The roaring and shouting after England and Wales left the EU was loud and colourful. A generation of politicians who had supported British membership found themselves demonised as Quislings and traitors, and quietly retired from public life, and every ministerial speech was peppered with Eurosceptic hyperbole as the new regime took office.
Over time, however, the EUphoria died away, as the government and the tabloids turned to the issue that had carried the Brexiteers over the line: Immigration.
The new government moved quickly to deliver on the issue. Tough new visa requirements were in place, and whilst existing legal residents were permitted to stay, they could not be joined by relatives, and so as many returned to their home countries they were not replaced. The teary-eyed right-wingers who had choked back stories of Commonwealth citizens (“our kith and kin”), every one of whom seemed to be related to a spitfire pilot, being put behind queues of stony faced Poles, suddenly and bizarrely seemed to go cool on Pakistani and Indian and African immigrants having easier access. The number of people legally entering the UK dropped significantly.
The tabloids, robbed of the EU pinata to mercilessly beat, but knowing that immigration was still the story that stirred the loins, turned their attention to the government. the new line was that the government was full of mealy-mouthed liberals letting people sneakily in. That and the EU was actively conspiring to flood England with immigrants through Ireland, Scotland and Calais, of course.
The government, like all populist governments, was as concerned about how to be seen to be doing something as actually doing something. The truth was that the immigration controls were not delivering the rewards the tabloids had promised. Housing was not cheaper, as fewer immigrants had only freed up the very lowest in housing quality, which in turn had forced landlords to improve the quality but raise rents to pay for it. The vast numbers of manual workers needed to fund large scale building of houses didn’t exist, resulting in builders struggling to find the skilled labourers to do the job. The Irish workers that they could source, due to a common deal with Ireland, expected top dollar, and all that contributed to higher costs and thus higher prices. The NHS and other public services were struggling under staff shortages as it emerged that many of the hard-pressed English white working class didn’t actually have the skills to fill the jobs. But the government was too scared to issue too many working visas to fill those jobs, as the tabloids, bereft of the EU to blame, had now doubled down on ANY immigrant “depriving” Brits of a job. Politically, it was better to leave those jobs empty.
With the labour shortage feeding into wage rises, inflation, public service waiting lists and rental rises, the Government decided to go fully for immigrants as the problem.
The launch of the Immigration Police was a huge media managed affair. The logo of the new force, a union flag in the shape of a shield, was emblazoned on the fleet of shiny new vehicles and officers unveiled by Prime Minister Johnson. The helmeted, combat trousered police, who vaguely resembled the baddies from “Blake’s Seven” but with huge union flags on their shoulders, grinned at the prime minister’s jokes about them “scaring the hell out of him”.
As with everything in post-Thatcher Britain, the Immigration Police was a private for-profit tendered service, the contract held by a huge security company with a very mixed record.
Within months of commencing operations, the IP was the new source of fury for the right-wing tabloids. The fact that a significant number of IP officers were themselves illegal immigrants who had gotten through the cut-price vetting process resulted in the resignation of the Home Secretary, and the tender holder announcing that it could no longer fulfill the contract under such arduous “red tape”. The subsequent taking of the company to court by the Home Office resulted in even more embarrassing revelations including the fact that some immigrant IP officers from some countries seemed to be using their very considerable IP powers to pursue vendettas against people from other tribal areas or religious groups.
The Government was forced to introduce emergency legislation to nationalise the whole IP organisation, making it a state agency. This, as it always seems to do, then sent costs through the roof as the new IP management, made up of Home Office staff, were more than happy to spend millions on vetting.
Three years after its initial launch the IP had been “purged” of illegal immigrants. It was also running hugely over-budget, requiring cuts elsewhere to feed its huge fiscal maw, and led by a very media savvy chief executive who fended off any attempt to trim the rapidly expanding budget with tales of hordes of terrorists and illegal workers sweeping towards virginal England. The IP’s media budget was very substantial.
