by Baz Wade
Speaker:
Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the Peoples of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and of your Possessions and other Territories to any of them belonging or pertaining, according to their respective laws and customs?
Monarch:
I solemnly promise so to do.
Speaker:
Will you in your power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgments?
Monarch:
I will.
There then followed prayers led by firstly the Archbishop of Canterbury, then a senior Imam, who spoke mainly in English but with some quotations in Arabic, and lastly the Chief Rabbi.
“Hedging his bets, I suppose. But why no contributions from a Buddhist or a Marxist?” asked Harry, half jokingly, as The Sun’s editorial team watched the ceremony on their main TV monitor.
“They had to draw the line somewhere,” was Sheikh’s dry response.
Towards the end of the ceremony, Karim and Kirsty walked down the aisle between the onlooking congregation while a choir chanted
Vivat Rex!
Vivat Regina!
“There has to be some Latin content to satisfy the Catholics,” commented Harry.
It wasn’t immediately apparent but another practical problem had to be surmounted – that was in relation to the crown being too heavy for the Monarch to walk unsupported. The problem was eventually resolved by the use of a more lightweight crown still bejewelled, but enabling greater mobility.
The formalities were concluded by a State banquet in the main dining room at Buckingham Palace populated by the great and the good of British society and public life.
The reign of Karim I was characterised initially by the consolidation of the political power of Ibrahim and the Free Democrats.
“We need now to think about repaying the political debts we incurred on the path to power,” remarked Alistair Faulkner, Ibrahim’s chief policy adviser. “The Greens, Socialists and Muslim pressure groups, in particular, will now expect something in return for their various contributions.”
“I’d like to encourage Islamic banking and Sharia law options in regard to family and criminal law in particular,” was Ibrahim’s response.
The option of having Sharia law applied in criminal matters was not an unmitigated success.
The option to elect for Sharia law to apply in your case benefited all accused persons, both Muslim and non-Muslim.
Sheikh never missed a trick, and immediately saw an opportunity to exploit the new system for commercial gain.
Sheikh, using an intermediary, proceeded to contact a far right group who happened to support Arsenal Football Club and paid them to chant anti-black slogans, and throw bananas at a black Tottenham player. The Sun then sent a film of the incident to the Metropolitan Police together with a letter of complaint.
Fifteen of the culprits were cautioned and two of the ringleaders prosecuted. The latter opted to be tried under the Sharia system.
The Sharia legal penalty for hooliganism of this type was a heavy fine or a public judicial caning as practised in places like Malaysia. Sheikh, via an intermediary, paid the accused, firstly to plead guilty, and secondly to elect to be subjected to a judicial caning instead of a fine.
From Sheikh’s viewpoint, everything went like clockwork. He was even happy with an unplanned twist to the chain of events, which occurred on the day of the caning in Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, prior to the start of an important fixture with Chelsea.
As soon as the culprits dropped their trousers in order to be caned, there was total uproar in the form of cheering and clapping from the 70,000 onlookers.
The causes of this reaction were the icons tattooed on the backsides of the offenders – one had St George’s flags – red cross on a white background – on each buttock, the other had left and right palm prints.
The Magistrate supervising the proceedings immediately ordered an additional eight strokes of the Rattan cane to be administered to each offender for showing contempt on top of the basic twelve strokes already ordered by the Court earlier.
Sheikh had paid the offenders £10,000 each and the following day got his money’s worth with 100% sell-out edition containing the never to be repeated headline:
RUMP STEAK 100% ENGLISH BEEF –
SPECIALLY PULVERISED FOR TENDERNESS!
There were “before” and “after” photos but only the “before” photos were printed in the paper – the “after” photos were only available online on payment of £5.00.
“Was there by any chance a serious point to this circus?” Harry asked Sheikh at the next editorial conference.
“Kind of – I just have a hunch that there is a strong and substantial element within the English public who are incapable of being humiliated whatever so-called punishment is meted out to them. I reckon my experiment, if you can call it that, proves that point – as well as making us a load of cash.”
“Prime Minister, we need to think now about repaying the political debts we owe to the Socialists and the Green Party – do you have any preferences?” asked Faulkner.
“Okay, on socialism let’s go for more workers on Boards and more tax breaks for rewards in the form of shares rather than cash – any related tax reliefs can be cancelled if the shares are sold within 2 years – we can discuss this in Cabinet, but anyway I can’t imagine much opposition on those points either in Cabinet or Parliament, after all Smithson promised both in the last Tory Manifesto!”
“In that case they may not be socialistic enough, surely,” said Faulkner.
“Just tell them Attlee would have approved, which is probably true, that should shut them up.”
“Okay, what about the Greens?”
“Again, tax relief is a possible solution – let’s try more tax relief on investment in solar energy and woodlands. We’ll discuss it in Cabinet – I don’t foresee much opposition as it’s just more of the same.”
