Essential as Air and Water by Matthew Bushen
Chapter 13
Lanegan felt relieved and lucky to have found such a group of allies and friends. Ken Buckley was the best political strategist and trusted him with his and his family’s life. Toby Foggarty’s expertise was contemporary culture and although he shared a level of ignorance in relation to the subject’s past history and attitudes, he would be involved in any possible changes. Stephanie Jones and Kris Morrison had proved themselves to be a good team and both had first-hand experience with rioters. This knowledge would be invaluable as the reaction to any course of action they took would need to be studied and assessed. Lanegan had been pleasantly surprised by Jacob even after his admission of guilt. This had temporarily thrown Lanegan into a dilemma about how to proceed with Jacob, but after quickly considering the bigger picture he knew that it wasn’t an issue.
Jacob was made an intern because of his motivation and enthusiasm. He was a party member as soon as he was old enough to join and had been involved in local politics from that moment on. What Lanegan had not been aware of was Jacob’s growing disillusionment with the system. He had grown up within it, as everyone else had, but he had noticed its faults. A feeling of being deceived had grown in Jacob, because London had been disappointing in many ways. The nation had been content and its citizens were numb to the thought of change. The government was responsible for this narrow-minded approach in order to discourage social unrest, and it had worked for a time.
Lanegan would not have become Prime Minister if he did not recognise certain qualities in people. He instantly recognised the change in Jacob after he gained the support and friendship of Isabelle. He grew in confidence and became unafraid of presenting an idea that was challenging to comprehend. She was important not only in her field of expertise, but as a friend who supported Jacob with an open mind.
Lanegan found them all in the conference room.
“Will you all join me in my office, please?” he asked.
The mood was relaxed. Lanegan was glad that he had this group of people who were comfortable with each other.
“I hope you have all managed to talk with your families, these opportunities might become rare in the oncoming days,” Lanegan began. “You have all heard the reports about the on-goings at the evacuation sites. This has thrown us a great dilemma, in terms of how we control these illegal activities. As I see it, we have two choices: one, try and clamp down on it using the military, or two, let it carry on and deal with it after these present troubles have subsided. The other dimension to this follows on from Jacob’s speech that impressed us so much. Can we use this to begin a change within our society that might help us to reverse the rioter’s actions? When I talked to Ella she spoke of the differences in attitude within the New Forest population. There is a shared feeling of relief after escaping the cities and people are bonding and co-operating out of necessity, but this has also brought a spirit and atmosphere of defiance and community. The activities that concern us might be caused by a sudden sense of freedom or lack of restraint and could be helping. This is unknown territory to us all and the risks are obvious. So, we have a predicament. Do we choose to allow these activities and embrace them ourselves, or do we stop them? If we choose to accept them, we will be setting ourselves on a course that we can’t predict. It will take years of work to adapt and implement policies, a lot of which will be untested and likely to fail. Many will disagree with us, which may present further problems and there are sure to be those who will seek to exploit and disrupt what we propose. It will be an education to us all as we try to learn the positives and negatives of the past. We have books and information that are accessible to us that can show us much of our history. They are not accessible to everyone, just like the music in Broadcasting House, but they are there. All of us here were born decades too late to fully understand what we need to do to point ourselves in the right direction. We can and should read the books, but I suspect we will learn more from actually getting out there and being a part of the action we choose.”
“Before we go on Prime Minister,” interrupted Jacob.
“I think we are past that Jacob. Call me Tom, please.”
“Tom - I need to know one thing if you don’t mind, otherwise it will forever play on my mind.”
“Anything, just ask, please.”
“What happened to the people who disagreed and fought against change? There must have been people who wanted to continue as they were. It doesn’t seem possible it could happen overnight with everybody just accepting it.”
“When people reach the lowest point Jacob, they will sometimes accept things that once would have been disagreeable to them. Not everything is black and white and we can sometimes be easily persuaded to agree to things that didn’t seem moral or right before, especially if it’s a community or country putting pressure on individuals to conform. People tend to cooperate eventually; group mentality is a powerful thing and can change how people act. Of course, there was opposition, but when there is gradual change people do not always notice the smaller details. Obviously the transition had already happened many years before we were here, but if individuals spoke up, usually they were quietened down by people close to them. The government tried not to interfere except where it was felt absolutely necessary. I can assure you that there have never been any mass arrests or political prisoners of any number on my watch, or any other that I am aware of. When things happen gradually people don’t always notice. Then eventually, it becomes normal.”
Jacob looked down. He was happy that the government he was part of had not acted with excessive force against its own people, but he was sad that there was not more resistance.
