Dislocated to Success (9 page)

The Irish action led to the end of the unnatural state of politics in the UK; the Parliamentary Labour Party howled down its leadership and demanded withdrawal from the National Government. Silkin left immediately and Sunny Jim removed himself fairly sharpish as well, although for a couple of years he had occasional quiet meetings with the PM. Neither Doctor Owen or Denis Healey went immediately; both claimed to the PLP that they had some urgent work to finish first.  As it was, the PM was unhappy with Doctor Owen’s performance and it has been long rumoured that when he offered to cross the floor, he was told
probably not the best thing
. I have no idea of the veracity of that statement and both sides deny it, but it has been common Westminster gossip since the end of the National Government. He did, however, manage to last another week whilst some policy work was finished. Denis Healey lasted a bit longer that that; he had made an excellent start as Rationing Minister, and the PM would have been very happy to keep him on. However, he was under a lot of pressure to leave and finally submitted his resignation after two weeks. However, he continued to help out behind the scenes for some time, especially on recycling, and the success - after a very, very rocky start - of rationing was mainly down to his carefully-laid foundations.

One of the main problems David was dealing with was our favourite Yank in the Manger, Ambassador Brewster. Brewster, I was told, had been a fairly reliable political appointment who had done no real harm in his period in office; the general opinion was that he had become somewhat deranged by the Dislocation. He had become the lead example in the wild of someone who believed in the rights of the disappeared countries to reestablish themselves. In fact he had become rather insistent on the matter, almost dangerously so. The problem was that we needed a soupçon of co-operation from the former US forces; whilst they were mainly an air force, they had a substantial capability and they also had a very large treasure trove of supplies at Burtonwood which the UK wanted to get their hands on. They had been relieved of their nuclear weapons; such items had been closely guarded by the RAF Regiment, and there had long been a plan in place for an eventuality if the US turned hostile. Operation Benedict, I am told, went without a hitch - although with some protests.

The Americans came up with a novel solution - they would elect someone within their members to speak for the people on how to deal with the US government assets and the dissolving of them, and what would be done with the proceeds. It was a very American solution, and whilst it raised a lot of eyebrows at the time it actually worked very well. A senior USAF commander was elected over a banker of some renown and a minor state politician from Louisiana; Mr Brewster declined to stand - it seemed his principles owed slightly more to the Divine Right of Kings than democracy. He then resorted to that favourite pair of weapons available to the wronged - a succession of letters to the Times, and an equal succession of expensive lawsuits.

Obviously, the Dislocation changed politics substantially - a lot of the previous hot issues went out of the window, although a few diehards clung onto their pet obsessions for years. This occurred both on the left and the right; the ANC became as much a fringe movement as the Keep Britain White campaign - both just about managed to carry on, but in much, much reduced prominence and membership. Other small groups shut up shop and went and did something useful with their lives. Some started to fade, but then achieved a new significance after the first couple of years - Greenpeace was very much the classic example of this. However, the big political thing was the Anti-Slavery League, which was started within a couple of weeks of the Dislocation and grew for a while into a large and popular movement - until the final slaves in various territories of the UK were liberated, at which point it diminished rapidly.

There have been a number of criticisms of the way the Government dealt with slavery in the colonies; I fully understand that, and I was one of the more hawkish members of the Government on dealing with the subject. Also, despite the so-called journalism of Paul Foot, there was no member of the Government who supported keeping slavery, there was no member of the Government who suggested Portuguese style schemes and there was no member of the Government who wasn’t willing to use firm and decisive action if talks did not work.

Initially, the question was one of resources - we had lost over half the Army and the Air Force. The RN, which had mysteriously been spared Dislocation except for a couple of ships in overseas ports, and the Merchant Navy were making their way back to Britain. Task forces had to be prepared, plans had to be made, training had to be done and a suitable scheme had to be worked out to help those who were being emancipated. Had we done otherwise, it may well have been a case of fools rush in causing greater problems in the long run. Having said that, I really do think we waited a little too long in some cases, to the detriment of those held in durance vile.

The Anti-Slavery League was very useful in keeping the pressure up, something which is always a good idea in politics. I think I have to pay them some credit for this; however, the inherent left-wing nature of their leadership lead to conflicts in other ways. Tony Benn
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was a magnificent chairman and kept the national rallies at least sensible and focused, but there were local groups that soon fell into the hands of the malignant Left. The main ASL group in Birmingham banned speakers from both major parties and the Liberals because of their support for colonialism - which was rich really, considering Labour’s overall position on the subject - but left them in the hands of a number of extreme left-wing activists.

The one thing it did do was offer the black community in the UK a challenge, one they rose to supremely - over 40% of the initial wave of Armed Forces recruits after the Dislocation were black, over 70% of the first wave of volunteer uplifters for British North America and the Caribbean were black. This was, I feel, a defining moment for them, and the vast improvement in race relations over the last 15 years is due to this and the majority community’s response to their sacrifice. I also believe that, despite the best intentions of all politicians to ensure that the same mistakes were not made as in after the cis-historical emancipation of the Caribbean, without the pressure from our communities here we would not have seen the same results as we do now. I don’t think we can claim to have done everything right, but I think we’ve done a lot better than we did the first time.

After we had dealt with some of the major items of emergency legislation around the fabric of the nation, one of the pieces of legislation which still had to be altered was the Act of Settlement; at the moment there were two legal Princes of Wales and eight or so members of the Hanoverian and Prussian royal families immediately succeeding the Queen. There had been a number of different suggestions about where to slot the two branches and eventually Quintin had come up with rather a good compromise. Frederick Lewis was the son of a King, a Royal Prince and entitled to a Royal Duchy - and, potentially, access to the Civil List. He was to be placed after the Queen’s children. The Prussians were a little more distantly descended and were placed after the Kents and Gloucesters, and the half a dozen others were slotted in before the Lascelles but after everyone else.

