Saints and Sinners

Chapter Twenty-Five

BBC Studios

Salford

Greater Manchester

"Good evening...and welcome to Question Time," Justin Petworth said to camera as the small studio audience clapped loudly over the very famous theme tune. Question Time was a British political institution, approaching a century of live political debates, and the format had not really changed in all that time. Four politicians, journalists or other senior public figures faced questions from the audience, and had a great chance to get their views across to anyone interested enough to be watching television at eleven o'clock at night. It was a very popular show for those who lived and worked inside the Westminster bubble, but the truth was that it averaged an audience of about a million, and rarely made headlines. And in the renaissance years, the debates and the panellists that engaged in them had been carefully constructed to ensure that the government's position was rarely challenged and always presented in the best light. But Charles Montague knew that all of the right people would be watching him, and Bellamy Osborne, chat over the issues of the day, and that made it the ideal stage to go way off-piste. "Tonight...in a last minute change to our panel...we welcome back former Prime Minister Charles Montague for the first time in twenty years, currently serving as our Vice President in our new national government, along with Bellamy Osborne MP, leader of the nascent Social Democrats and currently the Secretary of State for Education in that very same national government, Martin Blake, political correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, and Duncan Alexander, the Governor of the Bank of England...welcome one and all...and with no more ado, our first question comes from Mr Andrew Greening, a lawyer from Manchester...Mr Greening?"

"Gentlemen...will making amends bankrupt this country?" A bald man in an all-fitting suit said as soon as the boom microphone reached him. Unsurprisingly, the audience was all male and all white men of a certain age.

"Mr Vice President, I think it is only fair that we start with you? Are we about to bankrupt our country to pay for the mistakes of the past?"

"No...the proposal on the table that I hope President Symonds will agree to would require us to increase our national debt...but not to unprecedented levels...that debt burden would be easily manageable and it would draw a line under a tragedy that, whilst the people of Great Britain were not responsible for it, happened here." Montague replied easily, telling the world that there was a proposal on the table. "And the money would not fall into the wrong hands either...we are talking about setting up an international relief fund, with major contributions coming from other nations, not just Britain...that is a good thing for mankind...something good will have come out of the worst mistakes ever made by a human being. And we should not moan about what we are being asked to do...we came out of the great pandemic relatively well, and we can afford to earn forgiveness from our international friends."

"Are you in a position to tell us how much we are being asked to pay?" Petworth pressed and Montague smiled, appreciating the nudge.

"As I said, less than our national debt was in twenty-twenty..."

"Is that manageable, Mr Alexander?"

"Well...we would be talking about a trillion pounds...maybe a little more...but yes, the repayments on that sort of amount would not be unmanageable."

"Should we do it, Mr Blake?" Petworth asked, turning quickly to the journalist.

"On the basis of what Vice President Montague has just told us, I think the creation of an international relief fund is a great idea...and politically, a very neat trick...because it makes a punishment payment look like a charitable donation...but my frustrations with all of this remains the same...we do not have enough information about what happened four decades ago, or what these mistakes looked like?"