REVOLUTION BRITAIN – Chapter 1

The Movement begins

 

It was a humid summer afternoon in mid July. The weather was uncharacteristically warm for Britain. Nick was, as usual, battling with his computer to produce yet another insignificant report. These reports were demanded monthly by Nick’s boss, there sole purpose being to justify the boss’s existence. As usual the computer had crashed, and equally as usual Nick had begun thinking.

Nick did a lot of thinking, often at work when his computer did its usual trick of crashing at the most inopportune moments. This used to bother Nick, but he’d got accustomed to it by now and in a way he welcomed the device’s frequent tantrums. They provided him with numerous opportunities to review his life and being blessed with a strong sense of perspective, the lives of everyone else.

Nick sensed a deep frustration from everyone in the land and this feeling had evidenced itself in several of his close friends. The reason for their frustration, Nick perceived, was a combination of dead-end jobs, no particular future and a working environment which was beset by unpleasant and devious small-minded bosses and their equally unscrupulous number twos. The situation seemed to manifest itself everywhere. More disturbingly the media carried constant evidence that this situation had permeated all levels of British society, up to and including the much vaunted and supposedly democratic British political system. A system so old and so famous that other counties had used it as a model for their own systems. What Nick was observing, was the crumbling of any true democratic elements within the English political process. Corruption had become rife. The term ‘sleaze’ had become almost as commonplace as the expressions ‘left’ or ‘right’ wing. In fact even these terms had no meaning any more. What sad times we live in, Nick reflected.

Nick had a small collection of close friends and like most people was struggling to keep his job and maintain a reasonable standard of living. He earned an adequate salary had a newish car and was saddled with a mortgage. He was not married, had had a succession of short term relationships with women who always at first appeared to be promising partners and then turned out to be so different from him, that he dumped them at the earliest possible opportunity. At the moment he was not in any relationship and so was not affected by the irritating little worries which they always seemed to produce for him.

Nick was 32 years old and lived and worked in a small and unremarkable town close to London, called Aylesbury. Aylesbury was a typical example of England gone wrong. Socially, it hosted a number of riots throughout the summer months, usually based on cocktail of racial hatred and alcohol. Architecturally, the soul of the town, like so many other English towns, had been destroyed. The guilty parties were the usual enterprising architects and planners, who thought they new best. The main result of this ‘expert’ knowledge, was a large and ugly sky scraper which dominated the poor town and ironically housed another group of experts, the county government. The former beauty of the place had been reduced to a few traces left around an church near the centre. The place was basically depressing and had led to Nick’s frequent trips to London where he could find some solace.

Although life was fairly kind to Nick, he was bored. The monotony and instability of his existence was getting him down. His felt his job was under constant threat, a feeling which was constantly reinforced by his boss who took a perverse pleasure in telling everyone how they could all find themselves out of work, if they did not do well. In an effort to escape from all this, Nick had considered trying to settle down, but the thought of the dull routine of married life scared him more that anything else, even the thought of losing his job pale into insignificance in relation to the idea of trying maintain a marriage. A number of his friends were divorced, which may have caused him to think twice about serious commitments. Although, he liked children and the thought of having a family did appeal to him, and what made him balk more than anything else, was the thought of bringing such innocence into a hard and increasingly unpleasant world. Not a day went by without his hearing yet another forlorn story of just how terribly man could treat his fellows. Was all hope draining from mankind, he wondered.

“Where’s that report, Nick?”, came a voice, which woke him unpleasantly from his ponderings. The proud owner, the boss’s unofficial number two, Jackie. She was renown for having about as much tact as a football hooligan and a mentality to match. Back stabbing was her speciality and she didn’t care who she derided, so long as she continued to keep in with Nick’s slimy boss.

“Sorry, the computer’s still down so I can’t finish it,” Nick mumbled apologetically. The tone in his voice was well practised, as any other inflection would have sent Jackie scurrying into the boss to tell tales. Jackie was quite expert at sneaking up on people, having the capacity to move quickly and quietly. Nick had once compared her to a cross between a Ninja and a snake.

“Oh, well. Try to finish it as soon as you can. You know how important it is,” the snake sneered. “Oh fuck off.” Nick muttered almost imperceptibly as he turned back to his uncooperative labour saving device.

“What’s that?” Jackie enquired rearing up and almost resembling a cobra. She thought she heard him tell her to fuck off, but was not quite sure.

“I said I’ll try to print it off,” said Nick calmly. He liked to play this game and to wind the unpleasant serpent up.

“Oh.,” She said. “I thought you said something else.” And satisfied that she had not been insulted, she slithered off to annoy some other poor soul.

Jackie was one of those people, like Nick’s boss, who always tried to project an air of overwork and conscientiousness. The projection was a transparent as a pane of glass. Everyone knew she had no work to do, and what little she did, she fussed over out of all proportion to its difficulty and complexity. She was a thick as two inch board of pine, but as devious as any fox contemplating the massacre of hens in a farmyard. It was impossible not to fall foul of her at sometime or other, for the spiteful nature which dominated her character delighted in fabricating lies to get other people in trouble, and at the same time increase her standing with the boss.

Thinking of how much he’d like to put his boot up Jackie, Nick attempted to boot-up the computer once more, but was faced with the same error message, stubbornly displaying itself on his VDU. Nick was past caring by now and he knew he was in the clear, the computer system, amateurishly set up by his boss, was always crashing. Nick drifted back into his thoughts, reflecting on how his boss had messed up the system and then tried to hide the fact at every opportunity, but the cover of blaming other people, the usual device for people of his calibre, had stopped working some time back, due to its copious overuse. And there were only a limited number of totally incompetent technicians in the world to sling mud at. The boss had given up calling computer experts, after the last five told him that the system was almost beyond economic repair due to the interference of some idiot. Everyone in the office knew who the idiot was, and the idiot knew they knew and this annoyed him. He had a sneaking suspicion that Nick had been the one who had overheard the technicians and spread their comments around the office. Nick was clever though, and although he was indeed responsible, he knew his boss could never prove it. This thought kept Nick going during his many moments of despondency. Moments which usually resulted from the meddling of his boss or his equally detestable number two, Jackie. Meddling, Nick had decided, was about the only thing ‘Stony Knickers’ and her equally irksome boss were any good at, in fact he noted, they were in indeed not just good, but expert at it. Yet another sad reflection on society, Nick observed.

The company Nick worked for was a major insurance company and he worked in the information technology support section. The company, like so many others of its ilk, was bent on instilling a corporate mentality on all its workforce. This included frequent time wasting training and seminar sessions on such ‘in’ topics as teamwork and time management. Courses, which in the eyes of Nick and many others, tried to make up for the inefficiency which beset the company’s management, who themselves were seldom to be found, because they too were always attending some course, the title of which often began with the word ‘golf’.

The result of these courses was always the same, initial enthusiasm, followed by regression into old ways. Most of the workforce treated these incessant courses as a means of avoiding work, and of relieving the dull routine of their day to day lives. Most of the management treated the courses as an ideal means by which to avoid doing any work and a convenient way of passing the buck when things went wrong in their absence, which they frequently did, due in great part to their total lack of managerial ability. Nick and his colleagues had re-christened the Management By Objectives system as Management By Obnoxious Bastards, much to the annoyance of the bastards concerned.

Nick’s boss had recently been sent on a ‘performance appraisal’ course, the intention of which was to enable the managers involved to appraise the work of those beneath them. The system had been introduced about two years before and due to its complete ineffectiveness was always being revised. Nick had recently been appraised by his boss. The session consisted of a two-hour meeting in which Nick was supposed to analyse his strengths and weaknesses and discuss how he felt he could improve his performance. However, as Nick knew, his boss used these sessions to gather adverse information about his least favourite subordinates, such as himself, and then to use this information to oust those members of staff who refused to say ‘yes’ all the time.

In fact one of Nick’s closest colleagues had made the mistake of being honest during such a session. Six months later, there came a cost cutting drive, and this person had been identified as a surplus member of staff. As far as Nick knew, she was still looking for work, due in part to her age, forty-five. At this ‘grand’ age, she was regarded as being too old and expensive to employ.

Several times while idling away his lunch hour wondering around town, Nick had met the unfortunate woman. Each time she had seemed a little more depressed and he got the impression from their brief conversations that her home life was suffering as well. Feeling sorry for her, he had pushed information about new jobs her way, but up to this point she had not succeeded in finding anything.

The womans state had made Nick keenly aware that, although he was still relatively young, the years had a nasty habit of sprinting away, leaving those around them floundering in the wake of the discovery that ageing was not an entirely slow process. He himself did not wish to be on life’s scrap heap at the age of forty plus. Experience these days, he noted, appeared to be gained from the leaves of a text book, with young (cheaper to employ) graduates being given senior jobs before they had had a chance to learn from the harder more effective teacher known as ‘life’.

Nick was not alone in his state of disillusionment, he knew very well that many other staff in his organisation, competent but unable to lower themselves to the process of grovelling their way to the top, felt the same. Morale seemed to be at an all time and permanent low.

Meanwhile the country in which Nick lived appeared to be spiralling ever faster down a path towards destruction. Fiction and reality were becoming one and the same as many people tried to escape from the drudgery of life by resorting to drugs or ever more dangerous sports.

Drug abuse, Nick considered, was the religion of the latest generation. Just as people in the past had turned to the church as way of escaping the reality of life, now people suffering from the pressure of modern life were turning to drugs as a way of surviving. Far from becoming easier, life was forever becoming more difficult. Modern society, Nick concluded, was indeed slowly and quietly self-destructing.

Britain had just had a recent general election which had been won by the labour party. ‘Future Labour’ as it had christened itself had won the elections by the usual tactic of making as many attractive, but hollow promises as possible. It had also cleverly stated that it would only carry out its promises if the country could afford it. In a grandiose speech on the eve of the election, Labour’s new leader had claimed that he had the countries best interests as heart and would not raise taxes for the next few years. Of course, as Nick observed, no tax increase meant an excuse for having no money, and no money meant another excuse which could be employed to avoid having to comply with all those tiresome pre-election promises. Nick could read the political psyche like an open picture book. What really frustrated him was that he appeared to be the only one who noticed the increasingly devious politics which were being employed by the power mongers to gain and retain power.

Things needed to be changed, and Nick wished he knew how this change could be achieved.

Indeed, it was this wish which served to keep Nick going.

REVOLUTION BRITAIN – Chapter 2

Sowing the seeds

It was nearing the time in the office when Nick drifted off home and it was a Friday, pub night. Now, Nick liked his friends and his friends liked him, but Nick could not get over the feeling that these weekly pilgrimages to the local were becoming as dull and routine as the rest of his life. The usual topics of conversation, cars, women and work, were becoming strained and repetitive. Change was in the air and Nick was in the mood for doing something different.

Nick had always harboured an interest in political matters, indeed these occupied a substantial part of his thoughts, and he was consistently and constantly appalled by the way contemporary politicians appeared to be no more than power crazed vote hunters.

Politicians had always had a reputation for being ‘economical with the truth’, thought Nick, but any vestiges of truth had now well and truly dissolved. The phrase ‘economical with lies’ was more appropriate; Nick observed in one of his more wry moments.

Nick left work, having once more tried to get something from the glorified calculator which resided on his desk, and once more, failed. He shut his computer down, left a message for the boss entitled SNAFU, collected his things and headed home.

On his way home, he stopped at his local supermarket to do his end of the week shop, bought the usual stuff and a copy of ‘Time Out’.

He arrived home and having distributed his purchases around the kitchen, flicked on the kettle and went to listen to the messages on the answer-phone. It was his mother.

Nick rarely called her and over the years she had rung him less and less. He had forgotten the last time he had called and when she had last called him. Family life was something which he found tedious and he had little in common with his parents. Their meetings had become less and less frequent as they found very little to talk about. Eventually, both parties had decided to give up on each other and their contact had been reduced to one or two conversations a year, which both found difficult. Despite this, Nick felt sorry for them. They had struggled to send him to university and had sold their house to raise the necessary funding, having fallen foul of laws which said that they earned too much to be able to receive financial assistance. His father had been in the engineering industry, but had got out at the wrong time, having been victim of changing times and bad management. They now lived in rented accommodation and had been left with almost nothing for their old age.

His mother was saying that her washing machine had given up, which Nick interpreted as, please send us a cheque. He mentally noted this and went back to the kitchen where he made himself a cup of tea and began idly leafing through the pages of ‘Time Out’. He stopped at the page which gave information on political events.

