by Baz Wade
“We cannot afford to upset our Arab friends, sir. They are threatening already to give the Scottish government special status at our expense.”
“Well then I can’t see why you don’t call a general election. It is one you should win now Scotland no longer has MPs to challenge you.”
“And I have your Majesty’s blessing if I allow the Muslim Party to participate?”
“My blessing? Good God no, but I take your point about the economy. I don’t wish to see my Kingdom freezing to death as well as shrinking into oblivion.” The King stood up. “Besides, there is no legitimacy for an unelected government of the RUK.”
Taking his royal cue,Smithson also got to his feet.
“Thank you, your Majesty. I will set the wheels in motion.”
Back in Downing Street, Smithson was straightaway on the phone to his party chairman Sean Markinson at Conservative Central Office.
“I am going to go to the country at the earliest opportunity, Sean. I have the King’s blessing for this. Give me a date in about two month’s time, would you?”
Markinson made a quick scan of his diary.
“June 30th, Ivan,” he said. “Labour may not appoint their new leader till the party conference in October so we should have a clear run.”
Markinson was later to be proved wrong as no-one stood against Lena Khan, so she emerged as Labour leader in early May.
Markinson could hear the sound of uncorking; then something being poured and a gulp.
“What are the chances of another Rainbow Alliance to spoil our chances?” was the eventual response.
“Few I think,” said Markinson. “There is a lot of unease in Labour about their joining forces with the Muslim Party while it seems to be infiltrated by jihadi sympathisers. I can’t see Ibrahim sorting it out in time or even still being leader.”
“Is Lena Khan your preferred candidate for Labour Party leader?” Karim was in Hyde Park with Ibrahim. Where Obama or Trump would have been talking political tactics during a round of golf, they were kicking a ball around. “The Sun is supporting her bid and talking of a potential electoral pact with your party as a marriage made in Paradise. As if it is a done deal.”
“I’ve met her and am impressed,” Ibrahim replied. “She has concerns though about joining forces with my party. I don’t blame her, as I do too.”
“How do you mean?”
“The Muslim Party has problems, Karim. Our organisation is riddled with factionalism. Entryists from fundamentalist groups are controlling the selection of candidates for Parliament. If pluralists like me try and counter them, we find our finances from Saudi backers are withheld. What is worrying me is that the Saudi Government wants to approve our candidates.”
“Why should they do that?”
“The Saudi Royals are in an alliance with a brand of Islam that is not like yours or mine. It is intolerant, strict and puritanical. They certainly would not approve of your lifestyle.”
“So what is your plan?”
“I’ve arranged to meet a backer who has Saudi connections but is independent of the regime. I’m going to ask him to fund my party for the election. As you will be on the ticket for another Rainbow Alliance, I would like you to accompany me. His wife is charming I am told. Kirsty would surely like her so she must come too.”
“Like Lena Khan, you are assuming I want to be King to preside over a Rainbow Alliance government. You will both need to get your act together before I agree that.”
“I understand, Karim. No-one is going to pressurise you.”
The appointment Ibrahim had arranged was for lunch at an Indian restaurant in Westminster. Sultan was a Saudi banker in his early thirties who was financial adviser to four government ministers. Ibrahim pointed through the window to where they were already seated when his taxi pulled up outside the restaurant. Despite Ibrahim briefing Karim and Kirsty that Sultan was much more liberal and cosmopolitan than most Saudis, his wife, Shaya, was wearing a veil.
On seeing Ibrahim enter the restaurant, Sultan called over a waiter. A makeshift partition was arranged so that the party could have some privacy, whereupon Shaya, to Karim’s surprise, removed her veil. She smiled at Kirsty and started to chat fondly of London where she had met her husband who in turn spoke warmly of his time there, particularly his placement at Coutts as a trainee banker in 2005.
Without thinking, Karim ventured a question that was to change the atmosphere noticeably.
“You were there on 7/7 then?”
“Oh yes,” replied Sultan with a shrug. “And predictably that was blamed on Bin Laden too.”
Kirsty looked uncertainly from Sultan to his wife. Both seemed nonchalant about the matter. She looked at Karim.
“Well the bombers were home-grown British jihadis, it’s true,” said Karim. “That doesn’t mean Bin Laden was any less responsible for their preparation than when he provided resources and training for the 15 Saudi men who blew up the twin towers on 9/11.”
“No,” replied Sultan without hesitation. “No, because Saudis were not behind 9/11. The plane hijackers were not Saudi men. One thousand two hundred and forty-six Jews were absent from work on that day and there is the proof that they, the Jews, were behind the killings. Not Saudis.”
Karim looked at Ibrahim who had decided to study the menu as if he suddenly wanted to order a chapatti to go with his tandoori chicken. Shaya interjected.
“The number was higher than that, Habibi. And what was that film that predicted 9/11?”
“Yes,” Sultan said. “The Americans produced a film depicting the destruction of the twin towers by Jews before 9/11. They knew it was going to happen so they released a film. And now they blame us.”
Ibrahim looked up from his menu.
“And what was the name of that film?” he asked.
