CHAPTER 1

THE REVOLUTION BEGINS

 

Ursula Deedes moved into Number 10 Downing Street the next morning amid an unparalleled blaze of publicity. There were radio and TV crews from all over the world who were falling over each other to get an interview with the western world's most talked about politician. Despite the trauma of moving house, Ursula found time to deal with all the obvious questions of what seemed like a thousand and one journalists, the 'happy patter' questions plus one or two about her policy intentions, particularly from the American and European journalists who were concerned with how the new regime would relate to them. Ursula was polite and courteous but refused to go into details there and then, assuring them that a policy statement would be forthcoming before the end of the week.

Then, having disposed of the press, and having sent Andrew and the children temporarily back to their home in Kew, Ursula began to take charge. She summoned a meeting of all her most talented and influential colleagues at number 10 that very morning, some of them being surprised by the speed of her actions. Thus at 11 am, fifty senior members of the R. A. P. gathered around her and the forming of the new Government began. Sir Edward Young was named Home Secretary, and Byron McCormack the new Chancellor. Other jobs were very thoroughly debated and by the end of the morning, Ursula had the Cabinet she wanted. Then they got on to policy and this took the rest of the day. The hidden agenda was now discussed for the first time ... the draconian steps which Ursula had long thought were necessary to restore Britain's social order and its respectability and a plan of campaign was finalised ... a plan which would shock some people to their very roots.

The meeting broke up late in the night and despite intense speculation, the new Ministers would not reveal a thing to waiting pressmen, except the formal announcement of the new Ministerial posts themselves and the fact that the new Prime Minister would be taking a few days overdue holiday before Parliament reconvened. They said that before she left she would be making a televised address to the nation the following Thursday morning at 8 am. The Press and TV were compelled to speculate on the significance of this, particularly the timing!

Full of the election and of the Ministerial Appointments, the Press and TV paid scant attention to a news item that the new Government had decreed that a number of Army units were to be recalled from Northern Ireland and from peace keeping roles in Europe as part of a cost cutting exercise, nor that the Home Office had acquired a number of now disused Army camps from the Ministry of Defence. Why should they pay attention ... there were far more exciting items to report with crimes now at an all-time high and tourists afraid to visit 'Europe's crime capital' as Britain was unhappily dubbed.

As Britain went about its business and the Press and TV continued to monitor the comings and goings of the new Government, everything seemed to be going on as normal. Ursula was photographed with the family, and smiling she was photographed arm in arm with Julie McLaren, described by the Press as Ursula's inspiration throughout the campaign. A Sun reporter said to his boss that he thought he sensed something more than friendship in the intimacy of the photograph, but was blown away in a howl of guffaws.

"You wanna fly with that one? You're an arsehole! And you can pay your own libel costs ... not a fuckin' prayer!" and the thought was immediately forgotten.

During the nights of Tuesday and Wednesday, the 24th and 25th March, troop carrying aircraft flying in from Northern Ireland, Germany and the Gulf landed at military 'dromes all over the country, the disembarking troops being dispersed to pre-arranged destinations. Over the previous few days, a number of people out walking or driving had come across convoys of army vehicles ... tanks, armoured cars and jeeps ...and had assumed that some UN military operation was in place.

On Thursday morning, March 26th 2001, some chosen areas of Britain woke up to a terrible shock. Moss Side in Manchester was one such place, as were Brixton and New Cross in London, Handsworth and Nechells in Birmingham, Toxteth in Liverpool, parts of Glasgow, Newcastle, Bristol and Cardiff. In all these places racketeers and drug barons had operated with impunity for many years and that morning was for many of them to be their last day of freedom for a long time ... and for some their last day on earth.

The owners and dealers in the safe houses, the gaming clubs, the drug centres looked out on the morning of March 26th to find a cordon of tanks and armoured vehicles around the area and within minutes the sound of splintering wood and metal could be heard as troops, working with splendid precision and timing burst in armed with automatic rifles and sub-machine guns. Hundreds of terrified men and women, gangsters, thugs, racketeers all of them, were lined up against walls all over the country and searched then taken away in troop vehicles. Any who resisted were instantly shot dead: there were some thirty deaths during the round up. The remainder were taken to what would be the new Home Office internment camps, still done out as army billets, for there had been no time to make the appropriate changes before the round up began, but the camps were now all surrounded by a 20 ft high barbed wire fence. In any event, the military were still in charge and soldiers guarded the prisoners constantly.