Amongst the crop of back room meetings for the supporters of the communists, anarchists and fascists there was a small box displaying the words in bold type:

FED UP WITH LIFE?

DO YOU THINK WE HAVE NO FUTURE? FRUSTRATED BY SOCIETIES LACK OF INSIGHT?

And then the words ‘Come down to the Half Moon, High Street, Kensington and vent your feelings. Entry free. Meeting starts at 8:30.’

Fascinated by the thought that other people felt the same as himself, and more to the point that they had actually been motivated enough to get together and talk about it publicly, rather than do the usual English thing of acknowledging the fact that there is a problem and then sweeping it under the carpet, where it thus remained for evermore, Nick resolved to check this little meeting out. Chances were it would be a collection of extremist crackpots or desperate no hopers, but what the hell, he thought, he’d check it out anyway.

He arrived in London at 8:00, the traffic, as usual having been diabolical, found the pub, then spent half an hour trying to find a place to leave his car. Once in the pub, he was directed to the function room on the first floor.

The pub in which the meeting was to be held was nothing special, the usual attempt at an ‘olde worlde’ feel. It fell into the category of middle class professional pub, for many of the clientele were in their early to mid forties and fifties. Most had the haggard look of men escaping the drudgery of their week at work, and judging by the lack of women and absence of children in the ‘Play Area’, their wives and children. More evidence of dissatisfaction with life, Nick thought as he made his way to the back of the pub, climbed the stairs and strolled down the corridor which led to the function room.

He noted before entering the room, that there was only the merest drone of conversation emanating from it. Nick was not overly surprised to note that the ad had not attracted the thronging masses. He entered to the room to find three people sitting round a small table at one end. They stopped talking and turned to view their visitor.

Nick was greeted by the comment from one of the group that the great British public was not as apathetic as they had all thought and, that there was hope yet. This comment produced a smile from the others present, including Nick. He liked people with the same cynical sense of humour as his own. Good start, he thought, shame there are only four people present, including myself.

“Hi, I’m Nick,” he announced, trying to sound enthusiastic. His ploy worked, the response was friendly.

“Hello there, I’m Rachel, this is Jonathan and Steve.”

“Hi.” said Nick again, shaking their hands and noting the educated tone in Rachel’s voice. He also decided that she was quite attractive. Black hair in a bob, dressed neatly and casually. She was wearing no make up. This was something Nick liked greatly. Whatever was going to happen this evening, the presence of this woman was going to make the proceedings more interesting. Then he told himself to stop ogling the woman and draw himself back to reality.

From the ensuing conversation, Nick learnt that the group had a varied background. Rachel was a lawyer working for a large firm of international lawyers. Jonathan was an information technology lecturer at London University and Steve was a civil servant based in Westminster. They were all about Nick’s age, an aspect noted with interest by Nick, who was convinced that it was his generation who were particularly dissatisfied with the direction society was taking.

Right, it looks as though Nick is the only one who could be bothered to turn up tonight.”, announced Jonathan. Bringing the pleasant introductions to an end rather impatiently, thought Nick.

“But first, what’d you like to drink Nick?”

“Thought you’d never ask! Pint of Flowers, thanks”, answered Nick, revising is initial negative impression of Jonathan. The round arrived and the group got down to ‘putting the world to rights’ as Steve called it, coining an old phrase.

“Who’d like to kick off?”,asked Steve.

“I would, actually”, said Nick. “First I’d like to tell you why I’m here, and then I’d like to find out why you’re all here, too.”

“Good idea, and call me ‘Jon’, Nick. Everyone else does and I prefer it.”, cut in Jon.

“OK, Jon.”, continued Nick, “Well I came down here tonight because I’m frustrated with my own life and I view my frustration as being direct result of the frustration felt throughout today’s society. What I mean by this, is that I have a constant feeling that I am always running, but never getting anywhere. Like everybody around me. I work, or rather I keep my head down at work. But I don’t get anything out of it, well, I get a good salary and all that, but that’s where it ends. I just turn up at work, do my thing, and then disappear off home again. And this happens every day of the year, bar holidays. I’m no more than an automaton. Oh, by they way, I am the IT manager for a large insurance company. And whilst I’m on the subject of large companies, I don’t know if any of you have found the same, but for me the management of companies these days seems to have gone to the dogs. My office is one example, and I hear the same from all my friends. Everywhere seems to be run by idiots and their sycophant cronies.”

“We’ve all discussed that particular subject many times before. Your not the only one to have noticed this situation.”, interrupted Rachel.

“Yeah, I thought you might have done talked about this before. That would explain, at least in part, why we are all here. Anyway moving on.”, continued Nick.

“In my free time, I’ve been trying to think of some kind of reason for this decline. I’ve concluded that the blame for this situation lies with the country’s management, the British Government. I’ll explain why I’ve reached this conclusion. I don’t know whether any of you have noticed, but I’ve found that in many large companies, you can predict what the senior management is going to be like from dealing with their underlings, ie more junior management. For example, I had a problem with some software the other day, so I rang the supplier to discuss it, the usual guy I speak to was away that day, so I spoke to another in his section. This guy was a pillock to put it mildly, he treated me like an idiot and tried to lay the blame for my problems on my lack of experience with the software. At this point in the proceedings I realised that I was not going to get anywhere. So I accidentally, on purpose, dropped a file on the telephone, cutting Mr Stupid off in mid-flow. Thankfully he never phoned back. A few days after this little episode, I spoke to the usual guy again. He was his helpful self and we sorted the thing out, which was as usual, a programming problem, in other words, not my fault. I mentioned how his colleague had been less than co-operative. And when I mentioned his name, he just laughed and confided in me that I had actually been speaking to his boss. I should add that this time I was chatting to him on his mobile, so we could both speak freely. He explained that his boss was pretty incompetent and so were most of the more senior management. They were always making unusual decisions and then changing their minds a few days later. He compared the management to the ‘old boy network’, ie incompetents led by idiots. He added that he wanted to change jobs, because he could not move up in his current organisation because ‘arse kissing’ wasn’t his style, and moving out was difficult because all the other companies seemed beset by the same problem.” Nick stopped for a moment, downed a few mouthfuls of beer and continued. The others had not stopped or even tried to interrupt him, they just sat, drank, grimaced and smiled knowingly.

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though, as I said, I hear the same from most of my friends and business contacts. You know, morale is at an all time low in this country, and it’s not helped by the fact that changing jobs is no longer a remedy to the problem. Not to mention the fact that, these days, whether you stay or move, you never seem to be sure that you will have any job next year. This feeling is accentuated the older you get.” He took another mouthful of beer, swallowed it and continued his tale.

“Now, let’s compare the situation which exists in the business world with that which exists in government. Everyday, I read more stories of politicians, usually right-wing, taking bribes. That’s right, bribes. What we have here is good old fashioned corruption. The Italians’ would probably be amazed to hear that they do not have the monopoly on this dark side of political life, they would possibly be even more surprised to hear that traditional, stable, honest old Britain is running them a pretty close second in the national corruption stakes, if indeed it hasn’t by now, overtaken them. That’s my first problem with the state of government: rife corruption. The other thing which annoys me again and again is the blatant lies which they all tell to get themselves into parliament. I know that they regard the whole thing as a bit of a game, by I for one am sick of being a pawn and a loser in this so -called game. No matter who promises what, you can bet good money that these promises will never be fulfilled. What’s this got to do with bad management – beware I’m really wound up now! I could go on about this for ages. Anyway, to continue with my diatribe. It’s bloody simple in my opinion. Lack of knowledge and experience. By this, I’m not referring to their lack of ability to get themselves into a seat in parliament, but the lack of knowledge to know how to do what they are supposed to be doing, which is, supposedly, running a country. And this situation is also mirrored in the business environment.

I’ll illustrate my point with a little anecdote from my childhood. I was watching the television when an item came on about politics. In particular about the promotion of someone or other to the position of transport minister. The news reader went on to explain than this someone or other had a degree in Chemistry. Suddenly, my immature and simplistic logic provoked me into asking my mother why someone with a degree in chemistry was in charge of the transport system. My mum was stumped, she had no explanation and what was worse, she didn’t seem to care. It was as if this situation was completely normal. Since that moment, I’ve observed more and more examples of the same ridiculous situation. In my opinion not one of today’s so called politicians is actually qualified to run a country. It really is incredible, but it gives you some explanation as to why the country is always in a worse and worse mess. And the diabolical management which exists in government, appears to have permeated all levels of society.”, said Nick almost talking himself out of breath.

The next thing I’d like to moan about, is the lack of any clear division which exists in the political system. You, know, they all adopt this right wing left wing stance, but I don’t know about you, but I don’t think there any real difference between all of them, apart from the theory that one party seemingly cares about one section of the population and the other cares, I use the word ‘cares’ in its loosest possible sense, about another section of society. But whoever you look at, they all seem to be after one thing and one thing alone, power. Part of my evidence for this is the blasé way in which they all vote themselves pay rises, at the same time telling us all to tighten our belts. Bloody bunch of hypocrites. If any of them actually genuinely cared for anybody or anything they would stand up and say something, but does anyone? Never. They all think ‘we’ve got the power, so we’ll do what we like.’ The trouble is that these ‘little’ power games are destroying the country. While the right honourable members fool about in the large kindergarten known as Westminster, the whole country is crumbling socially.

Take the situations regarding crime and terrorism, education, health and economics. Pretty fundamental elements of society, I’m sure you’ll all agree, and each one of them is in a huge mess. If we can’t manage the present, what hope have we for the future? It’s a sad situation. And that’s why I’m here, I’m an idealist, yes, but I’m also a realist and I know when change is necessary. Right, OK, I’ll get off my soap box and let someone else have a go.”, finished Nick, settling back into his chair and taking another sip from his pint.

“Nick. You should have been a politician”, quipped Steve.

“Yeah, your quite a talker, aren’t you?”, added John.

“Maybe you are right. I never thought about it before. This is the first time that I’ve had a real opportunity to get my thoughts of my chest. I hope I didn’t bore the socks off you all”, said Nick.

“Quite the contrary,” Rachel commented. Nick noticed that she appeared to be regarding him with new eyes. His thoughts momentarily left his criticism of the county’s political system. Hell, he thought, I think she likes me. Then he wondered whether he had sub-consciously geared his performance to impress her. He was still trying to decide when Rachel continued.

“I wish everybody I met could express themselves so passionately, but so many people either seem unable to, or they just plain don’t want to. How’d you fancy being president of the new republic?”.

They all laughed at her absurd comment and Nick began to think that he may have found some new friends and allies. He also thought about Rachel again, but again his internal pontifications were halted, this time by Jon.

“Yes, I think you neatly summed up just about all Britain’s problems. I for one, agree totally and can’t really add much more. However, there’s one thing you’ve not touched upon”, continued Jon.

“That is the undue influence wielded over society by big business. Oh, I know that I could be accused of being paranoid and you might be right. To the people at the top, all those beneath are no more than another asset, like a computer or a telephone. In the same way, once we’ve reached the end of our operational lives, we are replaced, a figure is crossed out and we become history. The politicians think in the same way, as Nick mentioned, if your vote is not considered worth getting, then you are not worth considering.

A current fad in government is green policies. No-one in parliament gave a fig about the environment, until, that is, ‘those who rule’, realised in their reactionary wisdom that this subject was a potential vote getter. What I mean by reactionary wisdom is the way in which all these, I have to admit, outwardly sensible policies were introduced way too late. One of mans frailties is his inability to realise or predict the outcome of his actions. Sorry about the use of the un-politically correct ‘his’. The situation is worsening all the time, the more scientific and technological advances we make, the more difficult it becomes to assess the results of whatever on, not only the environment, but also society. This is a distinct and very ‘difficult to solve’ problem. However, I believe that proper politicians should address this issue more seriously. It’s no good developing an advanced society and then having it destroyed by the very advances which placed it in the position in the first place. A case in point is that of nuclear power and weapons. These things are possibly the most insane devices built by man, however, too many people consider the weapons essential to the maintenance of the balance of peace. But this convenient theory falls apart, when you consider that all it takes is for one madman to set one of these things off and the whole world goes down the pan. The problem, as I see it, is that because the effects of these things are so difficult to comprehend, some believe that they are a fallacy. I know I’m side-tracking from the main purpose of our little gathering, but it’s something we need to consider. It’d be no good re-building Britain, only to find that someone takes offence to our actions and decides to employ force to stop us. “

“You’re quite right”, agreed Nick. “But I’d like to see Britain as a world model. Setting an example, which everyone will follow.”

“Just like the old British empire.”, chuckled Steve.

