Angel Manifesto

by Michael Foot

  Two days before the weigh-off, Andrew brought the 200 together. It had been agreed at the outset that the elephants themselves would not be reweighed; what they had clocked up the first time was the bar. The course members could be weighed in batches of around 50, so Andrew decided that three of those and one of 40 would be best. He also arranged some clever animation, graphics that could be shown on the TV so that, as each group was weighed, part of one of the four elephants turned from grey to red on the screen. The aim of course being to make sure that there was only one elephant left on the screen in grey when the last participants had been weighed. Andrew decided against any preparatory weighing or checking the day before the event.

  Although the whole thing had been badly organised by what he had come to regard as normally high ‘Angel standards’, Michael had at least told him that no expense should be spared in playing it out. It needed 3 hotels in the area booked out wholly to Andrew to house the participants, a fleet of 10 coaches to transport them. And there were plenty of other costs on top. By the time the live broadcast began (at 10 a.m.) Andrew was already feeling like he had done a day’s work. By the time the weighing actually started (just after 11), the only thing keeping him going was adrenaline and an odd desire to know what would happen.

  The actual weighing (and the control of the computer graphics as each group was weighed) was all left in the hands of the TV company– who had made it politely but abundantly clear that anything else could be regarded by those watching as involving some form of cheating. Various ‘talking heads’ filled the TV hour before the weighing began, several of whom made no secret of their distaste for the exercise nor their view that any weight loss being recorded would be transient. One doctor, however, did provide balance by pointing out that, if the participants really had lost 20 kilos each and could sustain that loss, then the subsequent incidence of Type 2- diabetes in this group would be hugely reduced, while average life expectancy might have increased by at least four years. Andrew, wanting any good news, clung to those figures as he rushed around with Chloe providing last minute encouragement and support to the groups, trying to keep the atmosphere relaxed, ‘fun’.

  The participants themselves were individually checked by the TV company between 10 and 11, to make sure they had featured in the original weigh-in. A handful were interviewed and, to Andrew’s relief, these people majored on the life skills they had been given, consigning the weight loss to an ‘also-ran’.

  Then the weighing, in three lots of 50 plus one of 40, took place. Most people involved seemed happy and relaxed – after all, Andrew rationalised, if they failed it would be a collective rather than an individual failure. Fortunately the weather was dry and the good humour among those participating seemed to rub off on the camera crews and the journalists who had turned up. The computer graphics had been structured, so that as a batch of 50 was weighed, the collective total was turned into ‘elephant equivalent’ and part of an elephant went from grey to red on the screen.

  Andrew couldn’t keep count of what was needed from each batch to achieve the overall target. But when the last lot, of 40 came up, he could see that nearly 2½ of the 4 elephants had turned red.

  Andrew could hardly bring himself to look after the last weighing. But a ragged cheer went up from participants who, safely weighed, were standing round watching TV monitors. One whole elephant was still grey. The 190 had indeed lost around 4,000 kilos between them, the equivalent of one female elephant.

  The whole thing was, as Andrew had rather hoped, a three-day wonder. But it did serve the purpose of bringing the Angels to the attention of a group of the public who probably had less idea than the average as to who the Angels were, let alone what they stood for.

  The one thing Andrew did remember, from that evening, was that he and Chloe went back to his flat and he prepared a good bottle of champagne (mainly for Chloe’s sake) to go with the takeaway he had ordered. He scrolled into the main Angel social site and read the now many comments from Angels who had seen or heard of the day’s events but who had had no part in them. From that, he saw that he had a new nickname, ‘Elephant Man’; he suspected it was going to be a long time before he shook that off!

  24

  Andrew spent an increasing amount of time, thereafter, helping with Angel work ahead of the Election. The Angels had in the end decided to contest nearly 400 of the 600 seats – Michael had obviously concluded that Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales involved too much ‘stretch’ for them at that stage. He had also written off a number of Tory and Labour seats as ‘no-hopers’ first time round. The preference, clearly, had been to go for seats where Tory and Labour votes had been within about 10% of each other at the last Election and/or where there were significant numbers of Muslims and/or younger people; or a significant vote last time for a third party (nearly always the Lib Dems).

  Andrew himself knew just how much effort the Angels had put in the months up to the Election in getting Muslim and younger non-Muslim voters under 30 to sign up and ensure they could vote. Also, the organisation on the ground of the seats they were fighting seemed good. By a year before the Election, the Angels had named candidates in place for each of the constituencies they were contesting. Party offices had been rented and were up and running in most of them. All the candidates were ‘local’ – people who could claim reasonably close connection with the area. Also, none of them had ever been MPs before. One of the Angels’ first declarations in this area had been that their proposed MPs would all be newcomers to the political scene; also that, if elected, no Angel MP would stand at more than two consecutive Elections for the same seat. Michael clearly wanted to show just how different his party was going to be from those who had dominated up to now.

