Chapter 1: Political Roundup

To the backdrop of a garishly bright-coloured studio set, a male politician answers questions from a bow-tied, pin-striped interviewer. The interviewer’s manner is respectful on the surface, but covertly hostile just underneath. Still, his head nods at all the right places, tacitly agreeing with the politician’s points. Then he notes a comment in his ear-piece from his hidden producer, and moves the subject on.

“Secretary, may I now ask about your reaction to the resurgent wave of disobedience in girls’ schools that a number of the tabloid papers have picked up on. Of, generally, older girls boycotting classes, and so on.”

The politician tips his head back as smugness creeps smarmily into his face. He oozes, “Yes of course you may, Mr Daltum. I welcome your questions. This government has, of course, taken note of these events and is soon to take action. Cross-department consultations have been happening, and new policies may shortly be put to the House. I would love to reveal these to your listeners, of course, but the House must take precedence! But I can tell you this. Such incidents will not be tolerated. We have no such trouble from boys schools, and we fail to see why schoolgirls think their conditions so much more dreadful than those of their masculine peers. But there will be a reckoning, of that I can assure you!”

“Secretary Joinard, if I may. A theme of these protests is said, precisely, to be complaints of systemic inequalities. They advocate for an equivalence of education to their brothers. Further than that, they advocate for female suffrage, for equality of treatment under the law, for fair employment opportunities and for a post-educational level playing field.”

“Yes Mr Daltum, we are well aware of their supposed excuses. There is female suffrage already, of course. Those with property may vote.”

“Their numbers very few.”

“But the law is the law. As for some of these upstarts’ more bizarre talking points ... that women should be allowed to serve, I was yesterday told, in the Police.”

“And in the Armed Forces, Secretary.”

“Ha! Ridiculous, the fairer sex cannot be put in harm’s way! And the idea that a female Bobby would have the strength to control - for example - a rowdy group of drunken men - quite ridiculous, ridiculous! She’d end up being more Booby that Bobby.”

Jott Daltum produces a creaking semblance of a smile at the clunky, punning attempt at a joke. Then observes, “Some might argue that being subjected to corporal punishment in school puts them squarely in harm’s way already.”

“No different for boys. Besides, the Can’t-Do-Thats put limits on such things.”

The interviewer grunts into his bow tie. “Their demands for equal pay for their sex, Secretary?”

“Women are well paid for domestic work, for retail work, for factory work and so on,” Joinard says. “We all know these girls’ demands are quite ridiculous, and that DR are putting them up to it. And as to your other point ... frankly, absolute tosh.”

“Secretary, if I may? The first several school strikes that were reported -”

“Well before the last election -”

“Indeed ... were specifically reacting to too-frequent use of unpleasant forms of punishment.”

“Yes, Mr Daltum. And Democratic Reform pandered to their wishes with that hastily-scrabbled-together Education Provision Bill and pushed through without a full parliamentary vote. But as you know, even that tack-on bill only added a few badly-worded limits. You can’t ban something that’s traditional, Daltum.”

“I fail to see why not.”

Sardo Joinard just ignores this. “The things those particular girls were protesting - in the last parliament, encouraged and abetted by prominent members of the other party - have been in common practice for generations, Mr Daltum.”

“They objected to what they called...” The bow-tied Jott Daltum refers to his notes. “ ... gross abuses of power by older males in authority over younger girls, with none.”

“Ridiculous,” says Joinard, “that’s just the way it’s been done since schools were established. Abuse of power by males in authority... all teachers are male, for God’s sake, what do they want, to be punished instead by some female assistant? What, teachers should be prevented from applying standard rules? The idea is ridiculous.”

“I believe they demanded, amongst other things, that the character, extent, duration and severity of all such punishments should be limited by statute. As the DR Government legislated. Yet since your government came to power, Mr Joinard, no one case of such alleged abuse has been prosecuted.”

“Independent judiciary, Mr Daltum.”

“It iis the Police who should bring such cases to the Public Prosecutor’s attention.”

“Yes well the Police are busy with morte important things. Failure to prosecute, indeed ... that’s the sort of bottom-of-the-barrel nonsense the other lot were mad keen to stir up all along. Well, we will be issuing guidance on such matters in due course. And perhaps if the other Party had not been so intent on building up sheer petabytes of evidence first, in order to trawl through, presumably, to find something or other that was actually shocking...”

“If you may care to recall, it was own party which insisted on building a body of proof before any fuller legislation, Secretary. Liberal Conservative members in the second chamber - your party - were serially responsible for first restricting, then upping the set of schools covered, first to girls schools only, then to include a more representative cross-section of girls schools, and finally to all of them.”

“Yes but it was DR who approved all those billions for all this unnecessary cutting-edge tech, Mr Daltum. An extraordinary waste of taxpayers’ money. Seriously, all official punishments in all senior girls schools to be recorded and logged? And what army of civil servants would be needed to review such a mountain of trash?”

“Again, with respect, I recall the sums of money hypothecated being escalated at each round of ping-pong between the two Houses, Secretary. By members of your own party.”

“Yes well our members were trying to get DR to drop the whole idea, weren’t they? To shelve their ridiculous plans by making the sums so eye-watering as to render it simply ridiculous to proceed.”

“Several of your members voted for the final package with the DR Government, Secretary. Which got the legislation over the line.”

“Still not official LC policy, Daltum.”

“You yourself were one of those who voted yes at that ultimate stage,” says Daltum in a growl.

Sardo Joinard does not respond.

“And you now run the department responsible for this eye-wateringly expensive equipment’s installation.”

“Well they’d already paid for it, hadn’t they?” says Joinard. “With a ring-fenced fund, I might add. So there’s nothing I could do about that.”

Jott Daltum eases back in his seat. His notes are left behind on the table. “The Liberal Conservatives won the last election with a stonking majority, Secretary. You could simply vote to change the legislation.”

“No, too late, all ordered. Put dozens of home-grown tech firms out of business by cancelling their Government-guaranteed orders? Bad idea! I think that shows your ignorance of economics, Mr Daltum, since several of those firms expanded their operations directly on the back of those Government Guarantees! No, the legislation was passed, with a commensurate boom in investment in important high-tech business. Which was the very reason I myself cut across party lines and voted for it, Daltum.”

“And now cameras and recording equipment are being installed in every senior girl’s school in the land.”

“Well, Democratic Reform made that particular bed, and now they get to lie in it.”

“Why not simply re-assign the use of the equipment, Secretary?” The desk-bound Daltum steeples his fingers in front of his bow tie. “Teach the girls how to use it to make something more useful. Media studies, say - instead of it being used only to record their every last punishment.”

“Girls?” asks Joinard. “You’re suggesting we train schoolgirls to use cutting-edge recording equipment?”

“Since it is being installed in those girls schools, Secretary, why not?”

“Ridiculous. Preposterous! You’ve swallowed the LD rump’s propaganda hook, line and sinker there. And besides, the equipment’s intended purpose is specifically stated in the legislation. All such punishments, as intended, will indeed be recorded. And uploaded, soon after, to a centralised database, which is already commissioned and partially built. Exactly as the DR legislation intended. Such records, as you know, are to be kept there for official review, a policy committed in the parliament last.”

“To monitor them for the alleged abuses and to crack down on any such abuses found.”

“Yes, well that was the official rationale, of course. All so a few tut-tutters could scrawl through all those pointless records ad infinitum, to finally proclaim, ’Too much! Too much!’”