“Well sort of.”, continued Nick. “Only, this time I’d like the conquest to be a peaceful one. I hate the idea of imposing my views on anyone. What I want to do is say ‘this is a good idea, let’s try it’, and if it does indeed work, then we can encourage others to follow the same path. I’m pretty sure that the disease being experienced by British society is felt throughout Europe, if not the world, not just here.”

From the subsequent discussions, generated by Nick’s speech and the others comments, Nick realised that the group of three, had often thought about, like him, and unlike him, had discussed the plight of modern British and world society.

They had observed the same stagnation as Nick, had similar bosses to him and had also noted the low level of morale which pervaded all levels of British society’s structure.

Nick learnt that they had decided to hold the meeting to try to discover if they were alone in their feelings. And although they were happy to discover that they were not totally alone, they were somewhat disappointed to note that Nick was the only other person in the whole of London and the South East who had bothered to turn up. Nick sympathised with this disappointment, for he too was a little surprised. But they all knew the reason, the comment at the commencement of proceedings had summed the position up. Apathy.

Obviously, at this juncture in time the group did not consider themselves to be radicals or revolutionaries. They did not even have a name. As for labelling the politics of their discussions, this could not have been a more difficult task, for it covered communism, socialism, fascism, capitalism and in fact, all the different types of political ideologies which existed in the world at that time, in so much as you can cover such a diverse range of topics in one evening in a pub. What was noticeable was that there was a small, almost imperceptible, spark of energy generated by the conversation. It was light hearted and yet, serious, at the same time. The fire of enthusiasm had been stoked, all it needed was a little more fuel to start it burning really fiercely. Nick was pleased that they all thought and felt the same way as him. All had had similar experiences at work and in life and agreed that the monotony of life was starting to depress them. One thing though set them apart from the rest of the British population: they had turned their depression into a form of motivation.

And so it was that there on a Friday evening in that most traditional of English settings, the pub, that the foundations for one of the greatest changes Britain would ever experience began to be laid.

It was to take several more gatherings before a word such as ‘revolution’ would start to be openly used, and each of them was aware that a word of such emotive power needed to be used judiciously, in order to avoid the attentions of the nation’s authorities. There was also the feeling that revolutions were somewhat out-of-date concepts that were usually associated with the past and that the world had not experienced a real revolution since the communists had seized power in Russia. Thus the term, when it came to be introduced, was used with a degree of reservation at first, and generated a sort of curious amusement, for the idea of a revolution taking place in modern Britain was, indeed, a very strange thought.

At this initial gathering, though, neither the word or the idea of a revolution even entered the minds of those present. Although, had Marx or Trotsky been listening in, they may well have considered the little group’s discussions to be very similar to their own thoughts and debates before Russia was set on a path which was to change the country forever.

In fact it was the Pub’s landlord who innocently commented, “You lot still here? You’ve been at it for hours. What are you up to? Planning a revolution or something?”, which opened the new friends eyes as to the possible direction in which their discussions could lead. However, they were only four insignificant people in a big wide world. Revolutions need planning and supporters before they can commence. The seed may have been sown, but it was going to need plenty of care and attention before it could even break through the hard ground, let alone form itself into a fruit bearing tree. Their work had only just begun.

When the group was finally kicked out of the pub at midnight, they realised that the ‘one or two pints’ had grown to two, then to four and that they were in no state to drive. They hired a taxi and decided to go back to Steve’s house, it being the nearest.

Steve’s place turned out to be a small mews property. Nick joked how overpaid civil servants were. Steve admitted that although the house gave others the impression that he was not without a penny or two, he had inherited it from his grandmother, who had sadly committed suicide to avoid having to go into an old peoples home and in doing so, Steve continued, had avoided losing her property to the government, as a result of a particularly unpleasant piece of legislation, which required that those with assets over a certain value pay for their life in a home. The funding for this would have come from the proceeds of sale of the house. He added that his grandmother had always liked him and had delighted in telling him that the house, which she knew he loved so much, would one day be his. She had read about this legislation in a newspaper and the next day had taken her life.

Steve told his story in a matter of fact kind of way, but Nick could tell from the cold look in his eyes that he laid the blame for his grandmother’s death squarely with the right honourable gentlemen and women who purported to run the country. Nick felt a twinge of regret for his initial hasty remark and momentarily turned away from his new friend. Steve read Nick’s embarrassment and apologised for being so blunt, adding that this had been one of the many factors which had led him to try to find a way to change the established and devious order which ruled the land. After this slight dampening of the evenings proceedings, the atmosphere lightened and the companionable spirit which had, until Steve’s account, dominated the evening, returned.

Inside the house was modestly decorated and furnished, reflecting that the owner was indeed no more than a poorly paid civil servant.

The group sat down and over several cups of coffee and malt whisky, Nick learnt how the three had got to know each other. It transpired that Jon, and Steve were old school friends. Steve had met Rachel through his work, they had been seeing each other for a short time but, as Nick later discovered from Jon, had decided that ultimately they were to be no more than good friends and so had ended the relationship in favour of maintaining their friendship. Steve’s gentle flirting with Rachel throughout the evening implied to Nick that he had wanted more from the relationship than Rachel. Despite this it was obvious that they got on very well. Nick found himself thinking about the beautiful Rachel, who he had found to be highly stimulating company, quite often that evening. He also sensed that he had been paying a little more attention to her than to the two others present. Nick hoped that the others had not noted this, but suspected that they had. Rachel appeared to have a keen mind and was also highly pragmatic type of person. And bother were characteristics that Nick liked in women. There was also something else, that Nick could not quite put his finger on. He sensed that her friendly demeanour was perhaps, for he was not quite sure, a mask for something that had happened or was happening in her life. Her eyes gave this away, for although they were dark and beautiful, they seemed to be tinged with a certain sadness. He found himself wanting to know what was affecting her in such a way, indeed he wanted to know as much as possible about her, as he had not met a woman this interesting and intriguing in a long time. Rachel never retained eye contact with him for long, possibly because she did not want the others to notice, but her eye contact was long enough for Nick to realise that their interest was mutual. Nick again wondered whether Jon and Steve had noticed anything. In fact they had noted this electricity from the beginning, but had showed nothing, although Steve, would have admitted to being slightly envious of Nick for the effect he was having on his former partner.

After some more idle chat, they all finally retired to bed at about four in the morning.

Each of the group slept soundly, filled with enthusiastic thoughts and above all, some hope for the future.

When he awoke the next morning, Nick made his normal trip to the bathroom. On his way he back, he accidentally walked through an opening, which he had not been aware of the previous evening. He had entered what was obviously a library. The shelves were filled with a large selection of books. Seeing as Nick liked books he decided to browse for a while. He noticed that Steve, or maybe his late grandmother, for some of the books were quite old, had a large selection of political texts, there was Marx, Trotsky and even Hitler. In fact the complete political spectrum was covered. The other books crammed onto the bookshelves were on a wide variety of other topics, ranging from fiction to a substantial number of books on more practical subjects such as motorcycle and car maintenance. Steve was obviously interested in similar things to himself, Nick noted. This pleased him because it confirmed his earlier judgement that they had much in common, including he mused, an interest in Rachel. Then he thought, ‘What am I doing – judging people, shit I’ve been working with idiots for too long, the rot’s set in’. Mulling this thought over in his mind, Nick returned to the sofa where he had spent the night and had just started looking through a few magazines when Rachel appeared.

‘Morning, Nick, How’d you sleep? Hope you weren’t too uncomfortable.’

‘No worries, thanks, I slept fine, I’m an old hand at crashing on other peoples sofas!’, replied Nick, pleased to note that the friendliness of the night before had not been solely the result of the drink they had all consumed.

‘Anyway, you sleep OK?’, Nick enquired.

‘Fine thanks, although my head feels a little thick. How many whiskies did we put away last night?’

‘Plenty. Good night though, wasn’t it?’

‘Yeah, great’, she replied enthusiastically, Nick was happy to notice.

‘Are the others awake yet?’

‘Just coming round I think. We’re going to do our usual thing of grabbing a cappuccino and a brioche from the local bar. Would you like to come?’

‘Sounds good to me. I’m not doing anything else today.’

Soon after the foursome were sitting in the said bar consuming cappuccinos and brioches. The conversation once again flowed. Although, this time it was the casual conversation of new found friends and not dissatisfied citizens.

The group split up at lunch time, but not before having agreed to meet in the same pub as the previous evening, at the same time the next week.

For the first time in ages, Nick noticed he was feeling genuinely happy, he pushed an Aerosmith cassette into his car stereo and drove briskly home, keeping an eye out for the speed cameras which seemed to be breeding throughout London.

REVOLUTION BRITAIN – Chapter 3

Planning for a new Britain

The group got to together the following week and their subsequent meetings became more and more frequent.

Each member became a regular attendee at the discussions, in fact the four of them became close friends and started meeting at each others’ houses instead of the London pub. Nick started to grow very fond of Rachel, who he had managed to discover, was married to a husband with such a good job that he never had any time for her and had failed to notice that she had fallen totally and utterly out of love with him. This, thought Nick, could explain the sadness in her eyes, but he was convinced that something else was going on.

Rachel, also began to take an interest in Nick, but they both cared deeply about their cause and were aware that their little alliance would probably not survive the trials and tribulations of a relationship at this juncture. They kept things businesslike and friendly, but Steve and Jonathan noticed the rapport which the two generated whenever the meetings took place. They never commented, but mentally noted that one day something would develop.

The discussions which took place between the four friends encompassed all of society’s problems, including welfare, education, the environment, defence, the political system and the politicians.
They made several general observations. Rachel pointed out how all the care seemed to have gone from society, how everything had come, instead, to be valued in terms of cold hard cash. There were no exceptions to this monetarist rule. The group regarded this as fundamentally wrong and deeply unethical. All agreed that this aspect of society was in need of total reform and the attitude of those acting as our so-called leaders had to be changed. The problem, they all agreed, was how to bring about such changes.

Having identified some of the more fundamental faults within contemporary British society, the group moved on to systematically analyse the structure of the country in socio-political terms. Well, it was as close to a socio-political examination of the subject as they could come, bearing in mind that this was a comparatively new subject for each of them.

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Their analysis commenced with a look at what they considered to be the basic structure of a country. This structure, they decided, could be divided into various distinct elements. These were:

Social policy: Education, health, crime and punishment.

Economic policy: the financial systems necessary for a country to function, at both national and international levels.

Defence: the means by which a country may protect itself from others wishing to affect a country by means of violence.

And finally, last and by no means least, there was Government, the means by which the other elements were co-ordinated and managed.

Taking social policy first, the group identified the various areas in which the country was mis-functioning. They started by examining the country’s health system.

“We all know that the health service is being eroded away to nothing.”, started Nick, one evening. “It’s failing to look after the really sick and more and more decisions are being taken on financial grounds by administrators, not doctors. Do you remember that case in the papers last year in which a doctor was accused of negligently causing the death of a patient with a 50:50 chance of survival?”
“Yes, I saw it”, answered Rachel. “I read the case report as well. It transpired that the doctor in question was under enormous pressure to cut costs. In fact, he had been threatened with the sack by some idiot manager, if he didn’t make huge savings by the end of the financial year. The poor guy had a wife and three children to consider, so one night when a car crash victim came in, the doctor realised that the patient would need long term care to recover. He was bound to inform the hospital administration of the situation, and they had as good as told him to get rid of the patient to another hospital or say goodbye to his job. The doctor rang some 20 other hospitals in an effort to find a place for the patient, who alas did not have private health insurance. He failed to find a place as nowhere was prepared to take on a patient who might have taken a year to recover, due to the expense involved. Thus the doctor, realising that the person would never receive treatment, decided to give the patient rather more tranquilliser than was strictly necessary. His intention was to put the person out of their misery, for the good doctor knew that without the right care the person would die, and seeing as no one was prepared to treat the poor beggar, death did indeed seem pretty imminent. The patient died as a result of the ‘overdose’ and the parents of the deceased demanded an inquiry into, what was to them, and their GP an unusual death. The doctor involved broke down in front of a medical hearing and confessed all. He was struck off. I was told by an acquaintance that a case for the prosecution of the hospital’s senior administration was presented to the crown prosecution service, but was not proceeded with on the grounds that to have done so, would not have been in the country’s best interests. The press kicked up a mock fuss, sold a few more copies, increased their shareholders’ dividends and suddenly went quiet about the subject.”

