Free Fifty-First State by Hilary Bailey

it until after the summer recess. Conference time. I’ll make my decision then.’
    â€˜It could be too late,’ she warned.
    â€˜No reason to think it will be.’
    â€˜I’ve got a nasty feeling…’
    Moreno stood up. ‘I’ve got a nasty feeling my wife will be an angry woman if I don’t get home now,’ he said. ‘She’s going out for a coffee – first since the twins were born. She’s like a kid on the way to Disneyland.’
    Julia stood also. She kissed the tall man on the cheek. ‘I’m sorry, Mark. I wouldn’t have called you if we didn’t all think—’
    â€˜I won’t tell you I haven’t been thinking about it. It’s not just the Hamscott debate. Of course the Lib Dems will walk all over us. It’ll be Amir Siddiqi. They’ll walk all over the Tories, too. It won’t make any difference. When Petherbridge takes over we’ll need a credible leader.’
    â€˜Think hard, Mark.’
    He nodded and left to make his way back on public transport to Greenford and his screaming twins. Up to now he had never encouraged the left-wingers of his own party to think he’d challenge the leadership. Loyalty or strategy? Both, of course. But perhaps this time Julia was right. Chatterton was increasingly a liability. Petherbridge would be a bigger threat than Muldoon. As usual, timing was everything. Success or failure depended on it. Timing – and luck.
    Fox Square, London SW1. June 12th, 2015. 8.30 p.m.
    Two figures stood by the base of the statue of General Sir Galahad Montmorency Havelock. Facing the statue with their backs turned to the church they were unlikely to be noticed. Even if they had been observed, an accidental meeting in the Westminster village would not have been too surprising. However, this meeting was no accident.
    Two days after Kim Durham’s death, Alan Petherbridge leaked the memorandum revealing his plan to retake the base using trained officers from the Metropolitan Police and Kent Constabulary, a plan the Prime Minister had approved. Also leaked was the fact that about an hour later the Prime Minister had agreed to the landing of US Marines at Hamscott. The press leapt on it; there was noisy questioning of the Prime Minister in the House of Commons; a week later a poll showed that 82 per cent of the public blamed the Prime Minister for Kim Durham’s death. The effect of the leak was devastating. Only one right-wing newspaper had dared, in an editorial, to suggest that the invasion of a base holding nuclear weapons demanded prompt and forceful action. This was followed by a flood of largely hostile correspondence.
    It would have helped Muldoon if there had been one person with Asian or Middle Eastern connections among the arrested base invaders. But there were none. Those who had seized the base were peace activists, CND supporters and members of religious groups. There were a few hard-core left-wingers. There were nuns. And the Red Vicar, the Reverend Alec Hutchinson, who had been injured by a bullet in the calf but was soon back in full voice from his wheelchair. Admittedly, some of the arrested men and women had convictions for minor offences – trespass, criminal damage, attacks on the police – but hard as Canning and his Press Office tried, it was impossible to spin these characters into terrorists. Meanwhile, there was no escaping the pictures of Kim Durham and her son in newspapers, on TV round the world and now on banners carried by the government’s opponents.
    Two weeks later, a second poll showed that 75 per cent of the public, including 50 per cent of his own supporters, thought that Muldoon should be replaced as Prime Minister. Three weeks further on, the same number said that in the event of another election resulting in another hung Parliament, they would support a National Government.
    Two days later, a firestorm was unleashed on Syria. Damascus and Aleppo