“I’m sorry Jacob but we can’t rewrite history. But what we can do is write our own little piece of the next chapter. The question now is: how do we go forward?”
“There is not going to be a quick solution to this, Tom,” warned Ken. “We need to prepare for a lot of hard work and for things to possibly get worse before they get better.”
“What specifically, Ken?” asked Lanegan.
“I see many possible outcomes. Firstly, people are still turning. We are awaiting figures since all of the media sources were shut down. We don’t expect the numbers to have changed significantly this quickly. The main issue I can foresee is that our resources become so low that people begin to panic, or, worse, people start to become ill and die. This is a reality and could cause as many problems as the rioters if people unite against us, which would be much harder to police. Revolts tend to get messy, especially where the lives and health of children are involved. I don’t want to over-dramatise, but this could put us back to a more primitive period of time that may not be reversible.”
“You’re right of course, Ken, and I think we can all imagine what you are describing. But we’re not at doomsday yet. This now feels like déjà vu – we appear to be back to when we first met with a rather hopeful question - does anyone have any ideas of how to proceed?”
“If the solution is to somehow re-introduce certain aspects of our cultural past, we surely need to loosen the grip on personal freedom,” said Isabelle. “Then we need to establish how can we involve as many people as possible?”
“An event of some kind?” asked Stephanie.
“Involving everyone in anything at the moment would be an impossible task, I’m afraid. We need to focus on stopping the riots before we attempt a political overhaul,” said Ken.
“Well, we at least need to let people know what we have found and that fundamental changes might be needed within society,” said Stephanie.
“I know what you are saying seems logical,” said Lanegan. “And I am with you one hundred percent. But we need to be careful how we approach this. We can’t simply ask everyone to accept an entire, new political system, it won’t be that easy. You have to consider the fact that many may not want to change, or that they simply do not believe what we are telling them. Not everyone has seen the footage we have and they would have every right to be sus
“Even if the information came directly from the Prime Minister?” asked Jacob.
“Especially, if the information came directly from the Prime Minister,” replied Lanegan. “We’re not asking people to change where they buy their food or clothes. We are asking them to change the essence of how we live and interact together. We are asking them to be tolerant of differences that haven’t existed for generations. Not everyone will agree to this. People like having parts of their lives decided for them. What we are proposing will give more autonomy and independence to people and they might struggle with many of the decisions they have to make.”
“Assuming we can achieve what we are proposing,” said Ken. “We can expect a lot of friction initially. People will divide into groups that they feel they can identify with. It will undoubtedly become tribal until order can be properly restored.”
“And yet I do not believe we have any other option,” replied Lanegan.
The mood dropped into a sombre quiet. The optimism they had entered with had faded slightly as they realised that any choices they made would result in more chaos and fear for many people. Lanegan realised he was not helping to keep the mood positive. His voice became more upbeat and enthusiastic.
“Are we agreed that it is almost impossible to prepare for a future that is unknown to us?” he asked.
Everyone agreed.
“Then this saves us time and energy. As I have thought all along, the rate at which people are turning is too high to attempt to contain them and force them to stop.”
Lanegan was thinking out loud, examining the limited available options he had left.
“Difficult times call for difficult decisions,” he said. “If we are going to endure years of hardship to regain some form of normality, then we may as well try to make the hardship a result of positive actions that we have chosen. It will be on our terms, not resting on the hope that the troubles will simply disappear so that we can start again. I believe it is time for us to start taking risks.”
Lanegan stood up with purpose and walked slowly around the room. He was beginning to create a vision in his head with pieces of the different conversations he had had today.
“I’m going to record a message that we will broadcast on every state media channel we have,” he said. “I know we have said no broadcasting, but it will be a simple and short message that can be left on repeat. Most people from the big cities and towns have been evacuated to sites all over the country, but we need to let everyone else who has not been evacuated know that they should join us there. These sites will be the starting points of the mending and healing of our nation. In these places we will try to create an atmosphere to rival the anger and suffering that is happening in the cities. All we can do is tell people that the doors are open to change. If people want to experience first-hand what we have deprived them of, then we will help and encourage them. Then we will travel back to the cities – everyone - together as a unified force. If we can bring the atmosphere back with us, maybe we can release people from their living hell. Am I right in saying that the trains we used to transport the people to the evacuation sites remain in that area?”
“They are lined up on the track that runs through the site, yes,” replied Ken.
“Are they in a good working order to bring everyone back?”
“I see no reason why not. Although we might need more carriages and we will need to locate enough drivers.”
“Good.”
Lanegan stopped and looked at the faces before him.
