Their Own Game

by Duncan James

  ***

  It was extraordinary what Northern Ireland did to politics. On the mainland, the parties were united, generally speaking, in their approach to the troubles. In fact, it was about the only subject where there was ever agreement.

  But across the water, the parties never agreed about anything, and probably never would. They didn't even agree about uniting against what some - as if they were governed by some other body - called "the British Government". But then they had religion, which was a stronger influence than politics. Except that it never was able to influence events, or the people who had control of events. But it did influence politics and politicians. What church you went to, or what religion you belonged to, was more important than anything else. You didn't need to think about politics - not in the democratic sense. Your religion decided your politics, where you lived, where you went to school and everything.

  Being a mainland politician, representing one of the major parties in your constituency, and representing your constituency in Parliament, was a relatively straightforward affair. True, there were often divided loyalties to be reconciled, between what the whips wanted you to do, and what your constituents thought you should do. Almost without exception or question, you obeyed the whip, especially if you were ambitious. Almost without exception, too, your constituency party understood that.

  Life became more complicated when you were a Minister as well. There was now a third force seeking to influence what you did. In particular, you had far less time to bother with local, constituency affairs. There were, after all, grave departmental matters of State to be attended to now. Generally speaking, your constituency party understood that, too. Of course, you still had to spend a bit of time with them - a weekly surgery, or something equally tiresome. After all, they voted you in, and could just as easily vote you out if you weren't careful.

  But being a junior Minister in the Northern Ireland Office had to be about the most bloody awful job in the world. James Anchor thought so, anyway, and he hadn't been there long. Not that he was about to say anything, mind you. Some quite senior people had whinged about going, gone anyway, and then been finished so far as their career was concerned. James was having none of that, scared as he was, like the rest of them.

  Fascinating but frustrating, that’s what it was. There always seemed to him little chance of making any impact on anything much. It was like trying to square a circle with knobs on. It couldn't be done. Better men than him had tried and failed. No sooner did you seem to be doing something that pleased one bit of the equation, than other bits started to sound mightily displeased. And doing nothing didn't please anyone, either. It was because they said we'd done nothing for eighteen months that they set off the Docklands bomb.

  Actually, things did start getting done pretty soon after that. Talks were set up that some people didn't attend, while others who hadn't been invited turned up and weren't allowed to attend. Elections were announced that nobody wanted. Dates were announced for more talks - that sort of thing. It wouldn't work, of course. None of it. It didn't stop the bombings, either. Nothing ever had.

  But it did seem obvious to James that one thing might make an impact, and so far as he knew, it hadn't been tried before. Probably because it was so far right wing to be out of sight. The sort of thing that couldn't be done officially. But it could still be done, with care. Blind eyes had been turned before.

  The trouble was, James had no idea where to start - not the slightest. It wasn't the sort of suggestion you made at a meeting, or even to close colleagues over a scotch. In fact it wasn't really the sort of idea you could ever mention, come to think of it. In spite of his excellent Cambridge degree, James had a reputation for being a bit of a scatterbrain, and a bit vague. Indeed he was, in a professorial sort of way, and he was sure that this would count against him if ever he should be brave enough to hint at his theory. But he had a sharp mind, was quick to reach the right conclusions, and had a sense of humour which helped him get by, often while others were catching up with his thought processes.

  He remembered being told when he arrived that if he ever thought he had the solution to Northern Ireland's problems, he had either been there too long, or been wrongly briefed. But this was different, he was sure. This was his idea. And it seemed so blindingly obvious, that he was quite convinced that there must be others wandering about the Province with the same idea.

  Like him, they were probably too frightened to mention it to anyone else. He certainly wasn’t going to.

  But then he met Major Bill Clayton, quite by chance. It was an informal occasion, he remembered, and they chatted quite amicably over their drink. They got on well, swapped ideas, and there it was. They had both, it seemed, been thinking along much the same lines. They agreed to meet again. The more they met, the more their ideas developed, the political mind playing off the military. It became almost a game for them. But they resolved never to mention it to anyone else, because they knew that no one else would take it seriously.