he towered over the still seated Cabinet.

“Actually Brigadier Powell” he replied, “I have an alternative proposal…”



The End.

































Or so it would have been, had Mountbatten pushed the matter further. Instead he let the hanging implication of his words hang just a little too long.

Silence fell once more upon the room.

Michael Foot, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of Great Britain, self-proclaimed heir to four hundred years of English Radicalism, also rose. Eyes which a half minute earlier had looked unfocused now fired with piercing intensity as he faced the Admiral across the room. One hand he placed firmly upon the table, as he had often done at the dispatch box in Parliament, all those years ago. With the other hand he pointed accusingly at Mountbatten. Slowly, he began to speak, warm words betrayed by an icy tone.

“Oh my dear Louis. I’m afraid you are quite mistaken. Whatever… coup this is that you appear to be promoting” Foot waved one hand dismissively. “Well, it won’t be going anywhere. And neither will I, for that matter. I’m afraid you see, that you are quite wrong. Wrong about me, and wrong about our national prospects. We do have the armour, as you so rightly identify. And we have the strength. We have the quickness in manoeuvre. And yes, we have the leadership”.

“You are delusional” Mountbatten replied.

“I am not the man who has been invited into the lion’s den, yet who thinks he can recruit the lion’s cubs.”

Mountbatten became aware of the armed young men who had silently appeared at the back of the room. Among them were the faces of aides who’d accompanied him over the previous weeks. Some who he had known from his first renewed contact with the Commonwealth. Spies? Foot’s Praetorian Guard? And among them… Foot’s driver? He collected his thoughts.

“So what happens now? Do you ship me off to Lewis to join the rest of your opponents?”

Foot barked a mirthless laugh.

“Oh course not Louis. This is England. You’ll have a fair trial first.

“We need to decide if you’re guilty.”


THE END
 
Ah, so many mysteries left unsettled!

I guess I would understand this a lot better if I knew more of these British personalities. It all seems to hinge on Foot's character, and I don't know anything about the man.
 

Sideways

Donor
How can that be the end?! Arch. Poor Michael Foot. For a while this lower like a Foot Wank but you've kind of destroyed him here, haven't you?

I really want to know what will happen next
 
Top