The Trial Of David Cameron

Chapter 4

"Yes," he said, "There was that moment when it couldn't go on, when people had to fight; it was no use writing or shouting, there had to be battles, them or us, physical"

"Julius, it was an odd war really, just organised street rioting, paralysing key buildings, disruption on the grand scale, arson, looting, destruction. Almost every town, even in Bath and Eastbourne. We didn't have enough police or troops. But no battles."

"They got hold of troop carriers and some guns. People were killed."

"Not that many."

"One's enough," he shouted.

"Don't get cross-it'll only make your blood pressure worse."

"There's a clean-up promised. We have the Reconstruction. The Conservatives have gone. How did they always get Europe so wrong? In the nineteen hundreds, in the nineteen thirties, and now. They simply couldn't understand. They really are the stupid party."

"Who said that? Someone said it. Lloyd George?"

"No, I think it was JS Mill."

She looked at the pad in front of her, and tapped the pencil. "When did the Brexiters become the 'Boneheads'?"

"I remember that, it was in 2018 when they were trying to get the legislation through. They were stubborn and inflexible and a journalist christened them."

"Of course. It's a wonderful name; the Brexiters were so angry, always jam in the old days and lots of jam tomorrow, but never any today. Wasn't it funny when that satirical magazine ran a series of cartoons, 'A hundred and one uses for a Bonehead'. A doorstop, a book-end, an ornamental door knocker, a croquet mallet, a Belisha beacon," she laughed. "None of our friends could take them seriously again. And then on the other side against them the 'Tshirts'. That's what the Tories shouted at the Opposition, 'Go and wash your Tshirts, get a suit.' The names stuck. Shall I write that?"

"Yes, I think so. They were sort of both sides in the civil war."

She paused and didn't immediately put pen to paper. "We're losing the thread a bit. They want our own experience. I'm not sure we need go into the sides."

"Context, Penny, context. Where were we?"

She read her notes. "2018 and after."

"OK. The Government made a cock-up of the negotiations but just in time we got a three- year transition, and it should have taken us past the date of the election last year. I remember thinking, so far so good, people breathed a sigh of relief, life went on, and we hadn't quite left the EU after all."

"And fudge. Everything was a fudge." She laughed and put down her pen. "Do you remember the fuss with Diabetics Anonymous? They complained that there was so much talk of fudge that sugar sufferers had no safe public place. Would commentators and the Tshirts please use 'obfuscate' instead."

Julius said, "And the right-wing tabloids complained that 'fudge' was a good Anglo-Saxon word and that' obfuscate' was Latin therefore a European word and should never be used. And then we got headlines, 'Take back control of our language,' 'Out with French, English for the English.' There was even a campaign to stop teaching European languages in State schools. That's Boneheads for you."

She went on, "We could tell him about the collapse. It was so slow to begin with. 2018 with the row over the Irish, and the endless arguments about the Bill in Parliament. People being abused on Facebook and in the streets. No staff in the cafes, no cleaners to be had, the builders disappearing."