Infernal Coalition: Disbelief

Wednesday 13 January 2010

“Thank you all for attending this evening’s meeting. Before I explain the procedure that we will be following tonight, can I again confirm that the copies of the candidates’ CVs that you will have found on your chairs will be collected in, once the entire session is over.” 

By the time Alex made it to the meeting, most of the other committee members had already arrived, and it was clearly too late for him to stand any chance of a private word with Nicholson before the formal business began. The civic hall assembly room was not quite up to hosting the full gathering of the executive committee in any degree of comfort, and he could do little more than find a spare seat and bide his time. Nicholson was soon on his feet and clearly basking in his role in the spotlight.

“Once again, Marcus Haines from CCHQ is in attendance. The candidates are waiting in the clerk’s office, and they will each be called in turn to make a short presentation for no more than ten minutes, and then answer questions from the floor, again for no more than ten minutes. When they have all finished, we will have a discussion amongst ourselves, and decide who should be invited to address the membership next week. We are of course obliged to invite at least two of the candidates, and may invite all of them if we so wish.”

While Nicholson was explaining the process, Alex had done an initial speed reading exercise on the CVs with a growing sense of disbelief. Even allowing for his prior research online, it was surely going to be a near impossible task for the executive committee members to study the candidates’ written credentials in any detail, weigh them up, listen to what they each had to say for themselves and think of any pertinent questions, all in a time slot of twenty minutes per candidate, and then draw any meaningful conclusions.

Had he been recruiting even the lowliest paralegal or trainee for his firm, he thought, let alone making a high profile lateral hire, this would have called for a major investment of time and thought, so as not to risk selecting the wrong person and being left to nurse the consequences of a costly mistake. And yet this is how we are being asked to deal with the choice of a potential member of a legislative assembly, for what could be a well cushioned job for life, with powers to tax and regulate those who put the representative there? A choice that the members might never be able to review if the seat remained safe?

“The running order will be Alexandra Holt, Adrian Swan, Olwen Williams, Martin Darby, and finally Janine Kendall. I must explain that earlier today I was contacted by Howard Bailey, who informed me that he had been put through to the final round in Bristol South West, where he will be in competition with one other candidate, and he had therefore decided to withdraw from our own process. I will now invite Alexandra Holt…”

Alex was almost overwhelmed by astonishment. A last minute drop out – and they had still not given Susie the lifeline that was surely hers as of right? What on earth was going on? He raised his hand and would have interrupted Nicholson in mid flow, had he not been beaten to it.

“Mr Chairman, on a point of order.” It was Karen Rutherford, a keen local councillor who was probably twenty years younger than the average age of the executive committee membership, and who was gaining a reputation in the constituency for her fearless enthusiasm on local and national issues. She rose to her feet and raised her voice. “The list of successful applicants stated that Susie Harris was a reserve. This is, of course, Professor Susie Harris, the wife of our Deputy Chairman Political, Alex Harris. May I ask why she has not been invited to this meeting in place of Mr Bailey?”

Alex could barely hide his admiration for the force of the intervention, knowing that the questioner would only have been able to formulate it within moments after hearing the unexpected announcement. He gave Nicholson a piercing stare, awaiting an explanation. But Nicholson was oblivious to this as he nodded to Haines, who cleared his throat and waited for near silence to return.

“Mr Chairman, and members, the association rules make it clear that the extending of an invitation to a reserve in circumstances of this nature is discretionary, not mandatory. He or she has no automatic right to be fully shortlisted if a chosen candidate withdraws from the process.”

“Who exercised the discretion, then?” Rutherford was clearly not minded to give up easily. As Nicholson raised both hands and tried to wave her back into her seat, making it plain that he wanted closure, Haines pressed on in blissful ignorance of the gesture.

“I am informed that the selection sub-committee met earlier today and exercised their discretion against fully shortlisting Ms Harris, after a casting vote.”

“A casting vote?” Alex could contain himself no longer. He stood up, locked eyes with Nicholson and waited for an answer. So they had been deadlocked? And the chairman himself had put the knife in? “Would you mind explaining why?”

“The subject is closed.” Nicholson struck the table with a nearby water jug as if to distract attention from his pompous turn of phrase, having visibly reddened. “I’ll speak to you afterwards if you wish, Alex, but we must move on. Time is short.”

It was obvious to Alex that there was no point in protesting any further. The door had clearly banged shut on Susie’s short lived political career for once and for all, without any chance of it being reopened again after it had briefly come ajar. Alex gave Nicholson one final baleful glare before sitting down and turning to the first page in the stapled set of candidates’ CVs, as the first aspiring successor to Sir Walter Hough MP made her entrance.....