“Let me guess.”, Nick interrupted. “The stories were getting a little too close to our political masters, so they stamped on it. Most of them have papers in their back pockets. The papers don’t object because the MP’s leak stories, boost sales and shareholders profits. And I’d put money on the fact that many ‘honourable’ members are shareholders in these papers.”
“Yeah, I bet you’re right. Everything seems a bit too convenient, doesn’t it” ,commented Jon.
“I’ll go one better than that, Nick.”, added Rachel.
She continued. “Because,”, she said. “I know I’d lose. Suffice it to say that I’ve seen documentary evidence of what you have surmised, Nick. You all might be a little surprised to learn that certain names, from both sides of the House crop up in the lists of shareholders for several of the most profitable papers. What may raise your eyebrows further is to know that Tory and labour members often both have shares in the same papers.”

“I knew it!”, exclaimed Jon, jumping up and at the same time sending a small coffee table on an impromptu trip around Nick’s living room. “Those conniving bastards don’t give a flying fuck about the country. They’re bloody well in this just to make themselves as much fucking cash as possible.” He was obviously seething at Rachel’s confirmation of their suspicions.
“If only I could get my hands on those avaricious gits. I’d, I’d, I don’t know what I’d do.”
“Calm down, Jon”, said Steve. “It’s no more than we have expected all along.” Jon, realising that Steve was speaking the truth, sat down.
“It’s true.”, sighed Nick, returning the table to its rightful place. “We all know it’s true, even the coffee table knows it’s true, poor thing, and it hasn’t even got shares in one single newspaper.”
Nick’s comment produced just enough amusement to bring Jon back down to earth. Jon, Nick considered, was of a quiet but faintly nervous disposition, not a person given to outbursts, so he thought his brief display and torrent of strong language were probably out of character. Still, Nick could understand why he had got angry, and he wished more people had reacted in the same way years ago. Then maybe, he mused, the country would not be in such a disastrous mess.

“However,” began Steve, “I’ve got another little example to share with you.”

“Hell, everybody’s got a little story or two, haven’t they?”, commented Jon, still looking unhappy.

“Well, as I was saying, I have a friend whose father has had to go into a home. Poor guy’s got senile dementia or something of the sort. Anyway, he was sent to a home and my friend was shocked to find her father locked up in a small windowless room. So, naturally enough, she wanted to get him transferred to another place. Not satisfied with the local health authorities performance so far, she did a little tour of the homes in the area. She discovered that there were about 150 of them, some the same, some worse and a few better. She also finds that the Doctor in charge of allocating places always seemed to put people in the home they had sent her father to. So, she goes along to this guy to tell him that she is not happy about the condition in which she has found her father. At first this doctor was all holier than thou and seemed appalled that she could be suggesting that a) the home was a disgrace and b) that he should consider a transfer. My friend mentions, in all innocence that her request is fair enough, considering that she and her family were funding their father’s treatment. She also mentions innocently, that she has noted that he always sends his patients to this particular home, which seemed odd to her when there were some 150 places in the locality. Our good doctor went a rather dark shade of red at this comment, his tone changed completely and he suddenly became co-operative. My friend found his reaction to be a little strange. Anyway, she waits until her father has been put in another more acceptable place. The transfer was expedited with undue haste she noted. Then, she wrote a little letter to the press and copied it to her MP. A month or two later and she opened her local rag to find that a certain doctor had been struck off. He had it transpired, as she had suspected, been taking backhanders from the home. The home, meanwhile had been subjected to a spot check by the Social Services. Suffice it to say that a few people suddenly resigned and standards went up. Interesting, eh?”

“I’ll say”, said Rachel, “We do live in an honest society, don’t we?. See what happens when you let accountant’s run the shop. I’ll add yet another horror story to these tales of woe, if you want.”

The group had not yet tired of hearing these stories, so they encouraged her to continue, only Jon remained quiet.

“How about starting a national competition? “, said Nick.

“Good idea”, agreed Steve, ”Go on Rachel”.

“Right. This concerns a friend of mind who had had a breast cancer scan. She was OK, but after telling her mother about the thing she discovered that her mum had a rather large lump on one of her breasts. The local GP refers them to a specialist, Sir something or other, very impressive. Now, as it turns out she has some knowledge of cancers and she knew that the operation that our doctor was suggesting had been out moded by some other less radical treatment. So, she mentions this to Sir whatsit, who reacts by looking down his long nose, as if so say ‘What do you know about such things, woman ?’. This specialist takes one look at her mother and says that she should have her whole breast off, “Anyway, at you age, you won’t mind will you”, comments the quack. My friend let’s this little gem slip, but her respect for the man hits rock bottom. The man then goes on to suggest that the treatment can be carried out at his clinic and that surprise, surprise, he can arrange an appointment that week. My friend then enquires about the costs and is then passed to a nurse. At this point she is not at all happy and explains this to the nurse who, without a moments hesitation, advises her to get a second opinion. The costs, as you might imagine were prohibitive. At this, she decides to stall, makes her excuses and leaves. Bad enough you might think. But, she manages to get her mother an appointment with a cancer specialist in the hospital in London. Here, she is faced with another Doctor. He carries out an examination and states that the problem can be dealt with in a far less traumatic way. After hearing of her past experience, the Doctor is shocked, he also points out that the operation can be carried out on the National Health at no cost. A few months later, she reads in a National daily, to her delight, that Sir so and so had been struck off for malpractice. So, you can see that he whole system is riddled with money grabbing bastards, who think ‘honesty’ is a four letter word.”

After this plethora of stories, health policy, they concluded, had definitely become too heavily influenced by the money men. Humanitarian motives seemed to have been all but abandoned. The health system in Britain had degenerated almost as much as the political system.

That it had long been suffering from political interference, was clear. The latest manifestation of this had resulted in a system, so full of managers that the effects were the same as when the system was composed of too many operatives. Fundamentally inefficient.

Political meddling destroyed the whole purpose of the system, which was to provide care to the needy. The politicians fell back on the old excuse of lack of money, to try to cover the real reason for the system’s poor state, which the group ascertained was probably incompetent management, both internally and politically.

The group decided that the whole system needed to be examined, taken apart and rebuilt upon more robust lines. They also realised that this was a task of incredible magnitude, since the faults were deeply ingrained and many of the personnel involved would be reluctant to introduce changes which may result in the loss of their own jobs. To overcome this situation, and after considerable discussion, the group devised the following solution, accepting the fact that it would be nigh on impossible to start with a clean slate.

The solution proposed, was to set up special new model treatment-care units. These would be operated by specially selected medical and administrative personnel. The units operation would be monitored by a government task force, whose job would be to identify those systems which worked well, and those which did not. Detailed performance criteria would be set, to match exactly the needs of the areas covered by these units. These performance criteria would be defined by surveying the health needs of a community over a period of time and adjusting the structure and function of the health units to reflect these needs.

Another objective the group decided, was to introduce preventative, as well as reactive care. The group reasoned that the units should start small and over a period of time be allowed to develop in size. Thus development could be closely controlled to ensure that the expanding units were still capable of meeting the same performance standards as the original development units.

Ultimately, the intention would be to develop a series of systems which could be introduced in care units throughout the country. The model units would remain however, and continue to be used as test beds. The process of updating and adjusting would be as regular as practicalities would allow. Administrative staff were to be kept to reasonable levels and a constant check would be maintained to ensure that bureaucracy was at minimum levels.

The financing of these units would be carefully controlled, however the priority would always remain. This priority would be the health of those people under their jurisdiction.

A new humanitarian code would be introduced to ensure that financial and humanitarian control could operate in parallel.

Health education would be introduced to guide people towards a healthy lifestyle. The aim would be to keep the populace in as good a condition as possible. In the long term, health care needs could be reduced, thereby reducing demands on the health system. The media was regarded as being an essential tool in the promotion of health. However, the tone of the education would be low key, in order to avoid the feeling that big brother was watching and controlling. Advice would be framed along the lines that, if you follow it you will be doing yourself a favour and in doing so helping others around you.

A new facility would be set up to link health care with research and development into the production of new drugs and treatments. Drug companies would be encouraged to form closer links with the health system.

Another aspect of the new system which required further detailed analysis was that of finance. The foursome resolved to consider this aspect at the same time as they examined economic policy.

The group then considered the social care system, which they decided was too far removed from the health system in its present form. Social and health policy needed to be closely linked. Current social policy was far too reactive in the current system, in that all social policy seemed to be generated by a pre-existing need, no-one, it seemed, attempted to plan for future needs and develop a system around this. The intention would be for the Social Authorities to constantly monitor society and adapt itself to whatever changes would take place. What was required was a progressive forward thinking organisation. A link between the social system and educational and law and order systems needed to be made, so that each could feed from the other and thus leave its citizens more aware of the problems in the world around them.

As a logical result of their social system planning, the group decided that society needed an education system which educated both intellectually and socially.

The group took a close look at the education system, which appeared to be lacking in purpose and objectives.

It was decided that the system was too intellectually biased. It required a stronger social bias. The new principle which needed to be established was that of Education for life. This not only included intellectual development, but also social development. The system should prepare the nations children for the adult world and thus needed a far greater practical element.

The present system they realised, left the youth of the country incredibly poorly prepared for life after education. It was all very well filling children’s heads full of interesting but, for the most part, useless facts, whilst ignoring life’s more general aspects, such as selecting the correct career, finding accommodation or even starting a family. Education should prepare those engaged within its processes for life in the world, with all its problems and pleasures, they concluded.

The group observed that life in the big wide world was something of a lottery after the relative ease of family life. Each of them had made various mistakes, both socially and career wise. And they felt that their schooling could have left them better prepared for life in general. Besides, if the education system functioned with a stronger practical bias further generations would be much better prepared for the future. This would lead to both social and economic benefits for the country in the long term. The country would thus function better as a socio-economic unit. The group decided to abolish examinations in socially useless, but culturally useful, subjects such as religion, history, the arts and geography and concentrate more on functional subjects such as languages and sciences, plus a range of practical subjects intended to develop life skills. They also considered it essential that young people should be encouraged to discover more about themselves, their abilities and weaknesses.

A fundamental aim of the education system, they observed should be to ensure that each recipient finds their own place in society. This should include identifying the best career for an individual and as much assistance as possible to ensure that the individual ended up doing a job which was both satisfying and appropriate for them.

Again, the group selected the method of introducing model units. A socio-intellectual education system was the way forward the group decided. At this point Rachel raised an interesting point. She commented that any model system would require many guinea-pigs, and stated that she personally would not be happy to have her children’s education damaged as a result of being the participant in a model project which was then not adopted as part of the mainstream educational system. The group acknowledged that she had made a very good point and came up with the following solution.

They decided that the period of Education for each person should be lengthened to accommodate the testing of model theory. However, Jon countered this suggestion by pointing out that in the current system Examinations revolved around a two and three year cycle, thus any pupil involved in the model programme could have their education delayed by up to three years. Nick acknowledged his point, but pointed out that modular education systems were being successfully introduced and that each pupils qualifications were decided by annual instead of tri or bi-annual examination performance. Therefore, although the education process, may be slowed slightly, in the long term no-one would be unduly affected. Jon was satisfied by this proposal and the fact that each of them acknowledged the fact none of them were educationalists and that, as with all their hypothesising, professional advice needed to be sought.

The group hoped that through the implementation of a properly thought out system, society problems, such as crime and drug abuse could be reduced, or possibly, and they realised this was a great expectation, eliminated.

The next subject to come under the groups’ magnifying glass was, logically enough, crime. In this session the foursome reflected on and discussed how they as individuals had been affected by the many problems which faced contemporary British society.

Nick cited a number of instances in which he had been the victim of minor crimes. His stereo had been removed from his car on two occasions, he had been beaten up and his mountain bike had been stolen. These were admittedly small problems and cannot not be viewed as some of societies greater problems. However, each event, in its turn, had opened Nick’s eyes a little more, as he discovered to his surprise that many of his friends and acquaintances had also been victims of similar crimes, some petty and some more serious. This lead Nick to the conclusion that law and order was starting to break down in society. He noticed that many people were getting more and more worried about their personal safety, and the safety of their children and family.

Rachel mentioned that women were under increasing threat from many different directions, nowhere seemed to be safe. She gave an example of the plight of women.

