Chapter 53

Hope and Glory

Lord Newbury

2078

The whole thing had been a bloody fiasco. In fact, it had been a disaster from beginning to end. Instead of rallying the whole nation to the defence of the beleaguered nobility, the actions that Lord Newbury had foolishly allowed himself to be associated with had rather hastened its decline. On this very day, one and a half thousand years of history would be swept aside to placate the bloody-minded Scots. So much for a constitutional coup. It was more like a constitutional cock-up. And the worst thing was that the lord had nobody else to blame but himself.

Would the lord now be known simply as Mr. Norman Francis Erickson? Possibly he could still be left with a honorary title. Something with a less noble sound such as 'Sir'. Sir Norman was better than nothing, although it could never compare to Lord Newbury. That was a proper title. But if they could scrap the Royal Family, mightn't they also scrap the Honours System. Titles such as the Order or Commander of the British Empire had been anachronistic honorifics for well over a century and with no Britain, let alone a British Empire, they'd become even more anachronistic. But maybe they'd preserve the honorary title of 'Sir'.

Sir Norman.

Could he get used to that?

The question of how he would be addressed should be the least of his worries, but there had been little time to adjust to the change. When everything began to unravel it did so with indecent haste. What one day had been a conspiracy of growing significance that had yet to actually move into action suddenly became a major news story, a political scandal and a total calamity. Even now, Lord Newbury had no idea of who it was who'd been the despicable traitor. Somewhere within the lord's wide set of affluent or well-connected confidantes was a man or possibly a woman who'd betrayed the confidence with which they had been entrusted and sold the news story of a proposed reassertion of order to foreign newspapers. And once it was published in the Scottish press and reported in gruesome detail on SBC and WBC, it was only a matter of time until the generally compliant English newspapers joined ranks with the usual pinko suspects to print the gruesome details. The poorly funded EBC and the reliably reticent Sky News UK were amongst the last to make the public aware of what Lord Newbury and his accomplices had planned.

It was natural that the most loyal English media would be reluctant to break the news. Lord Newbury knew only too well how much it was implicated in the conspiracy. But the lord had now come to know who his real friends were. They most certainly didn't include the press barons, whether resident in England or abroad, who'd previously been so eager to conserve the legacy of nobility and status. After all, the likes of Lords Desmond, MacKenzie and Morgan weren't going to abandon their honorary titles without a fight. In fact, they were once the champions of the cause whose assurances of support seemed most rock-solid.

"We'll be behind you one hundred and one percent," said Lord MacKenzie. "We mustn't capitulate to the bloody Scots. They've already got independence. Why do they have to fuck up the rest of the established order? They'll never be satisfied until their bloody blue and white flag is flying over Westminster."

"I've got estates in Scotland," said Lord Morgan. "You have as well, haven't you, Norman? I know what the Jimmies are like. They're ungrateful buggers. We're well rid of them. But what do they do now but sanction a flood of workshy immigrants through the tartan border into the country. All those bloody Africans and South Americans! They can't use nuclear war as an excuse for inundating our noble land and taking jobs from good honest Englishmen."

Nevertheless once the news was out, the press barons were no more principled than anyone else. Not one of Lord Newbury and the other lords, knights and dignitaries whose names had been uncovered by the foreign press was spared the onslaught of intrusive press coverage, unsavoury speculation, and unmannerly paparazzi at the doorstep. The only thing that distinguished the conservative media from the pinkos was that those who Lord Newbury thought were his most natural allies were the ones who focused most on whatever snippet of tittle-tattle that could be found about the sex lives and peccadilloes of the privileged. Questions were asked about why Lord Newbury had never married, for instance.

Was there no matter of privacy left?

"What about the libel laws?" Lord Newbury asked his advisors, which included his solicitor, his press officer and Sir Wayne Yelland, a close associate of Lord Desmond whose presence was conditional on it never being made public knowledge. "Can't I use the libel laws to halt proceedings?"

"It's a bit late now, my lord," said the press officer. "Using that tactic will only make it seem like you've got something to hide."

"Why are your newspapers printing all that salacious speculation about me and Prince Brian?" demanded Lord Newbury. "What has that got to do with the constitution, Sir Nigel?"

"Nothing, my lord," admitted the knight and once senior editor of the Sun on Sunday. "But we need to do everything we can to focus the news on what is already known to the public. The more stories on those like you whose involvement is already public knowledge then the less attention will be paid on others whose involvement must be kept outside of the public domain."

"So why print that story of my holiday with Prince Brian?" wondered Lord Newbury. "Where is the public interest is that?"

"It had already been printed in Le Monde, my lord," said the press officer. "The English media couldn't ignore it."

"You aren't the only victim, my lord," said Sir Nigel, as if this made any difference. "Sir Eric Esterhazy, for instance, has definitely received worse."

"Do you want to destroy the reputation of every last decent man in this country?" pleaded Lord Newbury.