 

* * * * *

 

To follow: Amazement - and Retaliation.

Douglas Carswell - The End of Politics: A Review

“On the day the wall came down/The Ship of Fools had finally run aground…” Pink Floyd, A Great Day For Freedom (The Division Bell).

“Who can give them back their lives/And all those wasted years?/All those precious wasted years - Who will pay?” Rush, Heresy (Roll The Bones).

In the dying days of the last Labour government, Douglas Carswell MP invited his blog readers to suggest a subject for him to raise at Prime Minister’s Questions. To my pleasant surprise, he chose my question about ruling out UK participation in Greek bailouts. The PM fudged the answer, no doubt in the full knowledge that the political class would in due course contrive indirect UK participation whether the electorate liked it or not. Which just about said it all, so far as the attitude of Big Government towards the public at large is concerned.

It is therefore only right and proper that I return the favour with a review of “The End of Politics and the Birth of iDemocracy”.

 

The first seven chapters cover “The End”. It is a fair portrayal of how and why our current political system is rotten to the core. To recall a phrase from the sixties, The Man in Whitehall still thinks he knows best. We are given many examples of how government grows by stealth, how it has to be seen to be doing something (think of projects like HS2, or NHSIT – beware of accidental transpositions with that one), and how it deliberately debauches the currency with quantitative easing and aims to inflate the ever growing debt away. Bad luck on savers and foreign travel lovers if your private pension turns out to be of Zimbabwean purchasing power and your holiday pound drops to parity with the Vietnamese Dong.

 

The political class are portrayed as knowing full well what they are doing, probably only wanting to be sure they see their time out before the consequences of their actions catch up. It is perhaps not surprising that one commentator has already suggested that in days gone by, someone from within who exposed the true nature of how we are overtaxed, overregulated, overgoverned, badly governed and governed by the wrong people (EU bureaucrats, the opinion forming elite etc) would probably have been burned at the stake.

 

So where are we to find hope? The second half, “The Birth”, suggests that the digital revolution will render the Big Government model obsolete, as choice displaces top down prescription. “A cultural revolution is coming that will unseat the constructivist elite”, it is suggested, where taxpayers decide to buy less prescribed government services, make more of their own decisions and keep more of their own money for this purpose, all aided by technology. Hmm. Without wishing to drift too deeply into a debate as to what state services are truly essential, we may wonder how much those taxpayers would voluntarily spend on some of the great functions of government that have emerged and then snowballed since the end of World War II. The health and safety industry? The discrimination industry? The financing of ambulance chasing claims handlers? The food and drink division of the nanny state?

 

It probably leads to a key issue not really addressed in the book, namely what if the political class refused to accept that the days of Big Government were over, that their system was wrecking not just wealth but lives too, and that they should give up and get out of the way, pausing only to start lowering taxes and deregulating. Would there be a soft landing or a crash, and how bad would any crash be? And would there be danger of a similar scenario from the two sets of rock lyrics with which I opened, whereby the initial euphoria at the collapse of East European communism quickly gave way to deep resentment at their former rulers after all those wasted years? Who would be burned at the stake (or even Ceausescued) then?

 

Hopefully the author’s conclusion, that our best days lie ahead and that we will be healthier, wealthier and happier in several generations’ time after Big Government has been laid to rest, will be borne out without too much of a crash. And perhaps the current Western political class would be spared the fate of many a former dictator, as long as they submitted to a course of Sackcloth, Ashes and Penance. Which provides me in conclusion with a neat way of promoting my own recent book, a political/legal suspense novel that probably has about as much underlying respect for the political class as The End Of Politics, expressed largely through the perception of an “ordinary person candidate” believing that the invitation to help clean up politics in the wake of the Parliamentary Expenses Scandal was meaningful and sincere…

 

Oh yes, before I forget. A resounding five stars for “The End of Politics and the Birth of iDemocracy”.

Infernal Coalition: Despair

...Alex turned to his computer screen and called up the Seats and Candidates page of Conservative Home. He found the link to the A-List at the head of a list of constituencies and began his investigation.

Almost an hour later, he found himself in possession of far more information about the six shortlisted applicants than he could ever have expected to trace, but none the wiser as to how Susie could have found herself excluded in comparison to them all. He saved the summary that he had been typing and printed it off.

Howard Bailey. Small business owner, Bristol. Runner up, Bristol South East, 2005. In final six for one safe seat last year, and Bristol South West this year – still ongoing? Has written a number of articles about deregulation for small businesses.

Martin Darby. A-Lister. PR & marketing consultant, London. In final six for one marginal late last year and two safe seats in 2007. Appears close to a couple of Shadow Cabinet members.

