God's Loving Embrace

Part Two

'Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established.'

Proverbs 15:22

"Really Alistair?" Charles Buckingham sighed as he read the briefing note. "It's still a year away for goodness sake..."

"Only if you choose not to go sooner, and there are a lot of preparations to do before then Prime Minister." Alistair Forbes pointed out, although his own preparations had been going on for almost a year already. As Director of Communications, party discipline was part of his brief alongside the Whips, and he had very clear ideas about who should and who should not be allowed to stand for the Christian Democratic Party in the next election. They needed to get rid of some of the old Conservatives who had joined the CDP when the Tories fell apart and find room for a number of promising younger candidates. But it could all get messy and Buckingham needed to focus on it soon, as well as putting his mind to the election manifesto of course. Britain had changed quite a lot in four years and although the opinion polls were not bad overall, there were some stubborn pockets of resistance.

"Ok...I get it...we need a manifesto sub committee...but you and your people can take care of the candidate list, can't you? Just bring me a list of what we have to do to get rid of some of the least likeable hangers on...I don't want too much blood on the walls. Let's be creative about what we offer them too...they can't all go to the House of Lords."

"Yes, Prime Minister." Forbes grinned, happy to take on the task. Some would need some encouragement to stand aside, but that was what the House of Lords was actually for, and others would prefer to slip away quietly rather than let Forbes tell the world what he knew about their personal habits. People in the party were starting to realise that Alistair Forbes knew everything and that he was not to be ignored when he whispered in your ear. All he needed was the boss to give him permission to go and then he could do whatever he liked because Buckingham was too busy running the country to worry about party discipline. He left that up to his trusty enforcer and had learned not to ask too many questions.

But Forbes would be creative. He knew that his master did not want to make enemies just for the sake of it, so as well as offers of elevation, there were the seats on a raft of lucrative government commissions, some diplomatic postings and even greased routes into the private sector for those who chose to surrender their seats with the minimum of fuss. Forbes would not need to intimidate that many people. Politics had gone through a revolution in the previous five years but the people involved were still basically the same. The vast majority were in it for what they could get out of it, not for the good they might do.

'He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.'

Matthew 11:15

No one removed the muzzle. Megan was dismissed from the sick room with a clean bill of health and a short note for both her parents and her form teacher. One of the nuns, the gentle one, put the key to the awful device in her blazer badge pocket and the other one told her that if she touched it she would be punished for her sins. Her teacher read the note and told her that she could not remove it either. It had to stay in place until Megan got home. It was a punishment for speaking out of turn, the nervous teacher told everyone in Megan's class, and it was more than her job was worth to interfere. Nuns were being trained to replace teachers like her, and she did not want to get a bad name. So Megan had to suffer in enforced silence like a pious Reformist freak. She was teased mercilessly by everyone, and especially by her sister, who clearly thought it was hilarious, and when she got home her father was predictably furious with her. Geoff Robinson did not want any of his family to draw unwanted attention to themselves, and although he removed the key from her pocket and released her, he gave her an endless lecture about behaving herself in future. The fact that the form confirmed her virginity was not even mentioned, although Sister Caris would have told her that it was the most important thing that had happened to her that whole miserable day. The muzzle was just a minor inconvenience. It was what she heard that mattered most of all, if she was to keep herself safe in the future.