Aside from its internal chaos, the daily operations of the IP became problematic. Although initially popular, with black cab drivers beeping their horns at speeding IP vehicles, sirens flashing, off to defend England, the reality of the organisation’s nebulous task began to take the shine off rapidly. The new Home Secretary, of Asian extraction and from the hard-right of the party, was adamant that the IP must be visibly active which led to huge poster campaigns asking the public to cooperate. One stand-up comedian likened the posters to the “Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave!” posters of the 200oAD comic character Thomas De Torquemada. The IP also started setting up random street checkpoints, which began to jar even with the most right-wing of blazer-wearing golf club Mosleys. Camera footage of IP officers singling out dark-skinned pedestrians alone caused a row, and in one case a riot where a number of black and East Asian youths proceeded to beat up the aggressive IP officers. This resulted in the local police having to intervene.
Indeed, relations between the IP and the regular police were strained at best. In London, where the Metropolitan Police had made a serious effort to diversify its membership, the jarring approach of the IP did not go down well. The commissioner complained that the IP was stirring up racial tension in areas where painstaking work by community police officers had finally started to show results. One incident in particular, where two Metropolitan Police officers challenged an overly aggressive IP checkpoint resulted in the IP officer in charge demanding that one of the officers, who was black, prove his legal status in the country and then attempted to arrest him. The situation, again all over the web, was only contained when the Met officers called in an armed SO19 unit and arrested the entire IP patrol to loud cheering and applause from local youths of mixed races.
The Home Secretary was furious. The commissioner backed her men, and when the Home Secretary threatened to fire the commissioner, the commissioner revealed that she had a special investigation unit looking into penetration by the far-right of the IP. She revealed taped footage from an undercover officer of IP officers, who were revealed to be members of various white supremacist organisations, joking and laughing at how they were paid “by one **** to fit up other ****** and ****”.
The Home Secretary was gone by teatime.
Another source of problems for the new Home Secretary was how to verify someone was legally resident in the UK. His officials excitedly dusted off an old file: a National Identity Card. Not surprisingly, he balked at the idea, but the issue was unavoidable. In order to avoid charges of racial profiling, IP checkpoints were now stopping and demanding identification from every person, regardless of age, colour or gender. Many people were now carrying their passports with them everywhere, and the grumbling was beginning. In time honoured fashion, The Daily Mail and The Daily Express, having demanded a “get tough crackdown” on immigration, now did a u-turn and started banging on daily about the IP being a version of the Gestapo harassing ordinary Brits going about their business.
The Home Secretary stared blankly at his officials. Polls showed that middle England was vehemently against having to carry “papers”. Is this what we fought a war for? On the other hand, without some form of verified state backed ID, his officials said, there was no way for the IP to check on-the-spot. Unless, we created a national biometric database, one junior official mused. Then we wouldn’t have to carry ID, just be scanned. Of course, we’d have to scan the entire population.
The Home Secretary died in the ambulance on the way to hospital. The coroner said it was a massive heart attack.
The huge camp near Dover (christened Camp Boris by the media) was also the problem of the new Home Secretary. Since Brexit, the EU had decided that illegal immigration into the UK was not its concern, and so turned a blind eye to migrants making their way across the channel. France had announced that the UK could do its own border control in Dover, and closed its facilities in Calais, the infamous “jungle”. French, Belgian and Dutch police and coastguards were told that preventing “outflows” were not a priority, to the extent that many boat owners on the continent were taking a few quid for carrying illegals to the edge of the UK’s territorial waters and letting their passengers take their chance in a rubber dinghy. All to huge protests from the British ambassador to the EU who was embarrassingly filmed being kept back by security personnel as he tried to lobby ministers attending an EU council meeting.
Huge resources were being deployed along beaches in the south east to capture illegals, and send them to the camp, which now had over 9,000 residents. The decision as to who should run the camp had turned into one of the finest games of bureaucratic pass-the-parcel in years. The Prison Service had said that they were a criminal rehabilitation service, and weren’t suited. The NHS said they weren’t a prison service. The local police said they would have to take “Bobbies off the beat”, and the chief of staff of the army had threatened to publicly resign if the army were told to run the camp. So, it had ended up with the Immigration Police, whose CEO had happily accepted the task then submitted a huge budget supplement request which took the IP’s annual funding clear of the Metropolitan Police’s £3.7 billion.