Sultan put down his knife and fork to take his phone from his pocket and call a friend. Not just one but several. None of them could remember the name of the film. He promised Ibrahim he would email him when he got the answer as he returned to the subject of bin Laden.
“We all like Osama; we just don’t like the bother he created for us,” he said. Then pointing to his wife, said her best friend was Osama’s niece.
“Really?” said Ibrahim.
“We know the bin Laden family,” said Shaya. “They are very humble and don’t show off like the newly rich Saudi families and people respect them for that. One of the wealthiest men in the world, Osama gave up everything.”
Shaya now addressed her attention to Kirsty in particular.
“Osama wanted Arabs to be great again, as we were in the past. He wanted us to do this through jihad.” Perhaps noticing Kirsty looking very uncomfortable now, she paused for a brief moment.
“The Americans are forcing our government to remove references to jihad in our school textbooks and most people are very angry about this”, she continued. “I will teach my children jihad and the true Islam that is taught in our Saudi schools. You won’t find me wearing a coloured headscarf like they do in Egypt or Yemen where they teach a deviant form of Islam.”
There was silence.
“Now what is it you intend for your Muslim Party, Ibrahim? To promote Muslim teaching obviously. I will be very happy to back that. What sort of money are you thinking of?” Sultan enquired.
“Oh, enough to pay our election expenses – £10 million should do. With enough MPs to ensure Islam is respected and understood throughout Parliament and beyond. You may need to channel it through English based companies.”
There was a pause in the discussion while the table was cleared. Karim and Kirsty took their cue from Ibrahim who declined Sultan’s offer of a dessert and coffee.
“More important than the sum is what precisely you stand for,” said Sultan. “I don’t represent the Saudi government but I would like a say as to what goes into y
our manifesto.”
“We need to move fast, Sultan. If you can advance half of what we need today, we can get the party organised for the election we expect to be called in June. The manifesto will be written as soon as our constituency parties are ready to launch our campaign.”
Ibrahim’s authoritative tone was sufficient for his donor to acquiesce. In their taxi on the way back to Kirsty’s flat, Karim was effusive in his praise for Ibrahim’s masterful diplomacy. He had got the funds he wanted but not committed to any details for an agenda that his donor was clearly pursuing.
“So what Islamic agenda can we expect to see in the party manifesto funded by our friend Sultan?” asked Karim.
“Oh, that as the Koran repeatedly reminds us, the vast majority of the world’s population will not become believers, to quote the Prophet ‘as to you your religion and to me mine’.”
But as Karim and Kirsty murmured their approval, Ibrahim counselled caution.
“It’s going to be a difficult period for us now if we are to find our way to gaining a significant presence in Parliament. The money we have we will use to purge the party of Jihadi influence, otherwise we cannot appeal to a wider electorate. As a condition of membership, there will be no longer be a written undertaking to promote and defend Islam. But Muslims will make an oath of allegiance to the British Monarch when elected to the House of Commons like anyone else.”
Kirsty and Karim both applauded in spontaneous approval.
“And when this is done,” Ibrahim carried on, “we will rename the party. So that there is no ambiguity in case people continue to think ours is a sham commitment to the democratic process, our party will go forward into the election campaign as the Muslim Democratic Party.”
11
After their ordeal at the hands of the Jihadi kidnappers, James and Clarissa retreated to Highgrove for a time to lick their wounds. At the suggestion of Smithson, anticipating a political dividend at the expense of Ibrahim’s supporters, James and Clarissa agreed to be interviewed by Piers Wheatley, the BBC’s Chief Royal Correspondent.
The interview took place in the garden at Highgrove in June.
Wheatley’s opening question was probing and calculated.
“Did you seriously think that your jihadi kidnappers might kill you?”
“We had no idea what their plans were,” responded James. “Sometimes I felt they didn’t know either – many of them seemed just to be teenagers.”
“With Yorkshire accents,” contributed Clarissa.
“It was really a case of ACHAB – anything can happen at backgammon,” continued James. “The leader, we nicknamed him Don, after Don Quixote, seemed volatile and unpredictable.”
“Does this experience colour your opinion of British Muslims?”
“To be frank, a lot of them would ruin our lives at the drop of a hat,” remarked Clarissa. “Khaki coloured scumbags if you ask me.”
“You’d better delete that last bit,” said James.
“Don’t worry, we’ll doctor it,” Wheatley promised, having no intention of doing any such thing.
“Talking of Muslim youngsters, do you have a view on Karim Khaled?”
“Yes, I’ve got a view,” said Clarissa. “He’s clearly an upstart and an imposter along the lines of Perkin Warbeck – the monarchy has seen this kind of thing before and we’re still here!”
A few days later the interview was broadcast with Clarissa’s remark about scumbags left in.
The Palace complained but it was too late. Wheatley wrote a letter of apology to James and Clarissa, blaming his Editor, but the damage was done.
Sheikh watched the programme with Harry Bennett and some other colleagues in his office.
He seemed less concerned about the scumbag comment than the reference to Karim.
“Who on earth was Perkin Warbeck?”