Adrian Swan. Councillor and teacher at independent school in Coventry. No sign of him in any other shortlists. Known Eurosceptic contributor to ConHome discussion threads. Another ordinary people candidate? 

Alexandra Holt. A-Lister. Barrister (matrimonial law), London. In final six in three safe seats since 2006. Vociferous for reform of family courts.

Janine Kendall. Management consultant, Hertford. Might be same as Jan Kendall who fought a safe Inner London Labour seat in 2005. No sign of shortlisting this time around.

Olwen Williams. Farmer, Shropshire. Stood in hopeless South Wales mining seat in 2006 by-election. In final six for a safe seat earlier this year.

Six candidates, he thought. None of them a household name, and not a local connection to proclaim between them. Bailey and Swan could probably make it to the constituency via the motorways in a couple of hours if they put their foot down, but that’s as far as it goes.

What a farce. Do those three women really have anything that Susie doesn’t? Was this call for new blood candidates nothing more than window dressing?

By now it was almost 2.30 and Alex was in no frame of mind to revert to client work. Picking up his briefcase, he waved a goodbye to Sawdon who was on the phone, told the other partner Geoff Stokes he was leaving early, and made his way downstairs to the car park. At least he could be sure of sharing the bad news with Susie before anyone might break it to her first. His promise to respond to Bob Gill later that afternoon on his prospects of suing CCK TelSol was long forgotten.

To his surprise, Susie was already home, sitting in the study at the computer. It was obvious that she had been upset and angry for some time, and most unusually she was struggling for words as well as fighting back tears. Alex’s consoling hug could not have prepared him for what she finally said.

“What a tactless, two-faced, arrogant bastard.”

“Who?”

“Nicholson.” She could hold back the tears no longer as she waved her hand towards the screen and hurried out of the study. “Just read that.”

Alex did so and found himself looking at a circular email that had evidently been sent to almost two hundred addressees.

‘Dear Applicant

The selection process for the new Prospective Parliamentary Candidate in East Worcestershire has now led to the drawing up of a shortlist of six applicants, to be submitted to the constituency’s executive committee in the immediate future.

Regrettably we were unable on this occasion to include you on this shortlist and will not therefore be taking your application any further.

I wish you well in your further applications.

Yours faithfully

Olivia Phillips

Organising Secretary
For and on behalf of Ashley Nicholson
Chairman, East Worcestershire Conservative Association.’ 

A wave of disbelief came over Alex as he opened his briefcase and extracted the copy email he had received from Nicholson earlier that day. He read the line ‘Reserve: Susan Harris’ again. And again. As Susie came back into the study, the tears almost gone but her anger no less obvious, he passed it over.

“I don’t understand. Why would you get a standard form brush off when I’ve just had this?”

Susie read it and shook her head in complete confusion when she reached the incongruous line that appeared to suggest that her new found ambitions had not been completely dashed.

 

“I can’t make it out either. I can’t work out whether it was an afterthought or something that was supposed to have been edited out...”

* * * * *

Previously posted: Hope. To follow: Disbelief, and Amazement - and Retaliation.

Infernal Coalition: Hope

Wednesday 2 December 2009

.....Hearing the phone replaced, Alex banished Gill and his dispute from his mind. It was not the first time, nor would it be the last time, when he would have had to disappoint a client for telling him what he needed to know rather than what he wanted to hear. Susie came into the kitchen and threw her arms around him.

“I’m on the approved list! They’ve even said I’m free to apply for any other Midlands seat!”

“That’s great. I’m really proud of you.” They chatted on for a few more minutes before it sunk in with Alex that their intentions need not remain secret any longer. “I suppose I’d better ring Ashley Nicholson and tell him there’s going to be a local candidate in the running.”

“And put your differences aside too?”
 

Susie’s question was as perceptive as ever. She had always suspected that the local party chairman, a lifelong resident of the county, had not been entirely pleased when Alex had become an officer in the association barely a year after they had moved from the Birmingham suburbs to a rural setting in the constituency. Although no other committee member had come forward to express any interest in taking on the role of Deputy Chairman Political ahead of Alex, Susie had long gained the impression that there was a needless element of factional strife between Nicholson’s closest allies and everyone else.

For his own part, Alex was aware that Nicholson had made a colossal amount of money from training and consultancy work in the fields of environmental health and hygiene, taking full advantage of the ever expanding consequences of European Union membership. Alex’s staunch belief that the UK would be better off out of the EU left him with little time or respect for those who profited from the European project at the expense of those burdened by its regulations.
 