While most of Britain was just setting out for work, or perhaps lingering to hear the unusually timed Prime Ministerial broadcast unaware of what was going on except for news flashes on radio and TV of unusual military activity, some terrified people were being grilled by special units of Army, Special Branch and MI5. All this had been set up in two days after the election, a covert operation which had worked beyond the new government's wildest dreams.

At 8am on all TV channels and on radio, programmes gave way to a ten minute broadcast by Ursula Deedes, the new Prime Minister. She began:-

"My message is to all the people of the United Kingdom and to all those who do us the honour of visiting these shores on vacation or on business. I am sure you will be surprised by the early hour of this broadcast but I can assure you it is with good reason. I could not have made this broadcast any earlier for it would have removed the element of surprise from an operation which I will acquaint you with shortly, nor could I have left it until this evening's peak viewing time ... for by then the country would be awash with rumour and half-truth. So I have decided to speak to you now.

"First of all, the rousing endorsement of my policies at the polls last Thursday has given me a fillip that I could not understate and has convinced me that the British people are sick and tired of the vicious criminal element which has made this country the terror capital of Europe. I promised that the Radical Action Party would live up to its name and this is exactly what it has done.

"We have taken steps which, and I will not lie to you, will probably shake some of the liberal elements in the country to the core and there will doubtless be much comment in the press ... but I will neither ban such comment nor shrink from it. The R.A.P. will not implement a dictatorship and the organs of communication are free to say what they will ... but we will not be deflected from steps we see as sadly necessary.

"The police have for many years been under strength and are, I am sad to say, pitifully ill-equipped to deal with the wave of vicious crime which has spiralled over the last few years, largely as a result of the drugs industry and centred in certain areas of our major cities. Despite their best efforts they have lost men and women, in action ... killed or wounded by evil people, or to private industry ... demoralised and depressed. Well, no more ... the police are to be given a boost in terms of pay, technology and licence," she paused, "... yes licence, for too long the criminal has had the advantage in our courts and within the Prosecution Service. Well, that will change. However the police need a fresh start ... a start dealing with a population which has, if such a thing is ever possible, an 'acceptable' level of crime which the Police are competent in terms of numbers to deal with.

"At present, that is not the case and it is for that reason that the Government has taken some very severe steps."

At this point, various maps of Britain's inner cities appeared behind Ursula's head and an electronic pointer accompanied her speech.

"In the areas you see behind me, deprived inner city areas where the drugs barons and other criminals have ruled for far too long," she paused again "... the Government has declared a state of emergency which suspends the normal constitutional dealings. The criminal situation there is being dealt with very effectively. Last night and early this morning, troops of the Kent Regiment, the Argylls, the Royal Gloucesters and divisions of the Special Air Service moved into the areas and cordoned them off. The soldiers, working with senior police chiefs and MI5, have identified known hardened criminals and are, at this moment, dealing with them as the situation necessitates.

"The State of Emergency will exist only in particular areas and notices will indicate when such areas are being entered. It will last as long as the Government deems necessary and there will be a daily update from one of our spokespeople on the 9 pm news. The criminals concerned in this operation will NOT be brought before a civil court for two reasons. One ... the extent of their criminality and their influence is well known and documented and the influence is such that these people would make civil trials costly and possibly pointless by threats and blackmail. Two ... so ingrained is the problem in these areas that the cost of the trappings of a civil trial would be astronomical. Therefore the Army has full authority to deal with these miscreants and to dispense appropriate justice until the situation is stabilised.

"I will not pretend that all our Police chiefs are happy about this development, but I have discussed it in full with them and they realise that at present they are sadly ill fitted to deal with infrastructural problems of this magnitude. Therefore provincial police forces will co-operate with Special Branch and MI5 in submitting to the Army all known facts on arrested miscreants. There will be no publicity surrounding the sentencing of the people concerned ... that will be an Army matter and subject to a 'D' notice. The overriding concern is that the problem is dealt with effectively.