“The other day I was sitting waiting for a tube, when a tall attractive girl appeared. Half the male population gawped, as men do. No offence guys, but it’s true. Anyway, suddenly she broke into a run, after looking over her shoulder. I followed her gaze and noticed two rather unpleasant characters also break into a run. They were after her, I supposed. I didn’t see what happened next, but what I did notice was that no-one even tried to intervene or help the girl. It’s the ‘I don’t want to be involved’ syndrome. That poor girl could have been raped for all I know, but even though she was surrounded by plenty of potential help, she was totally alone. I knew it and I suspect that she did as well. No-one seems to give a damn any more. You know, you guys just don’t appreciate what it’s like to be a woman today. The streets are dangerous. As usual nobody is doing a thing to prevent yet another bad situation from getting worse.”
“I can sympathise with you.”, started Nick. “But it’s difficult for me to know how women feel, because, well, because I’m a man. I’m ashamed to say that I doubt that I would have tried to help that woman. The risks today are just too great. You all remember that case where a man tried to deal with the youth that was vandalising his car, he got stabbed and killed for his pains. The bright young gentleman who committed the murder got off Scott free on a plea of self-defence. The poor bastard who tried to stop him from committing a crime was almost regarded by the court as being a criminal himself. Law and order seems to have gone mad.”

“It’s an insane situation.” said Jon. He continued, “No-one is allowed to protect themselves, nor can they use the power of the law to seek compensation or at the very least obtain some support from somebody who cares. The law is being geared towards the lawbreaker in a strange and almost consistent fashion. It was as if someone wanted society to crumble.”

The group cynically came to the conclusion that either society was being manipulated or the powers who could do something were unaware that any real problem existed. Since, the manipulation theory seemed wholly implausible, the second theory was the more likely state of affairs. Indeed, there was substantial circumstantial evidence to support this opinion.

They all considered that the majority of crime was related directly to social problems, and that social problems were related to the education of both the children and their parents. Thus by developing the education system and using it to ‘point the young in the right direction’, as Nick put it, crime could be, he hoped, substantially reduced.

However, the group resolved that the crime problem needed attention, and that the criminal punishment system was long overdue for complete reform. Punishment, they considered should be a deterrent and not, as Steve commented, the present case: a chance to spend a few years with some of your old mates.

They agreed that criminals should be made to complete the most onerous and arduous public works, including hard physical work. This work should include community related schemes, such as building roads, manning reclamation plants and any job where mistakes or obstinacy would only prolong the job at hand and not do any damage. The aim should be to make criminals pay back the society they have wronged. However, all the people taking part in these public work schemes would be paid, including the criminals, who would work for a prison term which included both paid and unpaid work. All prison privileges would have to be earned, through good behaviour and work performance. Re-offenders would be given increasingly hard tasks and would receive little or no more than the basic constituents required for a humane life.

“Another problem, as I see it.”, began Rachel, who was best qualified to make comments on this subject, being a lawyer.
“Is the legal system which operates in this country. As you all probably know it’s a precedent system. In other words all decisions in court are based on previous court cases. Now this system, on the face of it, is all well and good, and it does have various advantages over the codified systems which exist abroad. The problem is the judges who are supposed to be doing the job of interpreting the laws. For the most part these gentlemen are incredibly out of touch with modern society and they seem to walk this world in a set of large politically crafted blinkers. Thus their decisions have increasingly been regarded as insensitive, to say the least. One thing that I will say in their defence is the dreadful quality of the drafting of the new legislation emanating from those who consider themselves worthy of being in charge of this country. The legal system is suffering horribly from badly composed laws, and worse still, legislation of such lunacy that it almost discredits it.

A wonderful example of this idiocy is a clever piece of legislation which required the police to name informers. This had to have been one of the best ways of encouraging organised crime. Indeed, rumour has it, in legal circles, that big business pushed for this law, in order to use it to expose any employee who informed the police of their quasi-legal activities. The directors, stroke, chairmen of some of these concerns, of course, occupy seats in our very own house of commons. So as you can see the political element has even managed to successfully interfere with the system of justice which exists in the country. And we thought old soviet Russia was a tyrannical society! Mother Russia has got nothing on old fickle Britannia and her bullshitting multitudes.

To try to bring this little sob story to a conclusion, I would say that if the legal system could be separated from the political system to an extent, it would improve enormously. Of course, the legal system itself needs reforming, our quaint, solicitor, barrister system and its not so quaint cost, scares away many from pursuing cases which, in the interest of the country should be pursued. And more often than not, the common man, who of course the legal system is in place for, supposedly, is unable to benefit from its services, because he hasn’t got a bank balance the size of the Queen. The cost of the system itself is an injustice to all those who live in this country. An new system needs to be developed and introduced, if anyone is to retain any faith in the law in this country. “

“Another one of us makes a searing assault on yet another of this country’s faults. Will we ever find any aspect of the country which might generate a positive comment?”, queried Steve, who looked convinced that there was absolutely nothing good about the country noteworthy of comment.

“Well, there is one thing.”, piped up Jon. They turned and gazed at him, as if awaiting his next comment to be a revelation.
“There’s nowhere near as much dog shit on the pavements in London as there is in Milan!”, he continued.

The others looked at each other, and then looked back at Jon, who was trying to suppress a stupid grin. Then they all burst out laughing. It was such an insanely stupid comment that, although obviously a very weak joke, it managed to relieve the tension created by Rachel’s long soliloquy on the in-justices of the justice system.
“Anymore daft comments like that, young man, and I’ll have you up before Lord Justice Eton ‘doesn’t everyone shop at Fawtnams’ Harrow, self styled guardian of the working man. He’ll have you up on a charge of treason and sentence you to transportation to Australia for seven years hard labour,” remarked Rachel, trying, and failing, to emulate some upright member of the legal system that she had obviously come into contact with.
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“Ok, we’ve obviously all had enough for now. Let’s adjourn, if you’ll pardon the expression, to the only British institution worthy of retention, ie the pub.”, said Nick, who thought it was time to call the discussion a day.
“Even that institution needs to be changed.”, cut in Steve. “We’re the only country in Europe that doesn’t let it’s pubs stay open after 11. It amazes me really, because just think how much more tax would be raised if more drink were sold as a result of longer hours.”
“Dream on”, remarked Jon. “Continental hours will never happen in Britain, for the simple reason that the British drink more from 6 to 11 than any other people in Europe, with the possible exception of the Germans. Longer opening hours result in less income for breweries and government alike, and since the two are, like everything, intrinsically linked, no one in the current system will agree to any change. Sorry to be a cynical bastard, but there you are. Big brother is even monitoring the beer you drink. Almost puts you off going down the pub, doesn’t it?”.
“Almost, but not quite!”, said Nick picking up his jacket and heading for the door.

They followed him and finished the evening off with a session in the local pub, at which relationships and mutual respect blossomed.

They left the pub at the standard eleven ‘o’ clock, somewhat the worse for wear, and headed back to Nick’s place for the night, for it had been his turn to host the meeting.

On the way back to the house, Nick began thinking. He was pleased with the way things were going and satisfied that the talks had managed to remain both realistic and innovative, without any one of them becoming overzealous. He could picture in his mind the machinations of a group of fanatics, concluding that they could only make a difference by resorting to the sort of terrorism which seemed to have dominated the major news stories throughout the nineteen seventies’. He remembered quite vividly the mindless bombings, high-jackings and sieges. In each case those responsible had failed to achieve any discernible goal, apart from that of alienating the very people that each of these events was aimed at influencing, the general public. He noted how the public in general was akin to a slow ponderous beast at the best of times, be he had observed in particular that the beast was never moved by acts of unnecessary violence, especially when those harmed were sections of the beast itself. He remembered when the IRA had tried to destroy the Conservative party at a hotel in Brighton. He also remembered how the party had come out of the whole situation in rather a good light, in that all and sundry condemned the act as one of mindless violence. The Conservatives came out of the event looking very much the wounded party. He mulled over this unintentional pun, for a moment. Very few people, he recalled, actually asked why someone should wish to commit such an atrocious act. Very few people, if any, had placed the blame for the bombing at the feet of those bombed. No-one had suggested that just possibly, if the Irish situation had been handled better, the whole event could never have happened. And further, nobody tried to find a reason for such a horrific act. The persons who committed it very obviously highly desperate. Or there was another reason, which the world had never been told about. The Irish situation, was he thought, a reflection of the incompetence which reigned within the country’s seat of power. Yes, he concluded, we are doing the right thing, but equally, he determined, he did not want their group to turn into a group of murderous terrorists. He wondered what the others had been thinking. The taxi journey had been in almost total silence, even the taxi driver had started to shuffle uncomfortably in his seat, and had visibly sighed when asked to stop. There was a tension which had grown up within the group, it had not existed before and it worried Nick, because he was not sure whether it was the result of quiet anticipation, or possible recriminations about what the group had been doing.

The went inside, still in silence.

Steve broke the silence. ‘You know, while I’m very pleased about what we’re doing, I can’t help worrying about how it could all end. I mean, we don’t want to end up like some new version of the Bahder Meinhoff group, do we? I remember only too well how this group achieved little more than notoriety for its extreme and violent acts. I’m not sure about you lot, but I’m totally against mindless reckless violence. It wins few friends, you know.’ He said.

‘You know’, started Rachel, ‘Steve’s reservations mirror my own. The question which I keep on asking myself is, where is all this leading?’
‘Strange you should mention it’, continued Jon, ‘ I was thinking the same thing, where are we all going to end up? In prison. Or worse, sporting five hundred bullets a piece, courtesy of the SAS. We’ve all proved that we are reasonable people, our common-sense ideas prove this clearly. But it make you wonder just how all those revolutionary terrorist groups actually start out, I mean the Meinhoff lot, the Red Brigades, etcetera.’
It was Nick’s turn to speak, although he was still reeling slightly from the discovery that they were all thinking, as usual along very similar lines to himself. ‘You’re all right, of course. We could end up as a guns and bombs terrorist group, nineties style. Except for on thing, we have all been round long enough to know that this approach does not work. For one thing, innocent people tend to get hurt. This is something I revile. Another thing is that these groups seem to get very little public support. And last but by no means least, the very people that these campaigns are aimed at, the politicians, always seem to come out of the whole thing best. They almost receive an unwritten mandate from the people to do what ever is necessary to eradicate such groups. They are happy to accept this, because it allows them to sweep the other issues, such as why people should want to take such extreme steps in a so called ‘civilised society’, neatly and permanently under the carpet.’

Rachel cut in, ‘Yes and look what happened to the extreme groups of the seventies, they fell apart and were never heard of again. On the face of it, anyway. What I believe happened is that the supporters of these groups, woke up and realised the error of their ways. They decided to fight fire with fire and play the power mongers at their own game. What they did was form political parties which focused on specific issues, such as the environment and thus by politicising an issue and by attempting to take votes away from the real people in power they found a focus for their efforts. Just look at the Green party in Germany, they scared the German government so shitless, that it had to adopt ‘green’ policies to win back the legions of voters that it stood to lose by ignoring these issues. And surprise, surprise there is now a green agenda to be found in the manifestos’ of virtually every political party in the world. When you start to deprive the politicians of power they soon forget their colours and jump on the necessary bandwagon as soon as possible, regardless of political leaning.’
It was Jon who continued with this line of thought. ‘So what you’re saying Rachel, is that if we come up with a series of vote winning ideas, we don’t really need to get into power to see them fulfilled. The gullible idiots who run the country will find our ideals so tantalising that they will implement them themselves to keep from losing power. Very subtle.’
‘Hang on a second, every one,’ said Steve. ‘We all know what will happen as soon as mister member of parliament gets hold of our ideas, they’ll implement them all right, but only as superficially as they possibly can to persuade the voting public how sensible they all are and so Johnny public will blithely vote for them next time this becomes necessary.’
‘You’re right, of course,’ continued Nick. ‘But if someone could manipulate these people effectively enough, then they would be left with little option but to follow those policies which will keep them in power. Now all we need to do is to try to work out how this manipulation can be most effectively achieved. This is no small task in itself. However, if successful it could end up cajoling those who need to be cajoled into doing the right thing. I vote that we all go to bed and sleep on this. We won’t discuss it immediately, first we should continue to work out what needs to be changed, much as we have been doing so far.’
‘I second that, I’m nearly dead’, said Rachel. And with that comment they all went to bed.

The next day after taking a leisurely breakfast they continued to discuss the faults with British society and what needed to be done to change everything for the better.

They began by discussing their previous nights subject, law and order. They ruminated over the fact that in today’s system the criminal seemed to receive rather less punishment that the poor victim. Victims seemed to get little from the system of justice apart from the irritation of attending court and seeing the individual concerned being sent to some cushy prison somewhere for a holiday like period. Compensation was something of a standing joke. All of them knew of somebody who had received compensation along the lines of a pound a week for the next ten years, not even enough to pay for the inevitable increase in insurance premiums after a burglary.