“Up to a point, I guess. The day I become a Europhile will be the day hell freezes over.” Alex paused. “Of course, if you’re elected to Parliament, I’d better remember that a closed mouth gathers no foot.”

“That sounds just like Denis Thatcher.” Susie let the comment, laden with implication as she had intended, hang in the air as she headed upstairs. Having found the chairman’s number, Alex picked up the phone and made the call, and was soon through the inevitable opening round of small talk.

“OK, Ashley, that wasn’t why I rang. The reason for my call is to let you know that Susie has just been accepted onto the approved list of prospective Parliamentary candidates, and she’s put in her application to be shortlisted for East Worcestershire. “

“Has she now? That’s very interesting. I can’t think that there’s any other local candidate likely to apply.”

Nicholson did not expand. Alex noted with a brief touch of curiosity that he had expressed no obvious enthusiasm on hearing the news.
 

“So I think it’s only right and proper that I stand down as Deputy Chairman Political on a temporary basis after Friday’s meeting, until the selection procedure is over. Presumably there’s no problem then if we put the word around that Susie’s applying?”

“I think that you can leave that to me. You’ll have heard that CCHQ are sending a rep along to the meeting on Friday, to give us the complete low down on how the process works. One of the tasks we’ll be faced with then is forming a selection sub-committee of six. You’re welcome to come along to the meeting, but clearly you can’t properly be on the sub-committee, and it’s probably a good idea if you do stand down as DCP afterwards. Only temporarily, of course.”

“Not a problem.” There was something in Nicholson’s tone of voice that left Alex feeling patronised, but he let it ride. They soon finished their discussion.

“How did he take it?” Susie had returned, holding an Ordnance Survey map.

“Difficult to tell. Same as ever with him, of course. Still, I’d find it hard to believe that the local executive won’t give you their full support. Let’s hope he falls into line. They surely wouldn’t want a complete nobody ahead of a local. And most of the real stars from the A-List would surely have been selected for vacant seats by now.”

Susie spread the map out across the kitchen table. She was well aware of the party hierarchy’s decision to create an A-List, an elite group of preferred candidates whose entry into Parliament was considered to be particularly desirable, and how badly this had gone down with ordinary members once it had been uncovered. The recent call, in the face of the expenses scandal, for a new type of candidate to come forward had been a welcome contrast. 

“Right then, let’s start going over these towns and villages. We know the area and the local issues far better than London A-Listers who make the same pitch to every constituency they apply for....."

* * * * *

To follow: Despair, Disbelief, and Amazement - and Retaliation.

Now Available: Infernal Coalition

"Bloody hell."

"What's wrong?"

"The Warthog's had a change of mind. He's standing down."

It was only natural that the unexpected decision of Sir Walter Hough MP to retire from the House of Commons at the 2010 General Election, and to vacate the safe East Worcestershire seat he had held for 35 years, would lead to a great deal of interest from potential successors. Including Professor Susie Harris, inspired by the rallying call for ordinary voters to come forward as Tory candidates and help clean up politics in the aftermath of the expenses scandal.

But was her initial welcome only skin deep? And how far would her new found political interest be affected by a client of her solicitor husband Alex trying simultaneously to defraud his firm?

Infernal Coalition. A legal/political suspense. Available via Kindle Direct and Lulu (links on the right). Read the Prologue above.

A Nice Morning Drive (not forgetting the afternoon)

Wednesday 5 September

The journey to Las Vegas from Palm Springs may have been in a black Mustang rather than a Red Barchetta, but the grateful anticipation was still partly attributable to Neil Peart. My holiday reading for this flydrive in Arizona and California had included Far And Away, the latest collection of travelogues from the Rush lyricist and drummer, and the two day adjournment from the driving in San Diego had coincided with his recollection of the Amboy Crater and nearby ghost town on Route 66. An ideal point of interest after the initial drive through the Joshua Tree National Park, so it appeared.

A week previously, the temperature had hit 108 as the Mustang – or should that be the horse with no name? - had taken us through the deserts of south east Arizona. The old Wild West town of Tombstone and its well preserved period saloons, notably Big Nose Kate’s and the welcome beer and sandwiches, brought back some distant memories from fifteen years earlier, while the real gem had to be the Apache Trail, somehow managing to combine a deserted mining town, a mini Grand Canyon and the excellent Superstition Saloon on the valley floor all into one. It certainly felt good to be out of the rain of another washed out English summer.

