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7th July 2013

He hated coming to Birmingham. The city itself was nice, not much to complain about, and the arrival of the Parliamentary Building had allowed for the place to get more tourists, attention and decent entertainment. No, what was annoying about the trip to this city was the reason itself. Every year, he had to pack up his things and head to Britain's Second City for a few days, essentially preach to the choir or the damned and then head back to his nice office in Kent in what could be described as a monumental waste of time, especially with the Summer recess emerging.

It was simply baffling how, with the boom in technological progress, they all couldn't just wire up and speak to one another using computers and visual communication. Teenage girls could do it, why couldn't the Regional Assemblies and English Parliament try that? It would be cheaper than having to pay for this back-and-forth every year, surely? Perhaps there were problems up North that prevented such things, though he was pretty sure that Cook or Brown (or perhaps Prescott?) said that Regional Assemblies were supposed to address these problems quicker. Then again, it took them five years to get the bloody elections going, though it was convenient timing for his lot, right at the worst moment for Labour.

The car was driving into the City Hall, the driver and himself had to take turns driving due to the long trip ahead and none of them wanted news of a vehicular crash murdering the First Minister for South-East England and his driver. The press were already waiting, the others must have already arrived. It would be nice to see some faces again, Liam had the poor luck of having his office be further away from the action than he would like and Alan and David had similar issues, though it made their trip easier. Dan had no such trouble, managing to easily speak with both him and Shaun.

Keeping such thoughts in mind, and away from the shitty meeting that would soon to emerge, he hopped out of the car, put on his flat cap and strolled towards the building. Some of the press noticed him and began to ask questions. Weighing the merits of either giving the hounds some meat and having to sit awkwardly with the other First Ministers and wait for Liam to arrive, the former was chosen with a worryingly amount of eagerness.

"What is your opinion of the recent resignations from the Cabinet, is the Prime Minister undermined by this?" Ah, Iain and Owen fired the first shot it seemed. Better to have that then the awkward talks with the PM over the gay marriage palava, better give a vague answer about sticking with the right path for the country, it'd be cruel to go far into the attack now, especially with how bad things are getting for poor Matthew.

"The calls for "new and radical leadership", are they referring to the Chancellor? Will Michael Gove be resigning from the Cabinet over this?" Oh come on. He knew the Guardian slacked on journalism but they could have remembered that Gove voted for gay marriage of his own choice. Then again, not many people really cared. Michael was too soft, he had to be pushed into running against Matthew if required, though Matthew's harsh pro-Europe line wasn't making friends.

Might as well show them what for. "Now, I am only going to repeat what our dedicated Chancellor said a week ago. We've got the best plans and we need to show them as we have been doing. Over five hundred free schools established, immigration has fallen under a hundred and ten thousand and we've managed to get the economy back to its former self once more, these are fantastic successes and should be seen as such."

Daily Mail's turn. "What's your response on rumours of racism during the late 90s, especially with claims of close cooperation with Mayor Bailey's scheme for South-East development?"

Oh for fuck's sake. Leave it to someone to take it all out of context, all he said was that they would never get the "dark" vote, but now it seemed that he might as well have fist-bumped the magical talking walrus known as Nick Griffin while dancing on Stephen Lawrence's grave for good measure. Might as well get this out of the way, include some attacks on Labour as well, show the bastards what happens when you accuse someone of racism.

"Lies and slander brought about by those who can only find a way to get involved in the political process through the dishonest means of muck-racking. We saw it all before with the 2009 elections, Labour suddenly cared about the moral integrity of the nation. Declaring that we would sink the nation and cause unemployment of over five million, when it was their own failed policies that brought us into this mess that we needed to bring the country out of. When political arguments fail, the personal attacks appear."

Now that the proto-Party broadcast was over, and he saw Liam's car drive in, he quickly walked into City Hall and let the press do what they could with the stuff he gave them. He knew what they wanted, an excuse to paint the government as divided and the Prime Minister's time as limited, the men in grey suits preparing to have him removed and replaced with someone who could unite the party under a single banner and win the country back over. The highest in the party, including himself, plotting against Matthew as if they were planning a conspiracy. It was shameful what the media were declaring about the government.

True, but still shameful.

Matthew had his time but the recent battle over gay marriage proved to be the final straw. They can't risk some sort of British version of the Reform Party breaking out, especially with the LibDems doing a lot better in the polls, it would be March or April that the coup would be launched. The meeting was to make sure that they were all united behind a single candidate to replace Matthew with and ensure that the 2014 elections went by smoothly and allow the polls to recover, the lack of a honeymoon period had worried many of them. Laws did too well for their liking and he had a feeling that more people voted against Harperson than for Matthew.

Boris may stand down as Premier, he was popular enough with the public, had been able to attract admiration from many in the party despite being close to Matthew on many policy terms and had more steel than Michael when it came to doing what needed to be done. Then again, how many people liked him because he wasn't seen as a politician, and he may have trouble convincing the electorate otherwise on the merits of him being a serious leader, it might be better to keep him in Birmingham to fight the good fight there, though if he decided to run then he would likely win. That was for certain.

A lot of the press had been considering Michael. He did very well in Education, though some proto-Scargills would disagree, with the strong reforms he made in the face of firm opposition and was universally admired throughout the party, a moderniser with Thatcherite decision-making and none of the potential issues about not being a 'serious' politician. Though where Boris had lots of support from the public and the approval of the country, Michael...didn't. His reforms in Education often got a negative press and he didn't seem interested in the job either, much happier with the Treasury, that ruled Michael out but also meant that he wouldn't resign if the right one was chosen.

Some wanted Douglas but he wasn't really the man for the job. Let Douglas handle the situation on rebuilding the party membership figures and reinventing policy, the ceding of powers to such assemblies as his own rather aided his endorsement of his ally, but keep him from actual Cabinet jobs unless he wanted one. Matthew started failing once he expelled Douglas from the inner circle, voting against Europe and gay marriage was a big no-no and now Douglas was with them, hoping to recreate the Party anew.

The meeting would start soon and it would likely be the same old drivel. Miliband the Younger and Burnham would spout Harperson's dogma and the others would talk about cooperation, more competitive tax rates and essentially giving meat to the party and making sure they all kept up the pace on the ideas of the party. Boris, Dan, Shaun, Liam, William and himself would meet afterwards, David and Alan being too loyal to be part of their little plot, to talk about "future policy decisions", especially with the difficulties some of them had with their own Assemblies, Party List systems often had those effects.

Now that he thought about it, better to have Boris stand down. It was win-win for him, Matthew would be removed either way, Boris would have five years to build up a profile beyond being "epic" and it would conveniently leave a nice little empty seat for others with ambitions to take for their own, everybody won. Except, of course, Matthew and English Labour, but that was the economy now. Firmly judging on choices and no exceptions, Cook would have found that out on his little socialist experiments if the man hadn't become a vegetable and Brown found it out the arguable harder way, some of Matthew's best moments were based on such fates.

Nigel found a grin developing on his face as he strolled down the hall, catching Liam's eye and heading towards what would be a very...productive meeting.
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