“If people are going to be sceptical or disbelieving, then the best thing I can do is go and meet them and look them in the eye. Then we might have a chance of convincing them. We can send members of the government out in groups to spread our message across the country. Do you think it’s possible?”
The response was one of caution, but generally it was accepted as a move in the right direction.
“You’re very quiet Jacob, are you okay?” asked Lanegan.
“What do we all do? After, I mean, after the broadcast goes out,” he replied.
“We, my friend, go out and spread the word, in any way we can think of, together.”
“How are we going to do that?”
Lanegan hesitated as he hadn’t considered the logistics of his plan. He turned and looked at Ken, with everyone else following.
“It would be better to keep military vehicles for their main purpose. We could use the buses that are used for visiting dignitaries, they are armoured and regularly maintained,” said Ken.
“Good idea,” replied Lanegan.
Ken had noticed a new enthusiasm in Lanegan and was becoming concerned that he was distracted by a theory that was not yet proved.
“I have to be honest here and say that this is unconventional to say the least. This is not organised to any degree of professionalism and the dangers are great, and that’s without any consideration for what our roles should be as leaders of this country. We are in charge and should remain in London where we need to be. We can find plenty of people that can be sent around the country on potentially time-wasting missions to tell our citizens that they can now do whatever it is we are proposing. Also, you have not considered factors such as how we are going to provide food and shelter to all the returning people. London has been devastated. If you ask everyone to travel back, they will follow you, but then they will be left with nothing. At the evacuation site they have a chance of survival. Where is everyone going to live, Tom? And what if it doesn’t work?”
The tone of Ken’s voice took them all by surprise causing them to look towards the floor. Ken was right and they knew it.
“You’re right Ken, I got ahead of myself,” said Lanegan. “But I believe that if we are to deliver a message, it has to be by members of the party or it will fall on deaf ears. We have to be convincing and London certainly isn’t getting any better by us being here. The longer we wait, the closer we get to a disaster with no return. We will proceed to the New Forest and find a way to make it work. I don’t see that we have a choice. Why don’t you begin to organise a scouting mission to find the least affected areas, we can secure the surrounding areas and use these buildings as temporary accommodation. We know that many of the bigger buildings, such as hotels have not been affected, we can use these. People won’t mind sharing space if they are out of the forest with a ceiling above their heads. Westminster is one of the areas with the least amount of damage, we can secure and use the buildings there. People will have to accept that conditions will be basic for the foreseeable future. Food banks can be set up near to the station, where it can be delivered from the storage facilities and rationed. We can tough this out, we have to tough it out.”
Despite Ken’s certainty that this was the wrong action to take, he knew Lanegan would not change his mind.
“I’ll organise the buses and the search for buildings,” he said.
Stephanie watched Ken leave the room and then turned to Lanegan. It was clear that he was pleased with himself about making what he considered a positive move. He could no longer stand still, pacing with new-found energy.
Stephanie walked to his side.
“Tom, I don’t mean to speak out of place, but I think you should listen to Ken and not jump to any quick decisions. We have all become wrapped up in Jacob’s theory and it feels good to be considering new ideas, but you are in danger of isolating yourself from the party. Ken is right in many ways and not so long ago you were voted out. Ken will follow you out of loyalty and he wants to protect you, but if the party thinks you are running away from the problems or are wasting valuable time, they will replace you, and Ken won’t be able to stop them.”
“It’s my decision Stephanie, and I’m confident we will finally do some good,” replied Lanegan. “They voted against me before we saw the tapes. You have to believe that I haven’t lost site of our objective, I’m just taking us down a different route.”
Lanegan gave a re
After a few minutes, Ken had organised the military to bring as many buses that could be found.
Lanegan wanted to keep the team together. He also insisted that their destination would be Hampshire, where most of London’s population had been evacuated, and more specifically his family.
Lanegan spent the next hour briefing his government ministers on their roles. They formed twenty teams that involved members of government, PR personnel, media experts and members of security. The plan was send a team to each evacuation site in an attempt convince the citizens of Britain that change was required to stop the suffering. This plan would be relying heavily on word of mouth and a great deal of trust. Nobody outside of the political loop knew of a possible cause for the rioting and as all broadcasting had been cut off. Lanegan’s radio broadcast would need to be advertised. The hope was that people would unite all over Britain at the evacuation sites and go back to the cities and towns that were worst affected, slowly moving inwards in a controlled manoeuvre. All of this would take considerable planning. Lanegan thoughts turned to who could control that number of people and had decided he would need an able organiser, especially on a military style exercise. If there was a time for second chances and a new beginning, it was now he thought. It just might be the time to let a capable man redeem himself.