“By the way, where are we on Brexit, is it still a stalemate?”
Faulkner sighed – “We’ve only got a few more months to play with, Prime Minister, we need to get a grip and start thinking creatively. It looks like business wants a transitional phase, as do most MPs.”
“As you know, I was a keen Leave supporter,” said Ibrahim. “But, I can see the need for a compromise – how about a Norway style deal lasting for an initial period of 3 years with an option to renew?” Ibrahim suggested.
“The problem with that is that we’d have to keep free movement and contributions to the EU budget,” said Faulkner.
“Yes, it would mean being a member of the EEA and single market, but only on a temporary basis, and we’d be able to start making our own trade deals, unlike the Customs Union deal that some people were suggesting,” said Ibrahim.
“But free movement is a red line point for most Brexiteers, surely?” said Faulkner.
“Yes, but we can sweeten the pill by beefing up the requirements for EU Nationals and every other would-be immigrant having to have spoken and written English skills before they enter the country. In case anyone questions it, it’s already permitted under the public policy exemption within the free movement rules and we’ve already imposed language requirements on EU Nurses and Doctors.”
“But not to apply to seasonal fruit and veg pickers, surely?” asked Faulkner. “It’s not what the farmers want.”
“Okay, I wouldn’t have a problem with that – I’ll canvass my Brexit Minister and the Cabinet generally.”
Ibrahim’s personal and political following and his powers of persuasion were such that he was able to push through most, if not all, of the above policies
with some tweaking here and there.
Karim was impressed, and said as much during their numerous meetings. Karim had quietly dropped the term “audience” which he believed to be too archaic a term, in regard to his meetings with his PM.
“May I ask if you are managing to keep busy, sir?” Ibrahim asked Karim at one of their meetings.
“Please don’t worry about the sir, just call me Karim. You were mainly responsible for getting me this job, maybe I should be calling you sir,” responded Karim. “I’m finding more than enough to do, since you ask – I’m further researching the Arab Israeli conflict so I can be fully qualified to mediate if or when anyone asks me so to do.”
“That’s certainly a worthy project, well done indeed – have you got anyone helping you?”
“Only my Jewish friend from SOAS, David Rosenthal – he is fluent in Hebrew, which could be useful.”
“Well, if you need any other help, just let me know – I could probably arrange for a couple of research assistants from FCO to help you.”
“Thanks, I’ll bear that in mind – between us, David and I could probably already write a book on the subject, but we may need help later with making contact with the movers and shakers on both sides.”
“Have you had any new ideas that could lead to a breakthrough?”
Ibrahim was sceptical, but asked the question out of politeness.
“Yes, in fact we have – keep this under your hat for now – we’ve been toying with the idea of a neutral city state arrangement for Jerusalem – just the old city, the Temple Mount and the Holy sites – comparable to the Vatican in Rome.”
“Interesting, but who would head it up?” Ibrahim was still being sceptical, but polite.
“We were thinking in terms of a rotating Presidency with a change every 2 years.”
“Involving who?”
“Senior figures from within the three great religions of the Book – so a Muslim followed by a Christian followed by a Jew, and so on ad infinitum.”
“Right – so what about the rest of Jerusalem?”
“West Jerusalem could then be the capital of Israel and East Jerusalem the capital of a new Palestinian State. The stumbling block to Jerusalem being a capital was that it would have involved ceding control of the Temple Mount area, but the neutral city state idea neatly removes the main obstacle, surely?”
“Good, that sounds constructive and original – I’ve never seen anyone advocating that idea before – well done. Just be prepared for the head bangers on either side to shoot you down – it’s just too good an idea for that not to happen!”
Ibrahim decided to be encouraging in his approach, rather than appear negative.
“The problem is we’ll all be fair game so far as the paparazzi are concerned,” ruminated Karim.
“We’ll just have to work round them – we can offer them a half-hour long photo shoot to start with then, provided they leave us alone thereafter, make a few private shots available later to those papers and websites that play the game,” responded Kirsty.
“I’m really pleased that Richard and Sophia have accepted our invitation to Cortina – I just want them to have a great time – I’m sure it’s what our mother would have wanted. If only Granddad was still with us, he’d have thought of some solution I’m sure.”
Hassan had passed away peacefully six months previously but Karim was still having difficulty coming to terms with his loss.
“I heard that our mother used to lose the paparazzi by swapping ski jackets with friends or bodyguards, who would then act as decoys.”
“We can’t lose them by skiing faster, I’m not a good enough skier,” continued Karim, “I’ve only done a week’s skiing in Cortina plus half a dozen trips to the artificial slope in Dubai.”