With scandals within the IP, the ongoing battle to secure the coast (most of the Royal Navy, including the UK’s two new aircraft carriers, were on coastal patrol), the growing unhappiness with the overt and hostile street presence of IP officers demanding “papers” on street corners, the outbreak of riots in Camp Boris was not welcomed by the Government. The IP officers, even with riot gear, struggled to maintain order in two days of rioting. On the third day a large group of young Syrian refugees charged the perimeter, panicking a member of one of the IP armed response units. Without authorisation he emptied his full clip into the crowd, killing nine refugees and wounding another four. Three children were killed in the stampede from the fence. The image went worldwide, and resulted in massive demonstrations against UK embassies.
The Home Secretary, who had only authorised the creation of armed units of the IP three months earlier, in response to stories of some refugees being armed with knives, handed in his resignation to the Prime Minister later that day. The PM was harangued in the house, and in a fit of pique that was typical but would come to haunt him, announced that he would be his own home secretary.
He arrived down to the camp bearing his name just as another riot was getting into its own. Outside the camp, hundreds of young and middle-aged white men, members of the self-appointed United Kingdom Defence Force gathered with baseball bats and crowbars, telling the gathered media they were there to back up the IP and “back Boris”. Another crowd, larger than the UKDF, were made up of anti-fascist protesters who roared abuse at the first crowd.
When the PM arrived, the UKDF cheered and chanted his name, prompting him to wave just as another surge broke through the IP line and charged towards the main gates. The UKDF surged forward before breaking into a Braveheart-style run at the main gate of the camp. The two groups met. The UKDF, unlike the refugees, were armed with a variety of weapons and ploughed into the refugees.
The PM’s bodyguards shoved him into his car, screaming at the driver to get them out of there, all live on TV as a huge fight broke out around them. The IP commander, totally overwhelmed, ordered the use of rubber bullets and water cannon, all aimed at securing the main gate. Some of the baton rounds hit UKDF members, who, seeing the IP firing at them, were overcome with the fury that can only come from experiencing treachery, and attacked the IP vehicles.
The news of the surge at the gate of the camp swept through the camp, encouraging thousands more to rush the entrance, overwhelming the IP officers at the door.
On his way back to Downing street, the PM gave the order for the army to be sent in with more baton rounds.
By evening, order had been restored, but half of the residents of the camp had fled. 39 people were dead, a mixture of refugees, children, IP officers and UKDF members.
In Munich that night a far-right group held a rally, holding aloft images of the British prime minister as they sieg heiled in support.
Watching this on TV, the PM had the good grace to vomit.
The Airbus A380 started moving as soon as the door was closed, before the cars in the motorcade even had time to get fully clear of the massive thrust of the engines. The pilot, a colonel in the French air force, slammed the engines into full throttle to execute what was called a hard take-off, the plane getting into the air quickly and immediately into a sharp incline to gain as much height as possible. A number of Elysee officials who had been busy securing the president of the French Republic before getting back to their seats were knocked off their feet by the angle, both being grabbed by burly bodyguards and pulled into seats as the plane reached its cruising height.
The military cabin crew, briefed as to the situation, had immediately lowered all the blinds on the windows, so that the passengers on-board could not see the military airbase and Paris speed away into the distance.
It actually meant they would not be blinded by the detonation of a nuclear warhead over the French capital as was one possibility they were expecting at this very moment. Nor could they see the four heavily fuelled and armed Rafale fighters escorting the plane on its pre-planned flight plan, designed to avoid major urban areas and military targets (for spotting purposes and also because they were likely nuclear targets) and take the plane out over the Atlantic.
The Department of the Taoiseach has announced that discussions have begun with NATO and other EU member states to consider Ireland’s relationship with the Atlantic Alliance “up to and including membership”, according to sources in Merrion Square.
“The Taoiseach sees bringing Ireland into NATO as being his legacy project, up there with Costello’s declaring a republic or Jack Lynch and Sean Lemass bringing us into the EEC. The Irish people are always complaining that they don’t have any leaders: they’re about to get a leader now” a source said.
As part of the deal France has agreed to station up to 26 Rafale fighters in Ireland, with the Irish taxpayer making a contribution to avoid Ireland having to fund huge expenditure buying its own fighters.
“After that Russian thing was pulled out of the water off Sligo last May, the government has decided that we just can’t avoid protecting our airspace sovereignty anymore. The Taoiseach is hoping that basing a plane in pretty much every county will garner support. The French have even suggested painting GAA county colours on the planes alongside the French, Irish and EU flags planned. The inital three planes will be deployed in Westport, Shannon and Stepaside. The public will be given a choice in a referendum: either NATO membership on the cheap, or we get serious about neutrality and start buying the number of fighters the Swiss, Finns or Austrians have, which will run into billions.”