  Money was not in short supply, nor were ideas, many of which sought to move the new party’s appeal beyond the young. Michael had once said to Andrew that the party needed at least 6-7 million votes first time round and to draw roughly half from each of the other main parties. “Otherwise” Michael had said “we’ll be like UKIP in 2015 – 4 million votes and just one MP. Last time, the Tories and Labour both got around 40 % of the votes cast. If we could knock 10 or 12% off both in the seats we’re contesting, energise the younger voters and, in some parts of the country, appeal to Muslim and a still sizeable Lib Dem vote, we’ll be getting somewhere. As soon as we get above 30% of the vote in a constituency, especially those where Tories and Labour typically both poll well, we’re in the mix. And a few % on top of that will bring a large number of seats.”

  With Labour that meant primarily drawing away the youth vote. For the Tories, it meant appealing to a quite different group, typically much older and more established with more to lose from a major change of Government. The typical Angel proposition here was that, after all the self-inflicted wounds over leaving Europe and with an inconsequential leader, the Tories had little chance; so why not put your vote somewhere where it might matter more and keep a left-wing Labour party out at the same time?

  Andrew enjoyed the work but he found it draining. In particular, it required him to debate a lot of issues with the kind of people that the Angels needed to win over – issues which, in many cases, he had rarely thought about before. When she joined him, Chloe seemed much less affected by this; her interest in – and empathy with – sometimes dotty or inconsistent ideas struck him as amazing. But, at least for now, everything she did just made Andrew love her more and want to be with her more.

  25

  Over the summer, in the run –up to the Election, the pollsters usually gave the Angels 20% plus of the vote, drawn it seemed almost equally from Labour and Tory. As one of the PR people said “Just like the Lib Dems in the good old days and a fat lot of good it did them.” One thing the Angels did take comfort from was that Angel ratings were moderately higher in the seats that they were contesting. Another ‘encouragement’ was that – while the Angels were stuck at this level of support, the two main part
ies spent most of their time and money fighting each other. Both of them obviously found it infuriating that the Angels almost totally refused to discuss Europe, the source of so much division and bitterness in both main parties over the previous decade. The basic Angel line, when pressed, had been very well put by Gabrielle (who was getting a lot of air time and favourable comment) early in the campaign. “The UK electorate made a decision in the referendum in 2016. The country then tore itself to shreds until the final deal with the EU had been done in 2020. We have no intention of picking that deal apart. But we do hope that, by being new, by being reasonable, we can take the Agreement to a new level with active EU support, in a way that is clearly good for the UK. Until we are in power and have met with all the people here and in the EU who we shall need to talk to, that is all we can say. The subject of Europe has already done the UK enough damage.” That was a line that seemed to go down very well, especially with the younger voters.

  That would probably have been that, with the Angels emulating UKIP, though – whenever Andrew got depressed – he did at least draw hope from the huge swell of optimism and purpose that he saw whenever he was with a mass of Angels. However, over the last two weeks of the campaign, things changed, with three ‘surprises’ (the term afterwards coined by political journalists who had been wrong-footed).

  The first came just 12 days before the Election. Clearly Michael and others had been working on it for some time and, to some extent, must have influenced the timing. However it had panned out, the result was that, over a 24 hour period, based on information provided by the Angels but especially by the Muslim Angels, a major terrorist cell that seemed ready to launch a wave of attacks was smashed by police, in the Midlands and in London. The police themselves were a little coy about how they had been given such productive and ‘live’ leads; but Jibril wasn’t. And he had such detail at his fingertips that, within another 24 hours, the police were admitting off the record that they had been led to the main addresses and given a vast amount of prior information by the Angels.

  Michael’s PR people played this cleverly. Of course, it had been vital to tell the police now before the attacks had been launched – it was the proximity of these attacks that had determined that the time had come to spring the trap. But this was not just a ‘dividend’ from having the Angels actively around; it was – the Angel PR machine implied – just a first instalment on what could be expected in future. ‘Undercover’ Angels – mostly Muslim – had come up with the information and passed it on, often at great personal risk.

  The second ‘surprise’ was similar in its way. Just a couple of days later, police were able to intercept large drug hauls in Edinburgh and Liverpool. And this time, Angels who had once themselves been addicts had come forward with information that would put the rings concerned away for years. Even though, in a few cases, individual Angels were themselves going to have to admit to offences that would involve prison sentences. As Gabrielle said in an early interview after the news had broken: “Any drug lord anywhere in this country now knows that he may have people working for him who actually belong to us. And that these people are now brave enough – because they have Angel resources behind them – to stand up and be counted.”

  When Andrew first heard of the drug busts, his initial reaction was to shrug his shoulders. Drugs were now so widespread and varied that even a couple of major seizures were just small waves on a big ocean. But, over the next couple of days, as the press took on board both these ‘surprises’, Andrew had to admit that they were playing very well with a critical part of the Electorate, the older and richer who seemed to take such threats to their wellbeing the most seriously.