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Thus they decided that a scheme of victim support would be introduced, from which all could benefit. The victim support would include compensation for the damage or injury which resulted from a crime. This compensation would be paid directly by the criminal involved, except that the sums involved would be realistic and would be paid from the fruits of the criminals labours in prison. In fact no prisoner would be released from prison until this debt had been paid, with interest. The group realised that monetary compensation would not be applicable to all crimes, but all prosecutions for theft and assault, and other similar offences.

Rachel brought up the threat of rape, which she said was a real fear for women in today’s society. With regard to this, the foursome were aware that rapists were usually kept separately from other prisoners for fear of harm coming to the rapists. Rachel suggested that a useful reform would be to repeal this rule and allow the individuals concerned to fend for themselves, regardless of the consequences, in much the same way as they had attacked women, with little regard for the psychological results of their crime. Jon commented that this was rather inhumane, and his argument was rejected by the others who agreed that rape was in itself inhumane. It was also suggested that should a rapist be killed while serving his sentence, the perpetrators of the action should not be searched for too hard nor punished too harshly. While violence against rapists was not condoned, it seemed to be an appropriate form of justice and would either deter future rapists or prevent existing rapists from committing the crime again. The only exception to this rule would be in cases involving the mentally unbalanced, an even here very strong evidence of such would be necessary to prevent the individual being labelled a normal rapist. Steve raised the issue of ‘date-rape’, and said that this was a difficult situation because the perpetrators of such crimes did not usually set out with the intention of forcing someone into doing a sexual act. Rachel agreed with Steve, but wished to mention that from a woman’s point of view rape is rape and the intentions of the rapist do not mean much. Nick clarified the situation by stating that the type of rape which should receive the strongest punishment was the type of case involving an individual who attacks a women as a result of forced entry into the woman’s property or while the woman is not in the company of the rapist. In this way rape could still be appropriately punished, but the more serious cases would receive more effective punishment, with no segregation rights. Rachel was satisfied with this approach and happy that a group of men had come up with a reasonable approach to the problem.

At this point Rachel made the point that the group was becoming somewhat bogged down in the finer details and was losing track of the point of the discussion which was to agree upon broad principles and not to actually write the letter of the law, as none of them, including herself, were expert enough to complete such an immense task.

All criminals would receive ‘effects of your crime’ education, to try to dissuade them from re-offending. Prisons would be segregated into first time and many time offenders, age would also be considered.
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Actual prison terms would be reserved for those considered to be dangerous to society. Petty criminals would be housed in hostels, the idea being to retain them as part of their own community and to encourage them to function as part of that community. Married prisoners were to be allowed to live together and raise their children. Prisoners movements would be monitored through the use of high technology such as hand print and voice identification systems. Thus the authorities would always know where a prisoner was at any particular time, thus making it impossible for a criminal to commit crimes while serving a penal term.
The ideology behind the groups approach to this subject was that, in so far as was possible, the individuals involved should not be excluded from society, but should be forced to take a more responsible role.
Having considered the main constituent elements of society the group moved on to talk about how all these changes could be introduced.
There were a number of options. The outwardly most simple option was to form a new political party and try to change things from within. This option was discounted on several bases. Primarily, because, they realised it would take a long time to set up a new party and even if this could be done, it would probably attract the attentions of the professional politicians, who would take it over and reduce it to sewer-like level of the current organisations. Just supposing this influence was avoidable and the new party attained power, the opposition it would face would be immense and the group realised impossible to overcome in the short period in which a party was given to govern, especially as this party would be introducing such radical changes. Time was going to be their greatest enemy as a party in power, as was the apathy and arrogance of the real leaders of the country, the civil service.
The group concluded that a different approach was required. They just needed to decide what this approach was and whether it would stand any chance of success. Jon provided a number of observations on other attempts to re-organise political systems, commenting that generally violence resulted, people died and instability ensued. He pointed out the wars in Bosnia and the problems in Albania. His message was relatively simple. Total overwhelming power needed to be achieved before major changes could be introduced.
He mentioned the success of the communists in Russia. They had he explained, taken total control of every aspect of the country, but had had, at least initially, the support of the majority of the population, and he continued, had employed a great deal of violence to achieve their ends. The communists, he added, replaced one form of class system with another, equally discriminatory system. Which was why the whole thing was to fail, that, appallingly bad management and a police state which covered things up as much as was possible. Jon suspected that a similar condition existed in present day Britain and that any great change would reveal a great many instances of ‘cover-up’ exercises. The new order needed total control, he reiterated, but what it then needed to do was to relinquish this control slowly and steadily until all the new systems were in place and functioning effectively. Deciding when to let go of the reins, would be one of any new ruling body’s greatest challenges, they all concluded.
The question was: how could they possibly achieve a position of total control?
The possibility of carrying out a military coup in the style of a South American state was discussed with a degree of amusement. The thought of Britain becoming a banana republic was laughed off, at this stage.
Each of the groups members, whilst not being anti-violence, was aware of the futility and stupidity of any kind of conflict. Nobody gained from this state of affairs, apart from the arms companies. But each of the group had noted the cold and clean, almost surgical efficiency, of the Gulf war and the way in which modern technology could be employed to cause the maximum damage with the minimum loss of life.
As their discussions progressed the group identified that a certain degree of violence may be required. As Rachel illustrated, you can’t cure cancer without destroying the bad growth it produces. In Britain, they determined, the bad growth consisted of nearly all the members of the main political parties. Not to mention a substantial percentage of the civil service and its equivalents at local government level.
We have to remember that once we have cured this cancer, we still have to maintain the body surrounding it. If the cure is worse than the illness, it is no cure. We need people to take the places of those which we will depose. Another problem which was identified was that of who could be trusted to run the newly liberated country. Thus was raised the question of democracy. Steve suggested that the country be very much put back into the hands of the people and that they should be allowed to decide for themselves, exactly who could run their country. However, the selection of the new candidates would be a far more rigorous process than it was at present. And the group decided there would be no parties as such each candidate would have to declare why they were eligible to hold office. Rachel suggested that the new parties be seventy five percent professional and thirty percent non-specifically qualified representatives of the people, to be drawn from each part of society.
More radically still, the group wanted a new category to be introduced onto all vote slips. The ‘no’ vote.
This would be used as a symbol of popular opinion. It is was to be a future election rule that the winning individuals’ total votes must exceed those of the people who voted ‘no’. Jon mentioned that such a system could result in circumstances in which for a number of elections no person gained power.
Nick surprised the group at this point by stating that in his opinion the new politicians should have very little actual political power and all their proposals should be considered by an upper independent body, also to be voted in, who could pick and choose the best policies of any of the parties with members in the new parliament. In this way, Nick explained, the ridiculous system which existed under the present form of government could not exist in the future.
Nick went on to describe the almost farcical way in which political parties now only proposed policies which were considered to be vote getters. The others agreed with this observation and the fact that any form of benevolence had disappeared from the political scene many moons ago and the roost was now being ruled by men who merely wanted power, money and knew that the democratic political system was the almost perfect way of milking society for as much as possible, totally legally. Rachel mentioned that one party consisted of almost seventy five percent millionaires. It was no wonder, Jon commented, that they had little interest in the rank and file of the country.
He further clarified what he meant by mentioning his irritation when, under the present system, if the party not in power came up with a good proposal to improve an aspect of government, this was ignored by those in power. In which case the country inevitably suffered. With the new system he was proposing, this situation could not arise. Therefore, the new parliament would become a think-tank for the development of new ideas and the political competition would be directed towards impressing the senior body, and not just the people. This system would encourage skilful reasoned debates, in which each member of the lower body could vote as he or she pleased. Thus the individuals involved would enamour themselves to the people through their reasonableness and skill not just their oratory skills. Another advantage to thus was that, as Steve observed, should no-one gain power for a period, this would have little or no affect on the running of the country. All it would mean would be a delay in the introduction of changes to the system.
The other members congratulated Nick on his innovative approach to solving the problem of politics in government. The group knew that simple human nature rendered it impossible to kill politics as a concept, they just wanted to remove its more adverse and unreasonable affects.
Government no longer heeded the needs of the people but purely secured power on the grounds of the lies fed to the populace at the time of elections. The game now was to predict the lies which were most likely to produce the greatest share of the votes.
Elections were now reduced to the status of huge grotesque circuses. Television being the stage and the performers being the politicians. Their antics sometimes more closely resembled those of a troop of clowns than a group of persons seriously intent on running a country. Worse still, the politicians were well aware of their position and many played the game merely to satisfy their own egos and to line their pockets. Capitalism had run rife and was starting to drag society into a deeper and deeper abyss. Life was merely decided by monetary worth and level of influence. The humanity was slowly disappearing from humankind. Something had to be changed before the damage became irreparable.
Steve mentioned the subject of ‘sleaze’ , a term which seemed to dominate the press and the examples further confirmed the groups opinion that the political system was running out of control, partly because those supposedly holding power, were spending more time contriving lies to explain their ways out of trouble than actually running the country.
The question returned again to what exactly could be done? Exposure of the idiocy of the country’s leaders had been tried by numerous journalists. However, most of these attempts were half hearted, as they were undertaken by those who worked for the owners of the papers. These owners were either industrialists with a politician in their pockets, or the politicians themselves. The long and the short of it was that this path was a dead end. There had to be another way, and there was, but it was so radical that none of the group had quite hit upon it.
The groups’ meetings continued, with all the theorising being consolidated and recorded by Jon who took copious notes and circulated these to each member of the group, along with comments on the logical progression of the discussions. The one point which remained was how all their plans could be implemented.
One night in Nick’s house, coincidentally on the run up to November the fifth. Nick made a whimsical suggestion. “Why the hell don’t we try to do what old Guy Fawlkes tried to do? Blow the whole fucking lot of them sky high and start all over again.”
They all laughed uproariously at this crazy suggestion. Then a strange calm descended on the room, they looked at one another uneasily. Rachel nodded.
“You know, that’s not as stupid as we all might think.” She added.
“Don’t be so bloody stupid.” Remarked Steve.
He continued, “How the hell could we organise something like that, without, at the very least, big brother finding out? Not to mention the fact that even with the most careful planning many innocent people could be killed in the process.”
“Yes you have a point, there. Nevertheless, I’ve a further suggestion. Just for the fun of it, let’s place ourselves in the shoes of a contemporary Guy Fawkes and think about how it could be done. We’re all rational people. You never know, we may come up with a plausible way of doing this.” Jon rejoindered.
“Anyway, we’re supposed to be considering all the options, and let’s face it, we haven’t got anywhere with any of the other options.” said Rachel in support.
“Yeah, come to think of it, this really could be a way of wiping the slate clean and starting again.”, commented Steve, warming to the idea..
They began to mull over their most radical solution to Britain’s problems. The subsequent discussion was surprisingly coherent and little by little a plan started to emerge. The basic premise was that they had to find a way of completely and utterly destroying the political system in Britain and all its various levels. It wasn’t going to be a simple task and the system was rather more complicated than it had been in Fawkes’ day. Someone mentioned Ireland and the IRA’s unsuccessful attempts at destabilising the British government. However, the more they considered it, the more they considered the idea to be viable. The evil corrupt world they lived in provided the methods and the means by which to achieve their ends.
They decided that initially they needed two things, finance and more members. Both items created their own distinct problems. The main difficulty was to avoid the attentions of the authorities at all costs.
How could they do this they pondered. “Hang on a second, let’s think logically,” Nick said, focusing attention to this side issue, the discussion of which was fast going nowhere.
“Let’s analyse what could happen. First, we would attract the attentions of the security services if we did something criminal, however, at least initially, none of our actions will be criminal. Secondly, if we expand our group and give the impression that we have serious professional motives, this could generate enough interest to have the authorities looking into our backgrounds. Presuming that none of us are ex-terrorists or criminals, this should not be a problem. None of us are criminals, I hope?”
They all chorused a no and Nick laughed. He suspected that all of them had pretty innocuous pasts, like himself, but it was still necessary to check. He continued and asked each member to think about any aspect of their past lives which could possibly attract the eyes of the authorities.
“I have a small skeleton in my closet, if you can call it that.”, Steve announced and told them that he had once been a member of the communist party at university.
“What did that involve”, queried Nick.
“Oh, not a lot”, said Steve. “I just went on a few marches, anti-bomb stuff mainly. I only joined the party because it was a fashion at my Uni., but I discovered that the more serious members were a bunch of near crackpots. Full of worthy ideals, but not a single grain of practicality between them. They seemed to forget that human nature is fundamentally opposed to the whole communist ideal. I discovered this soon after joining and ended my membership pretty quickly after I brought this point up at a meeting. They branded me a capitalist heretic and all but kicked me out, actually. I was a bit pissed off at the time but looking back, the whole thing was quite amusing.”
“The last part bodes well, as soon as Big B comes across the fact that you were virtually kicked out he will lose interest.”, said Nick easing himself into his chair. He continued, “I don’t know about all of you, but I’m of the opinion that we live in a virtual police state at the moment. Too many vested interests. All this means that we have to keep everything as low profile as possible. I have an idea as to how we may achieve this. A cover. I think we should adopt a cover up strategy, after all this technique works pretty well for those idiots which currently hold power. So why shouldn’t it work for us? At one level, we are a new political party, proposing an alternative to the current system but behind the scenes we can develop our ‘hidden agenda’, always wanted to use that phrase.” They all laughed. Nick continued, “But seriously, we could also use our public face to recruit people to our secondary cause. How does that sound to you guys?”
“Great on paper”, said Rachael, “But, we need to be bloody careful about who we let in on our actual intentions. All we need is to suss someone out, they get cold feet and blab the whole lot to the people we’d rather not attract the attention of.”
“So what we need to do, is do as Big Bro does,” chipped in Steve. “We need to vet people, before we tell them what we’re all about.”
“But how the hell do we do that? Vetting is the business of the men with access to computers and all sorts of information.” added Jon.
“True.” said Nick. “but, you’ve just hit the nail on the head.
Computers. Everything these days is kept on computer. Get access to these systems and you can see anything you like. From the sexual preferences of the cabinet under secretary to the breakfast Yeltzin has every morning in the Kremlin. It’s an information goldmine. All you need to do is get in.”
“Yeah, piece of piss, just tap a few keys and the screen flashes a big welcome to one and all”, commented Steve, cynically.
“Strangely enough, its not that difficult, if you have the right equipment and the right person. And not only could we vet people, but we could keep one step ahead of the authorities, should they get wind of us, in fact we should get wind of them getting wind of us, if you know what I mean.”
“Nick, we all know you’re in computers, but even I know that these systems are as secure as hell these days.” added Jon.
“Again, very true, but nothing is one hundred percent secure, never will be. What we need is a specialist”, concluded Nick.
“Guys”, said Rachel suddenly, “You know I’m a lawyer, right, well from a legal point of view what we are all proposing amounts to that old fashioned crime of treason. If any of us gets caught, we could all be in for a long stretch at her Majesty’s pleasure, you know, throw away the key job.”
They all looked at her.
“You realise she’s right.” Said Steve. “We are potentially getting ourselves deeply involved in a game which none of us has any real experience in.”
“Right.” Cut in Jon, “This has all been a lot of fun up to now, but there is going to come a point when we just can’t turn back, and by that time we may have already done enough to get ourselves put behind bars. Maybe we should stop and consider for a moment just what we are getting ourselves involved in.”
“I know that your all right about the potential consequences of all this, but I for one am prepared to take a chance. But we must all realise that this thing is going to get stickier and stickier. Eventually, we won’t be able to wash ourselves clean.”, he continued. “People could well be hurt as a result of our activities, it is quite possible that people may die as a result. All our plans are just talk at the moment, but to really achieve something, we need to take action, and that action potentially includes violence. We must all be aware of this, eventually all our little decisions could have effects on real peoples’ lives. Personally, I’ve little or no objection to eliminating a few politicians, but the other people are the same as ourselves. They’re trying to keep their lives together.” 2/3/97
“Yes.” Agreed Steve. “The further we take this thing, the more difficult it will be to shake it off. I agree that we should all go away and, but I think we need to think carefully about what we are doing and consider the risks and consequences for, not just our own, but everyone’s lives.”
They nodded in agreement, but before anyone could comment, Jon continued.
“Lets call it a day for now and come back in a weeks time. This is not an issue we can resolve through talk alone, we all need to do some good old fashioned thinking.”
With that thought, they decided to bring their discussions to a conclusion and reconvene in a week’s time to discuss their personal conclusions. The atmosphere of the evening had changed, the usual hearty goodbyes were forgone and the rest of the members of the group left Nick’s home in a thoughtful silence.
Nick lay in bed that night, thinking about the meeting. Jon was right, they could be getting themselves into something a little too deep. Were they the right people for the job, he asked himself. Was the country in such as mess that violence was the only way to start them on the road to positive change? He had seen the results of terrorism and he was not impressed. Additionally, all these barbaric acts had changed little. If fact they had probably made situations worse as political powers became more and more paranoid about new threats. These and a thousand other thoughts whirled around Nick’s brain. His mind was so occupied that he found it difficult to sleep.