The government has apparently already begun searching for suitable airfields in different counties. One proposal is that some counties may have stretches of motorway reserved for use as emergency runways, with the planes stored in local warehouses and cowsheds beside them.
“The thinking is that we bring the planes before the referendum, so that local people start getting used to French Air Force crews spending money locally, getting accommodation, hiring out buildings and the like. Then when those people are voting, they’ll be voting to get rid of money in the arse-pocket. We’ll put the pilots on the Late Late as well. Having a few sexy male and female French pilots about the place won’t do the referendum any harm either.”
The Government has tentatively scheduled the referendum for the first day in April next year.
“Occupied” is a thriller brought to us by Norway’s TV2. It tells the near future story of a new Norwegian prime minister, in response to an environmental disaster, ending Norway’s oil and gas industry. This causes an energy crisis in the rest of Europe, which leads to the EU conniving with Russia to seize the Norwegian oil platforms with Russian troops, and for Russia to deploy special forces into Norway itself. NATO having dissolved some years earlier, Norway finds itself friendless.
This isn’t Red Dawn in snow. It’s much more subtle, and much more political, as the prime minister tries to navigate between the Russians, who threaten more military power, and patriotic Norwegians who regard him as another Quisling.
One aspect the show does very well is its portrayal of the EU, which is selfishly pursuing its own interest yet embarrassed by its own actions, but unwilling to respond militarily to Russian provocation.
Funnily enough, although it was made in late 2015 it actually is more believable in the Trump era. It was made on a reasonable budget, and Norway looks great in it. It also has a very catchy theme song by Norwegian singer Sivert Hoyim.
The first season is available on Netflix, and a second season was broadcast recently. It’s in Norwegian with subtitles, but the characters all use English to speak with non-Norwegians in yet another example of how good some education systems are! Once again, I can’t understand why RTE can’t do political drama like this.
Last year I wrote a short novella, “A Little Piece of Europe”, about an EU safezone for refugees.
Why fiction? Why this subject?
Because I’m convinced that the immigration crisis is a grave threat to the stability and indeed existence of the European Union. It is causing huge internal tensions, pitting European nations against each other, and is being manipulated by external powers that want a disunited Europe.
It is also providing fuel to various strands of neo-nazi, both within and outside electoral politics.
Finally, there is a moral question: if Europe is not obliged to do something about dead children on our beaches, then we have learned nothing from our history.
The more I looked at the issue, the more I became convinced that an offshore solution is the right one. Why?
First, because Europe must be able to control its borders and who crosses them. Ordinary Europeans expect this and if the centre-right and centre-left can’t do this, they will elect extremists to do it with violence and brutality.
Secondly, an offshore facility will allow us to provide security, safety, and a place to process and screen refugees according to our values.
Finally, let me stress, I’m not talking about some sort of Australian-style prison camp. I’m talking about a functioning city run by the EU to a standard that will allow refugees to build a life there, whilst slowly absorbing into the EU proper a controlled number of pre-screened applicants.
Why fiction? Because the more I looked at the issue and thought about it, the more questions arose. How would it work? Who would fund it? What problems would it encounter? The more issues that arose, the more I concluded that it was a concept best communicated within a story. So that’s what I did. Told a story.
This is a work of fiction, and so there is dramatic licence. But the core concept is in there, in detail.
I’ve recently started writing a collection of short stories about a fictional female Taoiseach, Kate O’Hara, leader of the Centre Party and deputy for Dublin East. I’ll post them here as I complete them:
A gun battle between US Secret Service drones and another USSS drone believed hacked by as yet unknown sources narrowly avoided the assassination of President Gonzalez as he spoke in the Rose Garden in the White House earlier this morning. The president had been making remarks to a delegation from the European Parliament when a protocol detected an attempted hack of one of his BodyGuard, and ordered other drones to secure the president. Seconds later, the rogue drone drew its sub-machine gun but was hit dozens of times by other drones as two human Secret Service offices rushed the president away from the scene and into the secure bunker in the building.