“It’s no good running away from them, your grandfather always said that – they will always catch you in the end and punish you. Maybe we could use the point that you’re a slower skier than the rest of us to our advantage,” said Kirsty.
“How so?”
“I’ll let you know later, right now I need to look at these menus for evening meals at the chalet. Everyone needs to be well fed to get the best out of this skiing holiday.”
Kirsty knew what she was talking about – in an earlier life she’d had a successful season as a chalet girl in Val D’Isere, having learnt to ski as a child in Aviemore.
Karim, encouraged by Kirsty, had mothballed most of the Royal flight of aircraft in the interests of economy and environmental responsibility.
So, on 10 February 2019, the Royal party flew out of Heathrow to Marco Polo Airport, Venice on a scheduled Alitalia flight.
From Venice, the party progressed to Cortina D’Ampezzo in various 4x4 vehicles including a Range Rover and Jaguar F Pace provided by the Embassy in Rome.
The following day the whole party, including Karim, Kirsty, Richard, Sophia and their 2 children, Edward aged 5 and Grace aged 3, met on the slopes at 10.00am for the pre-arranged photocall.
Karim opened the proceedings thus
“Ladies and gentlemen
I know you have a job to do, and that’s why we are having this photocall.
However, I need to warn you, as diplomatically as possible, of two things.
Firstly, if we are bothered later on in this holiday by intrusive and aggressive paparazzi, for want of a better word, any material which is later published will be monitored and that publication, whether a paper or an online publication, will not receive any invitations to photocalls or the like for at least 3 years, and also not receive any of the planned privately taken photos of our holiday, which will be provided to the other publications which have complied with our ground rules.
I am sure I can rely on most of you to respect our privacy. For those that don’t, there is always the option of our suing in the Courts for breach of privacy for substantial sums, which we will donate to charity – the option to sue also applies to websites and so on who publish unauthorised photos online.
The second diplomatic warning relates to my lack of skiing expertise.”
Karim smiled while his family and some of the Pressmen gently tittered.
“Prince Richard and I have agreed that we will not be skiing together during this holiday as I am still an intermediate. I am pleased to say, however, that my wife, who is an expert skier, has agreed to coach me. The point is that this is likely to be your sole opportunity to photograph all of us together on the slopes as a party, so my advice is to make the most of it and forget about trying to chase us for the rest of the holiday. That’s it for now, and I hope you all have a very good day.”
Karim wasn’t going to publicly admit the point, but this second announcement was Kirsty’s idea in an attempt to minimise pursuit by paparazzi trying to secure shots of the whole group together.
On the evening of the third day of the holiday, Karim and Richard found themselves alone, the rest of the party having gone to bed after a tiring, but enjoyable, day on the slopes.
Richard was enjoying a large glass of whisky while Karim sipped at an apple juice.
“There’s a photo of our mother I’d like to show you.” There was a pause, and then Karim continued. “It was given to me by my grandfather on condition I didn’t show it to anyone until after his death, which occurred six months ago.”
“Fine, yes, I would very much like to see it,” responded Richard.
“It’s here,” – Karim reached for and opened a slim leather briefcase.
“I don’t have it on my laptop in case it might get hacked.”
The colour photo was of Caroline by a swimming pool wearing a bikini and clearly pregnant.
She was holding an issue of Paris Match – it was the same photo that Hassan had disclosed to Sheikh at The Sun at least 25 years previously.
The photo had discoloured over time, but was
still clear enough to see the well-known French actor whose photo was on the front cover of the magazine.
“So when and where was this taken?” asked Richard.
“As regards when, that would be within a week or so after 21 April 1994, that’s nearly four months after the crash in Italy which claimed my father’s life.”
“How can you be so precise about that date?” asked Richard.
“Because that’s the date of that edition of Paris Match – it’s written on the back of the photo – you can check it out online if you like—”
“No, it’s fine, I’ll take your word for it. What about where?”
“At a ranch in Morocco belonging to a good friend of my grandfather – about 50 kilometres from Essaouira – it’s a town on the Atlantic coast.”
Richard exhaled like he was stressed.
“I’m finding it hard to take in all of this. I knew she was still alive but she didn’t want us to tell anyone or try and find her.”
“Who is ‘us’?” asked Karim.
“Smiffy and me.”
“Who’s Smiffy?”
“Marigold Smith, my nanny. Mummy sent Smiffy a text saying she was alive but she thought her life was in danger – she said Smiffy could tell me but no-one else.”
“So she did not want your father to know she was still alive?”
“Quite so – by that stage their relationship was very acrimonious. There had been stories in the Press confirming that, and they had just got divorced, of course.”
As if he was reading Karim’s mind, Richard added:
“There may have been a conspiracy to kill our mother and your father, mainly because of your father’s religion, but I don’t think my father would have been involved – it wasn’t his style.”
“So who do you think would have been involved?”