Palm Springs had been uplifting in many ways, with two coming to mind above all. The first, the aerial tramway whose destination was the near tundra summit of the Mt San Jacinto Park. The second, Marilyn Monroe’s skirt, preserved in Seven Year Itch fashion in the form of the 26 foot tall statue that had formerly been in residence in Chicago and was now gracing the square opposite Starbucks. No, this is one place where a “sheltering from the rain” excuse is always going to fall on stony ground.

But back to the road. First up, a stretch due east out of the town on the 111, past the hideouts of the seriously rich, their well watered green lawns defying the desert. Shortly followed by a cruise down Interstate 10, foregoing the privilege of a pilgrimage to nearby Mecca (that’s Mecca, CA, population 8,577), in search of the southern Joshua Tree NP entrance.

It took a while to find the first outcrop of Joshua Tree cacti from this direction, even though there were many other by now familiar species of cactus amid the rocks. Anyone not familiar with the Cholla (“Choy-a”) would be in for a nasty surprise if tempted by their soft cuddly toy appearance to go closer than common sense dictated. Let’s just say that “the thorn is quicker than the thigh” is considered to be an entirely well founded warning. The Joshua Trees themselves, towering twelve feet high with the outstretched arms that led to their Biblical name, are a real sight, all the more so for their rarity.

A brief stop in Twentynine Palms suggested that this small town on the northern border of the park ought to be commemorated just as much for the Mexican food at Edchadas as for Robert Plant’s song from Fate of Nations. Feeling the heat of its desert heart, and with the horse straining against its bridle in pursuit of the Mother Road, an hour’s charge northbound up what was on that day effectively a private drive soon reached a T-junction where the ghost town of Amboy lay.

The Amboy Crater itself might have justified a walk to the rim, were it not for the heat and the deceptive distance ahead – what seemed like a couple of hundred yards could easily have become a mile before it was too late to turn back – so Roy’s Garage, a near deserted classic filling station half a mile eastbound, was clearly a better bet. To say nothing of the abandoned motel next door. And with skins having turned well red by now, we were looking at a motel bed, where the story it told of the motel that thrived made us sad (OK, guess the rest). Just as sad as would have been the case if the group of German bikers, gathered round the gas pumps and obliviously smoking alongside their machines, had accelerated the demise of Roy’s with a discarded butt. It was indeed time to butt out rather than butt in on them.

Contrarian as it may be to really let rip along Route 66 eastbound, this was just what the beast wanted. A drive just as exhilarating as the Seligman to Kingman stretch two years previously from which I still nursed fond memories. Wind in my hair, shifting and drifting, mechanical music, adrenalin surge…

Hang on, what was that about adrenalin surge? Around 10 miles before Route 66 ran out, there were the unmistakeable signs of a storm brewing to the north. And not just thunderclouds. An ever increasing number of lightning bolts coming down on our left and – a little scarily – ahead. Not that there was any point in turning back, of course, when Las Vegas beckoned with no other civilisation in striking (sic) distance and when stopping to let it pass (no shelter, just wide open desert) may well have been just as risky. With the odds and effect of a lightning strike on the car pushed into a distant mental recess for quiet reflection, the choice of flooring it may have been a bit reckless, but…

And suddenly it had passed, the lightning bolts receding into the distance as a brief stretch of Interstate 40 gave way to the roller coaster of Highway 95, whose lumps and bumps amid a crawling queue on the single lane out of California gave way to a spanking new 3 lane race track as the border into Nevada was crossed. There’s a message here somewhere.

The time had come to let the horse run free, because the desert had turned to a sea of neon light, air conditioning and the tidal wave of human hearts prevailing over heads in the casinos. Leaving one final thought. If only driving in the UK could bring even a fraction of the pleasure it gives in the USA.

Coming Soon: Sackcloth Ashes & Penance - a new legal/political suspense novel

I am going to make a bold claim for Sackcloth, Ashes & Penance, which I anticipate publishing via Kindle Direct and Lulu in the immediate future. Unless I am very much mistaken, I believe that it will be the first novel to be set against the actual events of the 2010 UK General Election and what preceded it and followed it. Remember Bigotgate, I Agree With Nick, a hung Parliament, a coalition and a short lived cabinet career? And what about a quest for candidates that began with an A-List and moved onto a call for ordinary people to come forward, in the face of the Great Parliamentary Expenses Scandal?

Not that I am abandoning the legal suspense thriller genre altogether. As Professor Susie Harris discovers a political calling, solicitor Alex Harris finds out the hard way that his new commercial client’s claim is nothing more than an elaborate scam. And that he himself is the intended victim. And little by little, as they both fight back, their predicaments converge – and collide.

Interested? Check out the Prologue above. The cover and the back cover text are on the right.

(Update, May 2014: I have now retitled the book Infernal Coalition after a minor revision.)