The rogue drone was completely incapacitated by gunfire. The Secret Service moved quickly to reassure both the public and elected leaders that the service’s firewall had worked exactly as planned, detecting the hacking attempt and on determining it could not block it, delaying it long enough to mobilize other drones to eliminate the threat. The USSS also pointed out that the BodyGuard, built by McDonnell-Douglas Robotics, are designed specifically to prevent a mass hacking.
The director of the FBI, the Comey-Mueller 3000 AI Entity, has announced a full investigation. This is the second time a protective drone has been hacked to attack its principal. In 2035 former President George W. Bush was attacked by his own drone on his ranch in Midland, Texas. The drone was neutralized with a chainsaw by the president after been beaten with a frying pan by Mrs Bush. The FBI later arrested a neo-Nazi cell angry with the former president over his condemnation on racial attacks.
When a tiny nation permits a giant software company to take over the running of the country with its new Artificial Intelligence system, there are global consequences.
The FBI agents didn’t arrive until the media, tipped off by Rudy Giuliani’s Department of Justice, were in place. Secretary Clinton opened the door herself, and invited the flak jacketed agents into her hallway. She looked refreshed and prepared, in a purple pantsuit.
The first mistake happened there. The new FBI director had handpicked agents with a clear disposition against her, and when one agent grabbed her wrist roughly and spun her to cuff her, one of President Clinton’s Secret Service detail stepped forward and pulled the FBI’s hand off her.
“She is cooperating. Show her some respect.” The Secret Service man said, squaring up to him.
The FBI agent went for his gun, but the Secret Service, trained for the sudden appearance of weapons had their guns our faster.
All on live TV, after the FBI in their zealotry hadn’t closed the door behind them and dozens of zoom lenses and microphones recorded the incident.
Giuliani, who had been watching in his office with his staff of young men, shouted down the frat boy whooping that had accompanied the initial entry into the Clinton home in upstate New York.
He, an old master of the live TV perp walk from his days as a US Attorney, had given instructions for her to be brought out in cuffs. But this was getting out of hand.
On TV, President Clinton stepped through his secret service detail and stood in front of the FBI.
“There’s no need for this. Hillary is cooperating.”
Secretary Clinton put her hand on the Secret Service man’s shoulder.
“Stand down, Tom. Let’s let these guys do their jobs.”
The agent in charge, suddenly realising that the door was open and that they were probably live on TV, had the sense to calm the situation.
“Thank you, madam secretary,” he said, and put the cuffs on her wrists, clicking them loosely.
“Are those really necessary?” President Clinton said.
“Orders, sir.”
“Whose orders?”
“I can’t…”
“Who ordered you to put handcuffs on a 69 year old women with no history of violence?”
“Vince Foster would disagree…” one of the agents quipped, before realising.
President Clinton, spun on his heel and looked at the agent.
“That’s the way it is, it is?”
In his office, Giuliani, listening to the entire conversation broadcast live on TV, was screaming at the screen.
“Close the fucking door! Close the fucking door!”
Secretary Clinton tapped her husband on the arm.
“Don’t worry about it, Bill. Rudy Giuliani obviously thinks I’m very dangerous. Will you bring my reading glasses, honey.”
As she was led out of the house, America had stopped what it was doing to watch the spectacle. A growing crowd was gathering outside the house, and started chanting “Hill-a-ry! Hill-a-ry!” as she was put into one of the 10 FBI jeeps outside the house. She smiled, and held up her her hands in the air, the cuffs very clear to be seen.
It was an image that would become iconic.
Media helicopters and drones buzzed over the scene, following the FBI convoy as they took her to Manhattan to be charged. By the time she arrived at FBI headquarters, thousands of people were present. Some were shouting “Jail her!” but most were supporting her.
When she was led in, accompanied by her husband, there was a wall of noise as the crowd now covered the entire street. The NYPD were desperately trying to redirect traffic.
After an hour, President Clinton exited the building with with some aides and his Secret Service detail. Half way down the steps, surrounded by the media, someone (on advice from James Carville who was in apoplexy watching from Louisiana) handed the former president a loudhailer and a hand mike. He slung the loudhailer over his shoulder, looking like a superannuated student activist.
“My wife Hillary,” he said in that familiar southern drawl, “is a political prisoner.”
“This is the sort of thing you see in Zimbabwe or North Korea. A new president turning the power of the state on his political opponents. You did not see Reagan jail Mondale, or Bush jail Dukakis, or George W jail Al Gore. This, this is disgusting!”