  26

  Neither of these ‘surprises’ by themselves in the common view afterwards would have been enough to swing a huge number of votes towards the Angels. But, when the third happened, the three together had an enormous effect.

  It was the Saturday before the Election, so just five days to go. The Angels had organised a variety of events, several of which of course were music festivals, around the country. But one of these had been set up as a gig in the Park, the Park being Hyde Park. That location had been the stage for a number of big music events over the years. But somehow Michael had got approval for a twist at the beginning. Michael himself would fly in by helicopter, make a short speech to rally the troops and then leave the 150,000 or so expected to enjoy some of the best bands in the country. Most of these bands, Andrew later found, had contributed their services for free. The tickets themselves cost a ludicrously cheap £10. But even that was enough to pay for the remaining expenses, thus avoiding any risk of the Angels being accused of spending that should have been counted as part of their ‘allowance’ under the rules governing Election spending.

  Perhaps more difficult must have been getting official approval for the helicopter to come in; but Michael had obviously called in a few favours; and probably the London authorities didn’t want to appear in any way to be blocking the Election hopes of a party that, anyway, wasn’t contesting many London seats.

  Andrew and Chloe had been lined up to be among the 1,000 or so Angel stewards needed to run the event – something that Chloe at least had done several times before. When they went to the rehearsal the day before, they were told that they should position themselves by 10 a.m. near the front of the main music stage. Michael’s helicopter would fly in; he would walk about 100 yards along a prepared turf path, make a short address and then leave, to move onto the next rally. As they would be sharing this space with the Angels’ Choir who would be providing the pre-show entertainment, that sounded pretty easy. And Andrew had heard the Choir before and knew how good they were. Most of the music they sang had a religious background. The first time Andrew had heard them singing a version of some Taize chants in Latin and English, he had actually felt deeply stirred, most unusual for him.

  By 10 a.m. on the day, Andrew and Chloe were on parade as requested. It was a cool crisp autumn day but mercifully there was no sign of rain. Andrew reflected, not for the first time, how lucky the Angels seemed to be with regard to the weather for their big outdoor events. Proceedings were meant to start around 12, with Michael’s arrival. The music was expected to carry on until late evening and end with a candle-light vigil/celebration; and Andrew quickly heard from several around him, the word was that Michael would return to lead the closing ceremony.

  By noon, there were at least 80,000 of the expected 150,000 present and the wide array of food and drink tents and vans were doing a roaring trade. He had got Chloe and himself a couple of coffees about 10.30 – the coffee not as good as he was now used to at Angel events but still very welcome in the circumstances.

  Around 11.30 the Choir started up and ran initially with songs that were well known and could be sung along to. Within minutes, the Choir had got several thousand new and untrained members. But, while to Andrew’s ear, it didn’t sound that good, it was certainly helping to create the right kind of atmosphere. Just once Andrew smelled smoke indicating that others there were getting mellow with chemicals. But he knew better than to go charging around looking for the source and remonstrating. The Angel approach was typically to acknowledge but ignore the existence of recreational drugs, just as with alcohol. Indeed, in his near year with the Angels now, Andrew could not remember ever seeing an Angel drunk or under the influence of drugs.

  Just after 12, a helicopter flew in low above the stage and set itself down about 100 yards away. The giant TV screens – which were later going to enable most of the crowd to actually see what was going on, on stage – swung round towards the craft. But the operators were clearly a long way away –i.e. near the stage – and the pictures weren’t in very sharp focus anyway.

  The helicopter door opened and a metal stairway quickly rolled up to it. What happened then became some of the most contested (and watched-over) TV footage in history, especially the material shot by the main TV camera crews who were t
rained on the helicopter. Andrew himself wasn’t watching the screens. He was busy making sure that the barrier marking out the walkway up to the stage was clear, that the crowds starting to press round it were far enough away; and that there were enough stewards around to provide an outer circle of protection for Michael as he walked to the Stage. (Over-enthusiastic Angel supporters wanting to touch Michael or, worse, grab a piece of his clothing were a well-known phenomenon that Andrew had been told very clearly needed to be avoided now.) Everything, he had been told, needed to look good on TV. For every person present here, there would probably be 10 people watching at home; and, if you counted in those who would later watch the news headlines, that number probably rose from 10 to 40.

  What happened next, Andrew was only able to piece together after the event. What seemed to happen was that a number of Michael’s entourage appeared at the top of the helicopter steps and descended, waiting to surround Michael when he came down. Andrew had already seen that there were a slew of foreign and domestic Press and TV people milling around, in a pen to which they had been admitted only after the helicopter had touched down. ‘Health and Safety in action even here’ he had thought at the time.

  Then a figure in white appeared at the top of the steps and raised both hands in greeting. The crowd – most of whom were at least 100 yards away – greeted this with a growing chorus of welcome, as they picked it up on the large monitors round the stage. Several groups of Angels started chanting Michael’s name – something which, again, Andrew had seen and heard several times before.