"This operation will shock a large number of people. I am ready for that. I am more than happy to accept criticism if it means that people who for so long have lived and walked in terror in this country can sleep happily in their beds. For those people who put their trust in me ... I will not let you down. Men and women who are law abiding have no reason to feel threatened in this country today. For the others, today is just the start. Thank you for your time and good morning!"

 

Ursula was not wrong about the uproar. As the new Prime Minister got up from her seat, with the TV cameras switched off, she gave a self-satisfied smile and joined her husband and children in the sitting room of their new home, a family proud of the new Prime Minister but who was still Mom to them, and got down to the business of going away for a week's quiet holiday in the Western Isles that very night, where Ursula could rest and Andrew could fish and the kids could play without fear of violence or death. Soon, Ursula was determined, the rest of Britain would be the same.

They were on their way within an hour, leaving, as agreed, Sir Edward Young to face the flak of the Government's shock announcement, and flak there most certainly was. The news media were buzzing with the story, journalists caught by surprise by both the story and its implications, which had been Ursula's intention. She knew that although TV got the stories across more quickly, the newspapers still held the nation's emotional pulse and because of the timing they would not be able to comment until the next day by which time the policy would have been largely effected in this 'surgical strike'.

There was no doubt it was ruthless, Ursula had admitted as much and by all definitions it was undemocratic. She had admitted that too and she knew that stories of what had happened to some of the captives would leak out and the minor criminals would run to the newspapers with their stories. She did not care and the Government had braced themselves for just this possibility, believing that the stories themselves would act as a deterrent to others.

Ursula was far away in a secret hideaway by the time the storm broke and Sir Edward Young faced a very difficult and stormy session with the media which he handled by means of a series of prepared answers. Opposition M.Ps, the few that were left, all clamoured for some media time to wring their hands and talk of a return to the dark ages and the death of democratic politics. The fact that Britain had been employing these methods in Northern Ireland for nearly half a century with the cognisance and encouragement of these same M.P.s seemed to escape them ... but it did not escape Sir Edward Young who made a very effective plea for time to let the new policy work, that it was a one off clean-up campaign which may last some months, before true democratic justice was restored.

What happened in practice was even sterner, even more chilling even than the Press had intimated. The Army very efficiently having secured the miscreants in the camps, then proceeded to grade them in accordance with information supplied from the Police and the security services. There were four grades of prisoner:- Grade A were the capos, the top bosses and hit men, the men and women who dealt out death over the telephone and by fax machine. Grade B were the lieutenants who acted on and further delegated the orders, the cruel executioners of their masters commands. Grade C were the pushers, the men and women who stood on the street corners dealing out crack, Ecstasy, cocaine to young and old alike, too far removed from the power structure to be anything but functionaries and finally Grade D the couriers, the runners who delivered messages and sometimes packets to the pushers themselves. These were usually youngsters, now very frightened and sweating with fear, awaiting their fate.

Once the grades were established, the questioning began in total secrecy and for maybe a week, soldiers trying to sleep had to bury their heads in the pillows to try and blot out the noise of screaming A and B grade prisoners under 'severe interrogation' in the punishment block. Once the Army had all the information it needed to round up other names that had dodged the net, the A and B category prisoners were compelled to sign a confession form which, after their ordeals, most did with alacrity. Then they were told they would be transferred to a high security camp by lorry and were taken out in the middle of the night to open woodland miles from anywhere. Some farmers in the lonely farmhouses swore they heard distant volleys of rifle fire in the middle of the night, but put it down to thunder or electrical disturbances of some sort. The lorries however returned to the camps empty and the prisoners were never to be seen again.

For the rest, there would be very painful lessons to learn before they would again see the light of day. The Grade C prisoners were ordered to be detained in the camps until such time as the Home Office could effectively take over and make a rational assessment of the length of time they would be detained in the new top security prisons and what additional punishments they would receive.

The Grade D prisoners were mainly women and girls regarded as lightweight ... more stupid than criminal and in some cases merely frightened of boyfriends, husbands ... and in some cases even fathers. It had therefore been resolved to let them go home, after admitting their guilt in writing. However, they were still guilty of criminal activity and the Army chiefs had decided they would not be released unpunished. They would be given a lesson to remember, a sharp humiliating lesson which would leave most of the girls crying themselves to sleep that night!