Chapter 1

Monday Sept. 13th

Pretty scary stuff happening at the moment, at least down in London. Riots reported around Westminster and police turned out with tear gas and water cannons. The Home Secretary – a woman called Florence Daniels — has called an emergency meeting of COBRA – the Government’s security committee — and everyone is expecting a heavy crackdown. Johannson has spoken out against people trying to “defy the legitimate mandate given to the Government at the General Election” and Florence Daniels doesn’t want to be seen as soft on objectors. I suppose I can’t blame her. If I was sitting in her chair in the Home Office, I think I’d feel the same.

The BBC broadcast some of the discussions in Parliament about it. The surprising thing was how much agreement there was. Not like during the Brexit discussions when you’d get five points of view from three different politicians.

Tuesday Sept. 14Th

Well, Daniels certainly can’t be accused of being soft. She’s announced a national male curfew from eight each evening until six the next morning and prohibitions on any male-only assembly of more than six men. There’s howls of protests from civil liberty groups, of course, but what did they expect? It won’t cause too much trouble around the village – I can’t remember when there were six men in the pub last.

Plenty of discussion in the coffee room at work about all this. All the women reckon the police should crack down harder on protestors. “Can’t they just accept that there’s an elected government that’s doing things a new way?” was one remark and plenty others were saying that protestors ought to face up to the fact that New Order polled 16 million votes for and about 9 million against for all the other parties combined. The interesting thing is that I’d have thought most of those talking were pretty liberal sorts normally. Now, though, it sounds like they are ready for the Government to take almost any sort of repressive step to push its agenda through.

Lucy wasn’t in today, so I didn’t get the benefit of what she thought about it. I reckon I can guess though.

Wednesday Sept. 15Th

I was wondering how on earth they were going to organise something like a national male curfew. Turns out its only going to be unaccompanied males that can’t go out. It’s all right if you are with a woman. Heaven knows how they’re going to keep check either way. There are posters up all around the village. I guess most people won’t want to get involved in anything that might cause trouble. Angie got an email this morning asking her to go along to a meeting in the village hall. Seems like the Government is asking for local groups of women to help the police by monitoring the curfew. The email was signed off by someone who called themselves National Commander: Male Control Force. That sounded a bit sinister. I haven’t heard anything in the police called that before. Angie says they’re a new thing that Daniels has thought up to counter dissidents. Anyway, Angie said she’ll help out with the local group. She joked that she’d get a free set of handcuffs that we can play with in the bedroom. At least I think she was joking.

I was chatting in the pub with a couple of the guys from the village. I mentioned that Angie was involved with the curfew monitoring. “Sort of Neighbourhood Watch,” I said. “More like Neighbourhood Witch,” one of the other guys said. We all laughed. “What are they going to do, magic us off the streets?” Even so, at ten to six everyone was making excuses to get off home.

They’ve started up residency registration for males, so it’s just as well I got Angie to agree to sponsor me. I’ve had a letter saying I’ve got to check in at our nearest police station and pick up something they call an Ident Card and it has to name a woman as your sponsor – basically someone they can contact if there’s a problem with the registration, I suppose. Angie reckons it should all be a bit easier because she’s now a party member.

According to the letter, if I don’t register a personal sponsor then the Government puts you on a nationally run scheme and you have to check in more often and at one of their offices. It certainly seems like it’s a whole lot easier with Angie as my sponsor. She’s happy to do it, “as long as you go on behaving yourself,” she says.