REVOLUTION BRITAIN – Chapter 4

Decision Time

Nick woke up after finally falling asleep, with the feeling that something was bothering him, then in a flash he remembered. They were all going to meet in the evening to discuss whether to progress what they had been talking about for the last few weeks. How could he have forgotten, he questioned. The points of their previous meeting were occupying his mind fully.

The fact that Nick was bothered had even been noticed by one or two of his closer colleagues at work, and he had even been asked if anything was wrong. He had answered that it was no more than usual, but had let them persuade him to go down to the pub where they had their usual moans about life, the universe and everything. This had helped, but it was the antics of his old adversaries at work that had set him thinking, yet again, about what they were doing. ckecked up to here 29.12.00

In fact he had been well and truly dropped in it by Jackie, the bosses odious number two. It was a familiar story, She had accused him of not completing some work required by the boss, but she neatly avoided telling him that she had never told him about it in the first place. Nick could not remember this, although he was sure that when she mentioned it, he could not remember what she was talking about. As usual she was covering her own back. The boss had, as usual, sided with her and had threatened him with a formal reprimand if he did not come up with the work for Jackie. He had done it, but only after working until midnight two days in a row. Jackie meanwhile had been swanning about the office pleased as punch to have got Nick into trouble and telling everybody how for once she was in the right, and how Nick should have more respect for her. This had made Nick fume and had helped him make his mind up about progressing the groups plans. Nothing would please him more, he thought, than destroying all the petty minded bitches and bastards which seemed to dominate his life. He decided there and then that change was necessary and if a few people like Jacky got caught in the crossfire, he certainly would not shed a tear.

Despite his new sense of resolve, it was with some trepidation that Nick approached the steps to Rachel’s house that evening. It was a three story town house not far from Hammersmith Bridge, situated in a quiet cul-de-sac. He climbed the steps and rang the bell.

While waiting for someone to answer the door he heard raised voices. One was Rachel but he did not recognise. It sounded as if they were arguing. The next second the door flew open and a man in a dark suit charged out, nearly pushing Nick down the steps. The man mumbled an apology, left the garden and disappeared down the street. He next heard the sound of tyres being screeched on tarmac as, the man or so Nick presumed, took off at high speed, in what sounded like a high powered car.

“That was my dear husband”, Rachel’s voice announced from behind him. He turned and saw Rachel standing silhouetted in the doorway, a large dog was at her heel, wagging its tail furiously. “Welcome to my happy home”, half-smiled Rachel. The tone in her voice left Nick in no doubt that things were anything but happy.

“What was all that about?”, asked Nick, stroking the head of the huge canine.

“Oh, nothing more than usual. He’s sodding off on another business trip and as usual he has no idea when he’s getting back”, replied Rachel, her voice tinged with anger.

“He’s always bloody well doing this. I would swear that he is having an affair”, she continued.

“I take it you’re not sure?”, enquired Nick, wondering whether she might think he was prying.

“No, I don’t know for sure. He’s too bloody careful for that. But one of these fine days I’ll find out, then I’ll be down to the lawyers quicker than you can say ‘end of marriage’”, continued Rachel. The anger had now turned to bitterness, Nick noted.

He was prevented from enquiring into Rachel’s marital problems any further by the appearance of Steve.

“Top of the evening to you both”, Steve announced cheerfully. Then he caught Rachel’s expression.

“Er, everything OK, you look as though you’re going to hit someone”, he continued, looking concerned.

“No, just the usual”, said Rachel.

“Ah, the old husband is up to his usual tricks is he?”, Steve asked.

“Yes. Anyway, I’m not discussing our marital problems on the doorstep, you’d better both come in”, Rachel said her tone gradually returning to normal.

They followed her and the dog in and she led them to a sitting room.

“Sit yourselves down and keep Rufus company for a moment while I go and put the kettle on. What would you like, coffee, tea, hemlock?”, asked Rachel as she turned towards the door.

“Coffee, please, white no sugar”, said Nick.

“Same for me, but black, and you can hold the hemlock”, added Steve.

Nick and Steve exchanged glances.

“She’ll be OK in a moment. She’s just trying to get her head round Jason’s antics”, said Steve.

“I met Jason a few moments ago ,” said Nick.

“Really, you’ve had that privilege?”, said Steve, sounding almost impressed.

“Well, what I mean by ‘met’ is that he nearly mowed me down as he left the house. ”, replied Nick.

“Oh. That sounds like him. He never changes. I ‘met’ him in the same way, I seem to remember. Don’t think we’ve ever exchanged more than a couple of words and those were only ‘excuse me’ and ‘sorry’”, said Steve.

“Anyway, enough of the marital shenanigans, how’s old Rufus here?”, Steve continued, abruptly changing the subject to the large and friendly dog that was standing next to him making odd yowling noises, of the kind which dogs make when they want attention.

He crouched down and ruffled the dogs coat.

“Well, how has your week been Nick”, Steve asked, still fussing over the dog.

“In a word, ‘shit’”, replied Nick, settling himself into a large arm chair and then extracting a doggy toy from beneath him.

“Normal then. Nothing changes”, sympathised Steve, “My weeks been OK for a change. Everyone is into holiday mode, which means that the office is quiet and I can relax.”

“Nice for some”, grunted Nick.

The door bell rang and Rufus pricked up his ears and looked in the direction of the hall.

“That must be John”, said Nick, “Do you want me to get it”, he shouted in the direction of what he thought was the kitchen.

“Yes, if you could”, replied the disembodied voice of Rachel.

Nick left the room followed by the dog, which had torn itself away from Steve.

It wasn’t Jon, it was a large and serious looking policeman.

“Good evening, what can we do for you?”, asked Nick, idly considering the possibility that their revolutionary intentions had already found their way to big brother.

“Is this Mrs. Rachel Shaw’s house?”, replied the policeman, ignoring Nick’s question.

“Yes it is. Shall I get her?”, said Nick.

“If you could sir”, replied the policeman, his tone as business like as his manner.

Before Nick could get her, Rachel appeared from the kitchen, carrying a tray laden with coffee and biscuits.

“Are you Mrs. Rachel Shaw, Madam?”, asked the policeman stepping into the hallway.

“Yes, I am. Is there a problem officer”, enquired Rachel apprehensively. She had obviously detected the seriousness in the policeman’s tone.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news for you, madam. I think you might need to sit down”, said the policeman. “It’s about your husband”.

“Eh, yes follow me”, said Rachel looking worried.

They went into the sitting room, where Steve was sitting glancing through a magazine.

“Shall we go, officer”, said Nick, speaking for Steve and himself.

“Are you friends of the Shaw’s?”, enquired the policeman.

“Of Mrs Shaw, yes”, replied Steve.

“Well, I think it would be better if you stayed. Is that OK with you Mrs Shaw?”, said the officer, looking towards Rachel.

“Er. Yes. Fine.”, replied Rachel, who had now turned pale.

“Well, there has been an accident, a bad accident. We’re trying to get Mr Shaw out of his car”, said the officer.

“Oh no, what happened?”, asked Rachel her composure faltering noticeably

“Sit down, Rachel”, said Nick, placing a hand on her shoulder, “and let the officer explain”.

Rachel put the tray, which she was still carrying, onto the coffee table and sat down on the sofa. Nick sat next to her.

The policeman also sat down and began to explain. “As far as we can tell, your husband tried to go through a red light. He was hit by a large lorry.”

“Oh, no! Is he OK?”, asked Rachel, knowing already that he wasn’t.

“He’s in a bad way Mrs Shaw, we’re not sure if he will make it to hospital”, added the policeman.

“How far away did the accident happen”, asked Steve.

Before the officer could reply, the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get that”, said Nick, “we were expecting someone”.

Nick went out of the room.

He opened the door to John.“There’s been one hell of an accident down the road, that’s why I’m a bit late. Looks as though a bloke tried to run the lights and was hit by a truck, the car’s unrecognisable.”, said John.

“Yes, we know. You better come in”, said Nick.