There was some dispute about if they should be included at all, but that was pretty much confined to a few members of the Labour benches. Apart from a right to naturalisation which only the two young Fredericks actually took out, the only one who would get any real benefit would be Frederick Lewis - and we needed to keep him fairly much on side. The idea of gender-blind primogeniture was considered at this point and this had somewhat more of a following on all benches, but was not passed by the Lords, from whom all amendments flow. The question of Catholicism, however, was discussed - with much noisy idiocy from the various members from Ulster, although the two worst culprits were safely confined in the Outer Hebrides. The Lords amended to allow marriage to a Catholic but not Catholic succession, and the Commons rather pleasingly accepted it by a very large majority. The other important amendment limited the right of succession through an ascendency council to the first fifty members, otherwise Parliament would debate the issue. This failed to pass the Commons, but had a surprising amount of support.

There was little problem with the Act after it had been passed; Frederick was invested with the title of Duke of Clarence, and within a couple of weeks abdicated as King of Ireland. The Irish Accession Council met once again and this time invited the Queen to be Queen of Ireland - although a few diehards in County Monaghan decided this was not right, and the arch-maverick Auberon Waugh proclaimed the Crown Prince of Prussia as Frederick II of Ireland in the pages of the Spectator. Silly idiot, the next heir was his mother the Queen of Prussia - but I suppose Frederick the Great made a better basis for his pungent and purple prose. If only Waugh had been in his house in the Auvergne on Dislocation Day.

Chapter 10

I had immensely enjoyed my new role as meeter and greeter to the great and the good of Europe during the first couple of months of the Dislocation. Several of my friends had commented over the years that I had missed my time. They were wrong - whilst good manners, grace and courtly bearing should never be allowed to go out of fashion, the benefits of central heating, steam laundries and comfortable motorcars outweigh them by several factors.

I particularly relished the use of Bradwell Lodge as our VVIP quarantine facility - not far from my constituency, delightfully modernised, but with suitable features of the period. However, the best thing was knowing just how utterly jealous that old gauchiste snob Driberg
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would have been of the emergency use of his house. Many members of royalty spent their first night in the United Kingdom there, although probably not as many queens as in his day.

I was surprised to be summoned to The Presence - I knew there was a mini-reshuffle on, but I had assumed that at some point I would just resume my Arts and Culture role, and that at another point I would probably be for the chop. There were quite a number of humourless young men advising the Prime Minister who did not appreciate a little playfulness. My joke about Tara Farms being more like a Soviet collective farm did not go down very well; of course, it's more a Jewish model they were using but that joke had already been made by Labour - who often forgot how many Jews lived within the PM’s constituency.

However, one always forgets just how pragmatic the Prime Minister was during that difficult period. Most of those awful young men with balance-sheet minds were swept away by our transition away from monetarism; some of them just couldn't adapt, and kept on suggesting things like privatising Gibraltar or pointing out how cheap imported coal would be. Mind you, they were soon replaced with a different sort of awful young man who wanted to conquer half the world. Luckily they got fairly short shrift as well, but we certainly looked more towards the military than we had done since the War.

However, I was very, very surprised at my fate: I was to become Foreign Secretary. I was thrilled, utterly thrilled - as far as I was concerned it was the best job in the Government. Willie praised the work that I had done so far and said that the trans-timers had nothing but praise for me. However, the smack of a deftly-wielded handbag followed quickly. I would not have responsibility for the remains of cis-relations; those would be handled by a PUSS who would report to the Prime Minister. I would not have responsibility for the Kingdom of Ireland; that would be handled by Willie temporarily - and whilst I would have some responsibility for colonial affairs, these would be handled by a Minister of State who, as the role grew, would probably have a separate office and Cabinet rank. Said Minister of State would also be reporting to the Cabinet Office.

There was also a warning about some of my more outré friends, which was a little saddening. However, I could appreciate their point of view; whilst trans-time wasn't as puritanical as some would make out (except in the more Protestant countries and British North America), certain activities could end up with you going to the stake. However, I even think that young Derek - who is a little outrageous - had nothing on what I saw in Tuscany in 1981, but given a choice between decorum and the Foreign Office and the odd drink in the Colony Club and nothing, it was an easy one to make.

They did suggest that there was a place for a PUSS after the reshuffle, and asked if I had anyone in mind. My first couple of suggestions were vetoed quickly for good reasons - I never knew that young Parris was “so”, nor that Mills
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had a terrible drink habit. Eventually I settled on young Cadbury, which at least cheered him up; he had been awfully depressed after the Dislocation, and left us at the next election to go and do noble things in the colonies - which he did rather excel at.

Then Margaret dropped the final bombshell - I would, as Peter Carrington had been, be Foreign Secretary from the Lords. They appreciated that a certain rank was needed to deal with trans-timers, and I would be receiving a Viscountcy. I did remark that I thought we only did life peerages, but - as Willie put it - there wasn't much chance of a successor, was there? Ermine at last!

One of the first tasks I had been set was dealing with any diplomatic problems after the Irish Incursion; I was slightly surprised to find that there were none at all, not even from the more Catholic powers. My little tour of the functioning embassies and consulates, of which there were less than a dozen at this point, revealed that the attitude was “It’s yours, do what you will with it”. I kept on having to remind myself that this was not the age of Nationalism, that the Westphalian nation-state was still a relatively young idea and that parts of Europe still owed more to feudalism than absolutism.