The Castle Hotel, Taunton
8th June 1984
Edward du Cann looked down sadly at the remnants of his bread and butter pudding. The Castle was rather proud of it's new young chef, Gavin or Gaty or Graham or some name that smacked of the council estates and to be fair he'd certainly improved things here. He would have rather have been at Cothay Manor, but there was a small camp of Kelpers outside it and you really couldn't get them evicted at the moment. As soon as this bloody election was over though...
It had all gone utterly, horribly wrong with the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands, the Government had sent a Task Force to retain the islands, the admirals had warned of the difficulties and the Task Force had eventually been forced to withdraw after the loss of HMS Invincible. He'd heard about the febrile atmosphere in Downing Street that night, he had never bother pulling the minutes from wherever the Civil Service had hidden them.
Of course, it had got worse. Nott falling on his sword did not placate the Tory party or the public and when the Americans dumped on their promise of an Iwo Jima - Pym had to follow him out the door. If that wasn't enough, the same week as the already doom-filled Conservative Party Conference, the Argentinians had cleared the islands for military reasons and then dumped the evicted Kelpers as illegal immigrants over the Chilean border. There had been a security council resolution, for all the good it had done but the pack was baying for Margaret's blood. The MORI poll which had shown a rating below 1% just after that event had done it. He had taken up the demands of the men in grey suits and told the PM she had to resign. To be honest, if she had stayed on, the party would have split, the Alliance having already declared that the lifeboats were full and not taking on any stragglers.
There had been a leadership contest, it had been inevitable. The 22 had already decided that no member of the Cabinet should stand as they were all tainted with the loss of those wretched islands. So it had come down to Ted being the only announced candidate, so he had been approached, Ted wasn't the right sort of chap, someone was needed to pour oil on troubled waters. He'd trounced Ted with Alan Clark extremely right wing manifesto coming a poor third.
Since then, it had been plodding along, slowly but surely trying to get people to forget about South Atlantic adventures and That Bloody Woman, to concentrate on the growing prosperity of the nation and the fact that the others would be a ruddy shambles. It had sort of succeeded, every by-election since Mitcham and Morden had been a disaster, but it had gone from the point where you wondered if you'd beat Bill Boaks to wondering if you would keep your deposit.
The polls had slowly, but surely, climbed upwards despite other minor setbacks. He'd had to make some serious concessions to the steel unions and the Miners last year, which had the unexpected pleasant effect of causing a bit of a rift within the Alliance. In fact, by the time it came to the election, they were more frequently in the mid 20's, no consolation of course to the hordes of councillors mown down in the local elections last year and this year, but a damn sight better than the summer of 1982.
Of course, he'd hung on to the absolutely last possible moment. Every month was the chance of another percent or two in the polls, the public were looking at the alternatives and not finding them to their taste. The initial boom in popularity for the Alliance had faded somewhat as people had seen the divide between the Liberals and the SDP and even the divide in the SDP.
They had campaigned on one single theme, that neither of the other two parties were fit to rule. They had tried to portray the Alliance as disunited, inexperienced and had exposed a number of oddball candidates. The problem was that the question "Are they fit to govern?" seemed to apply equally as well to the Conservatives.
However, when push came to shove, the electorate still weren't convinced, the Alliance wisely named Steel as their Prime Minister designate, Tory candidates were bedevilled by those miserable pieces of rock and Labour's disaster of a defence policy was the millstone around their necks. The newspapers weren't sure either, only the Telegraph and the Express had stayed staunch, the Mail had decided it liked the SDP but not the Liberals, whilst the Times had plumped for Labour because the Alliance would be too inexperienced.
He'd spent much of the campaign in the constituency, not only was his seat in danger, but nearly every defending Tory was trying to distance themselves from the Government. However, he did pop back to London for the odd press conference and the usual barrage of insults from the Kelpers, which were gleefully portrayed in the media.
Today's breakfast with the Chief Agent had been momentarily uplifting, Labour had slumped a little more in the polls and the Chief had suggested that only around forty seats would be lost to them. That was almost uplifting until the Chief reminded him that the losses to the Alliance would be more like two hundred seats. The Chief Agent hoped to hold around 100 seats, which was better than the prediction of 50 held seats at the start of the year.
Unfortunately, it was strongly suspected that Taunton was not one of the seats that would be saved, the little canvassing that they had dared to do had hinted at that. The phrase "Not this time, Mr Du Cann" was rather too readily on people's lips at on the doorstep.
He poured himself another finger of Glenmorangie, the metaphorical revolver wouldn't be needed for another 36 hours or so.
