God's Loving Embrace

Part Fifteen

'Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.'

Psalms 31:24

"Can you believe these polls?" Ben Cartwright moaned, tossing another very large dose of bad news back onto the table. "The not so silent majority lap every repressive policy up like fat cats guzzling cream...it is totally insane."

"Because Buckingham wraps every bitter pill up in so much sugar it ends up sounding like a solution...and it normally is, from some perspectives." Alexander Dalglish replied, sharing his leader's feeling of despair. They had worked so hard to build a new party out of the ashes of the old Labour and Liberal Democrat dinosaurs, after their complete annihilation at the last election, and they maintained a reasonable thirty percent of support in almost every poll, a solid rump of traditional socialist support, but that would never be quite enough to shake the Reformists out of power. "National Service for young men who cannot earn a place at university is so popular with the older generation...I mean; it was always the stock answer to all our problems, wasn't it? We wouldn't have all this trouble if we brought back national service...like it was a general panacea to all ills. A bit of square bashing just to teach them some discipline, and a few years later they will all come out knowing a bit of a trade. It is basically impossible to shake that view out of the electorate...it's even cheaper than manning the army with volunteers."

"But they like the plans for women too?" Cartwright moaned, pouring himself another whiskey.

"Of course, because it is the answer to so many problems. We have been hitting them with the plight of unmarried women with no jobs, no further education and hope other than marriage to someone they find it almost impossible to meet because they are not allowed to go anywhere without parental permission. It got them on the back foot at least, because although they have fudged the unemployment figures with it, there has been quite a lot of unrest from the unmarried women they have not yet managed to cover up and silence. So they suggest that rather than let this idle section of society go on moaning on and on about disenfranchisement, why not send them to nunneries and get them working for their country as nuns. But they are being very selective...if a girl has reasonable prospects of marriage or suitable employment she can defer the call up. So they either do what they want and become good little housewives, or maybe guardians if they are so inclined, or the nice government will suitably occupy them manning our hospitals and schools for a few years. Once again, it will save them money because they will be able to replace the last of the nurses and teachers at the same time. They are basically paying board and lodging for one million slaves, but you can't call a nun a slave. It's like kicking a puppy. And we can't call them extremists anymore either. People are sick and tired of hearing it because these people don't lie. They tell the electorate what they are going to do and they do it. No one is surprised. It is democracy at work, and they are too bloody good at presenting their dogma in the most favourable light to lose popular support."

"So...go on, give me a clue." Cartwright sighed, draining his glass. "Plan A is about as successful as a fart in a wind tunnel, so do we have a plan B?"

"Yes, I think we do. It's fairly radical, so we will need to sell it to the party and reorganise a little. But we have to face the fact that Charles Buckingham has killed the old politics. He told us he would and he has. He doesn't blame us for anything anymore. He just says that is wrong and this is the answer. It's obvious that a large proportion of the electorate find that refreshingly honest. He has had the courage to be radical and turn populist policies into working practise. He has used the mess he inherited to bury the old parties, and his faith to give his policies credence. But I think we can do the same. We admit that the old ways didn't work in the end, and fully accept that radical change is the only answer. It's a bit like David Cameron accepting Labour spending plans for a year after he replaced Gordon Brown fifteen years ago, to me. It is hard, if not impossible, to argue that Reformist policies are not making a difference. We can and do argue that unemployment is only down because women find it hard to get a job, but do not appear on the figures anymore, but Buckingham accepts that, and points out that even with tax credits to allow mothers to stay at home we are saving over a billion pounds a year. So, in our manifesto we have to accept the status quo. We can't go into the next election saying we are going to reverse the policy of men, and especially married men, being given priority in the jobs market, but we can say we think the disenfranchisement of women has gone too far and lay out our plans to redress the balance."