“Rachel?”, asked Jon reading the expression on Nick’s face and suddenly looking very concerned.

“No, fortunately not. Her husband”, replied Nick, turning back towards the sitting room.

Jon and Nick entered the room to find Rachel sitting with her head in her hands, sobbing.

Jon went over to her, sat down and put his arm around her.

“It’s just come through on the officer’s radio.”, said Steve quietly, “He died in the ambulance on the way to hospital.”

The policeman asked if they knew of any of Rachel’s husbands relatives who could come and identify the body. Nick replied that he did not. Then the policeman asked him to follow him into the hall. Once they we in the hall the policeman, started talking.

“I didn’t want to say anything in front of Mrs Shaw, sir, but there was another person in the car with Mr Shaw, a woman, that’s why I didn’t ask her to identify the body personally”, he said in a lowered voice.

“She was all dressed up,” he continued.

“Is she OK”, asked Nick.

“No, she died in the collision”, replied the officer.

“I thought it would be better not to say anything in front of Mrs Shaw, as it appears as though she had her head in his lap, if you know what I mean.”, he continued.

“I see”, said Nick, Rachel was right, he thought.

“We’ll need someone to identify Mr Shaw’s body, but it can wait until the morning. I’ll be going now, if that’s OK”, added the policeman.

“Yes, I think so”, said Nick, “We’ll take it from here, thank you, officer”.

“OK sir. I’ll let myself out. Here’s my card, I’ll ring tomorrow morning to arrange the identification.” The policeman turned and left the house. Nick went back into the sitting room, wondering how he was going to tell Rachel about the woman.

The sitting room was silent, Rachel was still sitting on the sofa next to Jon, and Steve was sitting staring into nothing. Nick decided that a direct approach would be best, he thought he knew Rachel well enough to know that she could handle it. But first, he decided, everyone could do with a cup of tea. He poured out the tea and dropped a couple of sugars into Rachel’s, as she was probably, under the circumstances, suffering from shock. He set the tea down in front of her and sat next to her on the sofa.

“Here, drink this,”he said. She took the tea and sipped it slowly. Nick waited until she put the mug down.

“Rachel”, he started, “there’s something else.”

“Er. Should we leave the room?”, asked Jon, detecting that Nick was going to add something more to the evening’s tragic events.

“No, no, stay”, said Rachel weakly.

“Well, I’m not sure how to put this”, said Nick uncertainly, as he was truly still not quite sure how he was going to put the next bit, he framed the words and continued, “but the policeman told me that there was someone else in the car with your husband.” Nick did not need to explain any further.

“That bastard.”, said Rachel, slowly and bitterly. “It was a woman, wasn’t it? He’s been cheating on me on my own front doorstep. No wonder, he was in such a bloody hurry to get out tonight,” erupted Rachel, momentarily forgetting her loss.

“Well, at least the sod is out of my bloody life now”, she continued.

The others said nothing, each of them knew that Rachel had been having problems and her fury was understandable. An uneasy silence descended upon the room.

“There’s one other thing. The police want you or someone else to identify the body. Is there anyone I can call?”, asked Nick breaking the silence.

“No, don’t worry about that, it’ll be a pleasure to make sure that the bastard is actually dead”, replied Rachel sharply.

“Now, now, calm down”, said Jon, “I think you better go to bed.”

“Yes, yes, I think I should,” said Rachel. 22.7.98

“We’ll let ourselves out and see to Rufus”, said Steve. Rachel got up and without looking at one of them or saying a word slowly left the room. They waited until they could hear her climbing the stairs.

“I suppose one of us should stay and make sure she is OK”, said Steve.

“I’ll do that”, said Nick.

“Good man”, replied Jon.

“Yes.”, agreed Steve. “I suppose there is nothing else we can do here. I think I’ll head off home.”

“Me too”, said Jon. “Goodnight Nick.”

Nick wished them both goodnight and they let themselves out.

“Rufus”, he called to the dog. The dog appeared from the sitting room and stood looking up at him, tail wagging slowly. It had obviously sensed that something was up, he thought.

“Come on old boy. You’d better come and do your business before we head for bed”.

He found a lead hanging near the door and located a bunch of keys. Nick left the house and walked down the street. He came upon the accident scene. The car was being hoisted onto the back of a truck. It was clear from the state of the wreckage that the car had been hit very, very hard. Nick thought it could have been a Porsche, but it was hard to tell as the damage had rendered it virtually unrecognisable.

‘Poor guy’, Nick thought, then reflecting on the circumstances in which he was found, decided that the ‘poor guy’ had obviously been no angel, nor for that matter particularly poor. He felt sorry for Rachel and at the same time a little relieved for her. At least now she would be able to get on with her life unhindered. And so could he, Nick thought with a half smile. It had started to rain, so Nick decided to head back to the house, Rufus having done what he had been brought out for. For a moment he forgot the way back and then he recognised the street and saw his car. He had not realised that he had been thinking so much. In fact his mind was racing. In a perverse kind of way, he was secretly happy that this Jason character was well and truly out of Rachel’s life. He was also worried, because he did not know Rachel well enough to know how she would react to the events of that evening. Would she forget what they all set out to do? He asked himself. Something told him that with Rachel the opposite would be true, but he could not be sure. Time will, as usual, tell, Nick told himself as he approached the steps to Rachel’s house.

REVOLUTION BRITAIN – Chapter 5

A new member

The next two weeks were difficult for Rachel, and the rest of the group, but they stuck by her as best they could, giving as much support as possible. The police had delayed the funeral on medical grounds as they believed that Jason must have been drinking or on drugs at the time of the accident. Indeed, a post mortem had revealed traces of cocaine in his blood. A death by misadventure verdict would be recorded at a later inquest.

Finally, the day of the funeral arrived. It was a bright and sunny day. The grave yard was in a village close to Jason’s parents’ home. The whole of Rachel’s former husband’s family had turned out, as had a number of his work colleagues. Jason’s family had Irish origins, so in the tradition of the land a wake was held.

After the burial, they all went down to a village pub were the gathering was to be.

Nick noticed how well Rachel seemed to be getting on with her late husband’s family.

“You know, it was a happy marriage once. No one is really sure what happened.”, said the girl standing next to him, who had obviously been following Nick’s gaze.

“By the way, I’m Alison Wesson, Rachel’s sister. You’re Nick, aren’t you?”, the girl continued, both introducing herself and trying to confirm his identity. Alison was a little taller than her sister, not quite as attractive, and younger. She had a trim figure and seemed to like showing it off, judging by the clingy black dress she was wearing, thought Nick. Rachel had not mentioned a sister, so Nick was curious.

“Yeah, I’m Nick. How did you know?”, replied Nick.

“You look like a ‘Nick’”.

“Oh, really.”, replied Nick, raising his eyebrows slightly. “And what do ‘Nicks’ usually look like?”.

“Well, their medium height, quite handsome, running to fat in the stomach region and, oh yes, they also look bloody English”, answered Alison, keeping a straight face.

“Hey, I am definitely not the only man in Britain with a paunch, and you, young lady should have a little respect. This is a sad occasion.”, said Nick, trying to sound serious, but failing dismally.

“Yes, I know, but even Jason would have appreciated a little humour.”

Interesting comment thought Nick, maybe she had a fling with him.

“And before you think I was mucking about with my sisters husband, I was not.”

“I was thinking no such thing,” lied Nick.

“Liar”, chided Alison.

“OK, you’ve caught me, but, well, he did have something of a reputation, didn’t he?”.

Alison eyed him curiously. “You haven’t known my sister for long, have you?”.

“No, we only met a few months, ago, and I’ve not asked about her personal life. I’m not the type.”

“She likes you, you know. Talks about you a lot”. Alison caught the look in Nick’s eyes.

“You like her as well.”

“You’re quite a mind reader, aren’t you?”, laughed Nick.

“It comes with the territory, I’m a psychologist, so I tend to pick up on small signs. Except in your case you may as well have rung a bell.”

“That obvious?”.

“That obvious,” confirmed Alison. No wedding ring, noted Nick, hoping that his glance would escape her attention. It did.

Rachel came over.

“I see you’ve met my younger sister,”.

“Yes, he has, and we were just talking about you”, said Alison. Oh shit, thought Nick, what the hell is she going to say next.

“Yeah, I was just telling him that things were not always so bad between you two. Don’t mind do you sis?”. Nick let out an imperceptible sigh of relief.

“No, I don’t. Nick’s been a good friend for these last few weeks.”

“Yes, he looks like the good friend type.”

Just what does she mean by that, thought Nick, and then told himself to stop being so paranoid.

“Alison, you’re at it again. Can’t you leave your work alone for even a second?”, said Rachel.

“Guess not. I’m thirsty. See you later”. She gave Nick a wink and wondered off to the bar. Nick followed her with his eyes.

Nick turned to Rachel. “Is your sister always like that?” he asked.

“Yes, always”, sighed Rachel.

They chatted for a bit longer and Nick discovered how things between Rachel and Jason had deteriorated. It transpired that the two had been madly in love once, but that pressure of work had got to them both, particularly Jason. He had become spectacularly successful at work, but it was this which had led to his downfall. He had been made a hatchet man. The job had entailed giving the sack to a number of close friends, often leaving them in a state of financial ruin. This had got to him. He had tried to change jobs, but no one wanted him to do anything else. He was also being paid handsomely for his work. Finally, he had started to crack. He started to stay out late at night, then came the cocaine and finally the women. Rachel had tried to talk to him about it, but he refused to admit that he had a problem. ‘Stress alleviation’, was the term he coined for it. Rachel explained how the six months leading up to the accident had been the worst for her, and how Jason had spent most of his time either at work or out. She admitted that she knew he had been seeing other women, from both the physical signs, such as lipstick and contraceptives, and the emotional signs. Jason had lost interest in her almost totally and they had ended up fighting on virtually every occasion they met. These circumstances had led her into the company of her friends Steve and Jon and into an interest in changing what she had come to regard as an overheating society.

“Right, now you know just about all there is to know about me. It’s your turn next time. By the way, we’ve still got to get together and decide how we can progress our ideas,” concluded Rachel. Nick was relieved that she was still interested in what they wanted to do. He had feared that Jason’s death may have put everything in a different light for her and, possibly, the others.

“You still planning a revolution, are you?”. It was Alison, glass of wine in one hand, a plate of sandwiches in the other. “Bloody good idea if you ask me, this country is going to the dogs, fast. The number of virtually deranged people I’m coming across these days has to be seen to be believed,” she continued.

“In a manner of speaking, I suppose we are, but at the moment its all talk.” said Nick, replying to her initial question.

“I’ve told Alison a little about what we have been doing and she’d like to join in,” added Rachel, her expression suggesting that she was looking for Nick’s approval. She was obviously not sure what he had made of her sister.

“Fine, by me, but we’d better speak to Steve and Jon, I suppose,” confirmed Nick.

“You don’t need to, I’ve already spoken to them and they’re OK about it,” broke in Alison.

“That’s settled then. We’re going to get together some time next week and have a further chat. Where do you live, by the way?”, asked Nick.

“Tring.”, replied Alison.

“No problem, we’re all just down the road from each other. Let’s go and have a word with Steve and Jon now. If that’s OK by you Rachel?”.

“Yes, I need something to divert me from this mess. Besides in a way I owe it to Jason. It is this society which changed him, so by changing it, hopefully I can do something for others in our position.” said Rachel.

Nick was pleased to hear this and glad to have Alison on board as well. Nick found that he was growing to like Rachel’s sister and they shared the same intelligent incisive mind. She would be a useful member, he decided.

They moved over to where Steve and Jon were standing talking.

“Hi, there, how’s it going?”, said Jon greeting them.

“Not too bad, present circumstances considered”, replied Rachel.

“You brought your sister over to psychoanalyse us?”, asked Steve.

“I’ve done that already and you qualify as a complete head case,” chipped in Alison.

“On that note, when are we ‘head cases’ going to get together again to discuss our little revolution?”, Nick enquired.

“Whenever Rachel’s ready for it”, replied Jon.

“I’m ready”, answered Rachel.

“OK then, if your sure Rachel, how about next week?”, suggested Nick.

“You can all come over to my house. I could do with some good company to help me get over recent events”, said Rachel. “How about it?”.

“Sounds good to me,” replied Nick.

The rest also agreed and a date was fixed. Nick asked Rachel to tell Alison all about the group’s plans and intentions.

Then Nick and the other two male members of the group chatted for a bit longer, before saying their goodbyes and leaving Rachel and Alison at the pub.