“Yes, I can help you on that,” said Harry, drawing on his knowledge as an Oxford History graduate. “He was a claimant to the English throne in the 15th Century. It was alleged he was one of the Princes in the Tower supposedly murdered by their uncle, Richard III, but his claim fizzled out amid reports that he was actually the son of a Flanders boatman.”
The following day, The Sun ran an editorial stating that Clarissa’s comparison of Karim with Perkin Warbeck was unfair and unjustified. Reporting of Clarissa’s racist remark was limited to a brief mention on page 4. Sheikh sensibly decided that the racist allegation would be better left for the likes of The Guardian to consider.
Various papers, and other sections of the media, took up the cudgels against Clarissa on the grounds of her reactionary and racist views.
James additionally courted unpopularity by writing to the Home Secretary suggesting a substantially beefed up citizenship test for all immigrants, and to the Education Ministry suggesting that the National Anthem should be sung in all schools every day in morning assembly.
Both letters were quickly leaked – the beefing up of the citizenship test was described as potentially discriminatory and the National Anthem idea was widely ridiculed as being old fashioned and inappropriate.
On Sheikh’s instructions, The Sun adopted a fairly low key approach on the leaked letters, as Sheikh was happy to let others stick the knife into James. After all, The Sun was a monarchist paper with monarchist readers and Sheikh did not wish to be seen to overegg criticism of the Royals.
Macmillan, British Prime Minister during the 50s, was once asked what he thought dictated politicians’ policy and actions, to which he responded by saying “Events, dear boy, events.”
Smithson re-discovered the truth of this statement when three crises hit the government in quick succession.
The first related to the Spanish naval manoeuvres and infringements of territorial waters around Gibraltar – Smithson was obliged to despatch three destroyers and two companies of Marines to beef up Gibraltar’s military capabilities, just when he needed these Forces to deal with the Scots and Jihadis at home.
Some of the Press predictably got worked up about the Spanish government’s opportunism. Additionally, Smithson appeared to delay and dither before the Forces were despatched and he was unfavourably compared to Mrs Thatcher and her handling of the Falklands crisis.
The second crisis related to revelations about paedophiles among the senior echelons of the Anglican Church. In some of the cases the allegations went back 35 years or so.
As with the earlier Catholic Church scandal, the Church establishment had seen fit not to sack the culprits. Instead, many were simply moved to new Parishes and in a few cases promoted to Bishops.
As the Monarch and government were involved in the appointment of Bishops, neither could escape responsibility, so James and Smithson, the current incumbents, suffered serious criticism, particularly from the tabloids, not least The Sun, which called for the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Partly as a result of misplaced loyalty, the King and Smithson stoutly defended the Archbishop and his Bishops, which enraged the tabloids, and no doubt many of their readers still more.
The third crisis could not have arisen at a worse time for Smithson and the Tories – just five weeks before the Election.
Alan Croft, the Tories’ Chief Whip, was the first to alert Smithson.
“Prime Minister, we’ve got a major problem brewing at the Treasury,” Croft said at their weekly meeting in Number 10. “The Guardian has today printed the first of what promise to be several articles by a whistleblower alleging that various Treasury staff used taxpayer funds to bet on currency and futures.”
“What’s wrong with that? I thought hedge funds in the City did that all the time,” said Smithson.
“Well it might be okay with the investors’ consent, but in this case the taxpayer hasn’t consented – it’s no joke.”
“Maybe not, but if they’ve not gained personally, th
en it’s not criminal – interview the culprits with Keith present and we’ll see what gives.”
Keith was Keith Dyson – Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Gavin MacDonald, the Number 10 Press spokesman, aka chief spin doctor, briefed a couple of journalists off the record leading to a headline the following day in The Telegraph:
“SOURCES CLOSE TO THE PM SAY THERE IS
NO EVIDENCE OF CRIMINALITY.”
This approach duly led to a headline the day after that in The Mirror as follows:
“CONSERVATIVES CONSENT TO CASINO
CAPITALISM – USING YOUR MONEY.”
Three days later Smithson spoke to Dyson in private in Number 10 after a meeting with the Cabinet.
“What was the outcome of the interviews of your boys at the Treasury using hedge funds without authority?”
“Trust me, Ivan, it’s a storm in a teacup,” Dyson responded. “We don’t leave taxpayers’ funds in a Building Society Account earning 0.1% interest. As well as gilts, there are a mix of investment vehicles we use to maximise returns for the taxpayer, less than 5% of which are hedge funds. The whistleblower was some kind of Marxist who didn’t fit in – we had to get rid of him.”
Smithson nodded in agreement, but Dyson would live to regret his complacency.
The whistleblower, an LSE graduate with first class honours by the name of Jeremy Gilmour, had further cards to play, if only someone would allow him to play them. At long last, he’d managed to arrange a meeting with Pete Shelley, the current editor of the satirical magazine, Private Eye.
The pair met at a run-of-the-mill pizzeria in Islington so as not to attract attention. The meeting took place one week after the story first broke in The Guardian.
“So how can I help you?” enquired Shelley.
“I can’t persuade The Guardian to go out on a limb and use the really hardcore evidence I’ve accumulated,” replied Gilmour. “They seem to be terrified of the potential legal consequences.”