In the DOJ, Giuliani was fielding a call from the President, who did not like what he was seeing. Then something caught his eye on the screen.
The crowd, now maybe 100,000 strong, seemed to ripple as someone moved across the steps of the building. Then the cheering started as people recognised former President Obama and Michelle Obama pushing through. Clinton saw them, and opened his arms to give both a huge embrace. The crowd started cheering, a chant “Let her out!” started, during into a deafening roar.
Giuliani was smart enough to see this was getting out of hand.
“Yes sir….no, I don’t think we should send in the national guard…we’ve a helicopter…yes sir.”
President Obama took the microphone live on camera.
“Michelle and I were downtown when we heard the news…I could not believe what I heard…is this the America we’re living in, where one party has its opponents picked up off the streets? Hell no!”
The crowds chanted back a “Hell no!” at him.
“What happens next? Is Rudy Giuliani going to have her spirited away to some prison in the middle of nowhere, some gulag?”
Giuliani looked at his advisers. That was exactly the plan.
A helicopter took off from the roof of the FBI building, as someone whispered in Clinton’s ear. Clinton gestured to Obama, who handed over the microphone.
“I’ve just been told that Hillary is on that helicopter, and that they’re taking her somewhere. I don’t know where. But my friends, I’ll tell you this. This is a political arrest, and will only be resolved in one place: Washington DC.”
*****
They could hear the chants in the Oval Office. “Let her go!” from just shy of two million people was very loud.
The president was not happy. Despite many questioning his intellect during the campaign, he’d proven himself to have a shrewd political gut, and this sat uneasily. The polls were showing that whilst a solid 40% of the country supported prosecuting her, 50% saw it as purely an act of political revenge.
In the week since her incarceration in a federal prison awaiting trial, in North Dakota, the Democrats had been galvanized. Millions were marching on the streets, and her name was now being compared to Nelson Mandela and Alfred Dreyfus. Foreign leaders hadn’t been helpful, although Putin and the Chinese endorsed his action in the “fight against corruption”. President Le Pen supported him too. That prick Trudeau had led a march to the US embassy in Ottawa to hand in a letter of protest. It wasn’t helped either by the fact that his coarsest supporters were having a field day on the web making remarks about her being sexually assaulted in jail. The First Lady had walked out of a meeting where such remarks had been made.
The visit to the prison by Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, Rosalynn Carter and Barbara Bush had looked awful for the administration on TV.
His advisers had all advised that this was to be expected, and it didn’t matter.
“All this proves is that the people who hate you still hate you,” Chris Christie said.
Giuliani nodded.
“Let’s get through the trial, put her away, and let her rot!”
The meeting broke up with out a decision, the room clearing save for Ivanka Trump. The others knew not to question her remaining.
“This is a huge problem honey!” The president said, slumping in his seat. He was not enjoying being president. He still spent a lot of time in his home in New York, and was beginning to hate having to return to the White House. The constant protest outside Trump Tower annoyed him too. It also grated with him to be booed in his home city, where once people had cheered him on the streets. He’d tried to have them moved on, but both the mayor and governor had refused to deploy heavy forces.
His mood hadn’t been helped by the fact that every business with a Trump in the title was now being permanently picketed by the Let Her Go crowd. Ivanka and the boys had openly talked about rebranding and separating his presidency from his brand in an attempt to save revenues.
“They’re wrong,” she said.
“If Hillary stays in prison she will become the focal point of your presidency. The next election will be a referendum on freeing her. Is that what we want?”
“What’s the alternative?”
“Pardon her. Say that a trial will be divisive and that you want to bring the country together.”
“My supporters will go nuts!”
“You said you’d put her in jail. She’s in jail. Now the country has to move on. I’ve put some words together.”
She handed him a buff folder, which he opened and leaned back in his seat. He smiled.
“Is this legal?”
“I have half a dozen lawyers who say it isn’t illegal.”
*****
Newsflash: The White House has announced that the president will issue a pardon of Secretary Hillary Clinton for all crimes and misdemeanors committed by her. Unusually, for the pardon to take affect, Secretary Clinton is required to sign that she is accepting the pardon.
Some legal scholars suggest that in doing so she would be admitting to having committed the crimes in the first place.
