The Blurt of Richard Davies

Chapter Twelve

The Crises - Interlude. It all seemed to be going well for a while. Within days the King's Council composed of the non-political Great and the Good, was up and running. Soon it subdivided into further committees, each one headed by a member of the Royal family. In general people welcomed a life without politicians, and as the first decrees of the Economic Reconstruction Directorate began to show results - for example the first tranche of construction jobs to make a start at rebuilding the riot-torn hearts of the inner cities - a mood of relative national well-being began to arise.

As planned many of the junior Royals were able to withdraw from their positions on the Council as more public figures were co-opted as committee members. With the hated government dismissed the insurgents lost much of their raison d'être. Soon the streets calmed to an uneasy peace and the army were able to return to their barracks, leaving a paramilitary National Police Force in control of public order.

Once the initial framework of the Council had been established it began to make its presence felt. The UK was for the time being renamed the Federation of England, Wales, and Ulster to recognise the current reality of the situation. It would revert back to the United Kingdom when Scotland was reunited with the rest of the Union.

The Union Flag was retained in its current form. Partly as a practical economy measure, to save the costs of making new flags, but also as an affirmation Scotland remained an integral part of the Union - even if it was under an illegal occupation for the time being - and one day it would be returned to the fold; though no one explained exactly how or when it would be achieved.

In an attempt to further solidify national cohesion Wales was granted increased but limited autonomy to defuse any possibility the Nats there might decide to follow the Alban example. The worst excesses of the social security cuts were suspended pending a reorganisation of the entire system.

Other measures to foster national reconciliation and ameliorate the worst of the hurt which had been inflicted were promised. There was no formal ceasefire in the class war, there being no official leadership of the insurgents to negotiate with. But it was made known to influential community leaders that the new government wanted peace, and a break from the policies of the past they tacitly admitted had gone too far. A Partnership For Peace was available for those willing to lay down lay down their arms. It would be a new dialogue between the government and the governed, but in return a halt to the violence and an acceptance the areas under rebel control must revert to the law of the land was expected. By and large the informal and unpublicised peace accord was agreed.

With the civil war all but ended and the risk of a nuclear strike reduced for the time being the new Council could concentrate on fixing the dire economic situation. For a while everything seemed to go as well as could be expected for an organisation thrown together under the stress of an emergency. With widespread support and the goodwill to make the best of it there was no reason why a cautious optimism shouldn't be justified.

Over the next seven months a hybrid economy based on a contingency plan for recovery from - ironically of all things - a nuclear attack was implemented, with the state taking 'temporary' control over those sectors deemed vital to the national interest. The Royal Decree gave the Council sweeping powers to requisition the necessary labour, materials and funding for their national reconstruction projects. They weren't too fussy about whose resources they used or how they obtained them. Anyone who tried to obstruct them was dealt with in a peremptory manner.

State planning and direction, absent for decades, were once again in evidence. This time, we were promised, the lessons had been taken to heart. The state would never again allow the core industries and services upon which the nation depended to become worn-down through privatisation, underinvestment, short-term thinking and rampant profiteering on essential services. It wasn't a case of back to the post-war 1940s, because the Federation was relatively in a greater need of reconstruction now than it was then; but forward to a new society in which the state would provide the secure basis upon which the private sector could build. This was the model which had until recent times kept mainland Europe prosperous; and if any evidence was needed as to how badly unrestrained free-market policies had failed, well; just look around you...