A spokesperson for the president said that the pardon is on its way to North Dakota by fighter jet, and that Mrs Clinton can be home with her family by tonight if she wishes.
The attorney general, Rudy Giuliani, has resigned. He will be replaced by his deputy, Gov. Chris Christie.
“Just a mo,” the Prime Minister said, pulling his jacket off, then struggling with the bullet proof vest. His close protection officer helped him. It was the lightest model they could find, as the PM was “fed up looking like the Michelin man” on television, but it still added to his not inconsiderate bulk. The security services had insisted he wear it in public after he’d been shot at a month ago by yet another demented right-winger screaming at him for being a traitor. That was outside of London. In London they screamed at him for being a racist. Tony Blair had rang him recently to thank him for taking the pressure off him.
“I really appreciate it, man. I’m being invited to dinner parties in Islington I haven’t been to in years!”
He ran a hand through his blonde mop, and fell into a seat at the table, facing his chief of staff and that very sharp focus group lady they’d drafted in.
“Right, let’s get on,” he waved his hand in the air, as if signalling a dancing girl whose performance he had to tolerate.
The focus group expert clicked on a slide.
“Basically, they think you’ve betrayed them. The words liar, traitor, all keep repeating. And it is all to do with immigration.”
“But we’ve reduced immigration! Look at the stats! In the last quarter…” the PM blustered.
“Prime Minister, they don’t care about the actual details.”
She wasn’t lying, the PM thought. The justice secretary had his two front teeth punched in by a yob at a public meeting screaming at him about mass migration and “experts”. Indeed, the tone of the country had turned nasty in the three years of his premiership. Hate crimes were going through the roof as people deemed not English, whatever that meant, were subjected to all sorts of abuse on the streets. In some schools they were even having to segregate students to stop them fighting by race.
He’d been appalled by this, and was pouring resources into the police to tackle hate crimes, but that seemed to have angered some people even more. When he appointed the first non-white home secretary the amount of abuse he’d received in the post had been shocking.
“The perception, prime minister, is that you lied about stopping immigration and kicking the foreigners, in particular the Muslims, out.”
“But I never promised that!” he protested.
“They think you did. In some demographics, over 80% of respondents are convinced they heard you make that specific promise. It’s becoming a self-reaffirming loop. The more they get angry at you not delivering what they think you promised, the more they convince themselves as to what they heard you and others promise.”
He picked up a Jammie Dodger and munched on it. He really wasn’t enjoying being PM at all.
“Right, so how do we get the truth out? Brief journalists better? I mean, there’s a 14% reduction in immigration…”
The focus group woman looked at the chief of staff.
“I’m sorry prime minister, but I’m not sure it’s possible.”
“What?” the PM asked.
“This demographic is impervious to statistics or experts. All lies as far as they’re concerned, and Brexit to them was the signal that it’s OK, that they’re the real voice of the ordinary people. They only trust their own eyes, and every time they see a woman in a headscarf or a dark skinned man…I mean, we’ve had to stop using mixed-race focus groups for political work because it’s getting too dangerous. A man was nearly stabbed in one last week. Their measure of success on immigration would involve closing mosques, public arrests of non-whites, evictions from public housing. Making non-ethnic whites carry national identity cards was quite popular, especially if they were required to wear them on clothing…”
“Bollocks to that!” the PM said.
“A significant proportion think we should leave the EU?”
“We have left the EU!” the PM blurted out, biscuit crumbs going everywhere.
“They don’t believe you. Many believe we’re secret members. They believe UKIP are telling the truth. The phrase EU-Lite, you know, his phrase, comes up a lot. Also a number want to know why you aren’t promising to veto Turkey joining the EU?”
“And then there’s the £350 million a week,” the chief of staff said awkwardly.
“Not still!” the PM exclaimed.
The focus group woman nodded.
“It seems to have really locked in to public consciousness. Every local cut to spending, every school, hospital, the 350 comes up. They want to know why you aren’t using it to fund the given service. Some people think you’re using it to build a giant mosque in the next town over. It’s always the next town over.”
“It funds our access to the single market?” The PM said to nobody in particular.
“Yes, well that feeds into the UKIP line about you funding secret membership of the EU.”
The PM looked at his watch.
“I have to go. Have a state dinner for President Capaldi. Wish I had a bleedin’ TARDIS,” he muttered, as he went out the door.
Repost.
