Avalon (44 page)

“You’re certain you can deliver a coalition-wide ‘no’ vote?” asked Donald.

“Don’t you worry about that. I’ll break heads if I have to.”

Huw Griffith smiled expansively, leaned back, and stretched his arms across the back of the chair. “If you help us oust Waring, I will personally see to it that you get all the help you need to defeat the referendum.” Huw slid his bulk along the leather bench and stood up beside the table. He stuck out his broad hand. “Well, how about it? Have we got a deal?”

“We do, Mr. Griffith,” replied Donald, rising to clasp the offered hand. “Indeed, we do.”

They shook hands, and Donald walked his guest to the foyer where the driver was waiting. Griffith sent the chauffeur on ahead, saying, “I’m right behind you, Archie.”

“Very good, sir,” replied the driver.

Stepping to the door, Huw said to Donald, “Just between you and me, Donald, I’m not convinced the monarchy is worth saving. But I can live with this James Stuart character as King of Britain a hell of a lot better than I can with Thomas Waring as the first president of the British Republic.”

“It doesn’t bear thinking about,” observed Donald.

“I’ve given you my word. You deliver those two seats, and I’ll put the party to work on the defeat of the last referendum. But it’s got to be one step at a time. We can’t let Waring get wind of any of this.”

“I understand,” Donald assured him, catching the undercurrent of the Opposition leader’s concern. “I won’t announce the new party until after the vote.”

Griffith stepped out onto the pavement. “Thanks for a most interesting lunch, Donald.”

“I’ll walk you to your car.”

“No offense, but I think it’s best if we are not seen together until after Wednesday’s vote. We’ll have a drink together afterward to celebrate our victory.”

“I’d like nothing better.”

Donald stood in the doorway until the car was out of sight. Then, stepping back inside, he dashed to the nearest phone to call James with the good news.

Rising early, Donald arrayed himself for battle, donning his best kilt — the Dress McKenzie — short black jacket with silver buttons, white ruffed shirt, sporran, heavy wool socks, and high-laced dress shoes. He looked every inch a Scottish baron on his wedding day. In fact, he had worn the same outfit on that occasion, too. A kiss from Caroline, and he was off in a cab to the Palace of Westminster, where by carefully contrived means he sent his co-conspirators their final instructions.

This occupied him through the lunch hour; he had sandwiches sent in, purposely keeping out of sight until Parliament was convened at half past two. Not wishing to appear too eager, he lounged for another hour, waiting for the first items of business to be concluded: the Speaker’s announcement of Alfred Norris’ death and the motion for a writ for a by-election to replace him. Next, there were three private bills to be read, and then departmental questions would be considered, by which time it was approaching four o’clock, and Donald, unable to wait any longer, decided to join the proceedings.

He walked down the long corridor and entered the chamber, bowing to the Speaker’s chair before taking his customary seat three up and on the aisle behind the leader of the Opposition. He settled back against the green leather bench, took a calming breath, and tried not to think — for the ten thousandth time — that today was D day, the day they ripped a hole in the famed Waring Wall of Steel.

While a Treasury minister answered technical questions about apparent funding anomalies discovered in a recent departmental audit, Donald occupied himself with a quick survey of the benches. As expected, it was too early to tell much one way or the other; neither side of the House was anywhere near full capacity. Judging from all the vacant places and the nearly empty galleries, the Government side was at about a third of its strength, while the Opposition was only showing about a fourth.

Well, he told himself, it is early yet; there is still plenty of time to get the troops into position. Turning his attention to his order paper, he saw that the Highway Compliance Bill was last on the agenda. Two other items stood ahead of it. The next hour was taken up with matters of constituency concern, and a few more members drifted into the chamber in preparation for the day’s main business.

When the Defense Secretary, an austere and normally very quiet member of Waring’s cabinet, rose to make a ministerial announcement regarding the Government orders for two new submarines, Donald began to suspect that his bombshell had been discovered. His suspicions deepened when the lengthy ministerial announcement was followed by two more time-wasting statements — one from the Environment Secretary putting forth the Government’s intention to request funding for a feasibility study of commercial sale of Northern Isles wind-generated power, and the other from the Education Secretary, who issued a statement on the revision of Government policy regarding harmonization of A-level testing of modular subjects.

Donald could not understand what Waring expected to gain by employing such lame tactics. Did he actually hope to delay the bill coming to the floor? Waring would know better; the Opposition would simply call the question and demand the vote. Then, as Donald looked around the chamber, trying to catch a glimpse of his co-conspirators on the Government back benches, the explanation occurred to him: the delay was not to avoid the vote but to discover the traitors within their ranks.

Somewhere in the bowels of Whitehall, he thought, the Government Whip’s office must be knee-deep in blood. Donald had only been called to the Opposition Whip’s office once, and that was for a more or less friendly chat regarding a personal matter. Even so, he left the interview a firm believer in the power of the Chief Whip and his own utter insignificance in The Grand Scheme of Things. He had heard of grown men weeping and offering up firstborn offspring to appease an irritated Whip. In the parliamentary firmament, the Whips were archangels charged with divine retribution, and their ability to extract obedience was nothing short of miraculous.

As Donald sat contemplating the horror facing his co-conspirators, a sick dread crept over him. What if his revolt had been discovered and his secretly royalist friends caught?

There had been no way to disguise the three-line whip. For a politician of Waring’s acumen and experience, it wouldn’t have taken the usual spies or moles to tell him a major confrontation loomed. When a simple straightforward, noncontroversial bill enjoying full cross-party support was suddenly subjected to a three-line whip — a signal requiring every voting member
without exception
to attend and toe the party line — alarm bells would have run at Number Ten. Accordingly, Waring had issued his own three-line whip to counter the Opposition, and prepared for a showdown.

It was Donald’s dearest hope, however, that in the hours between learning of the Opposition’s maneuver and the convening of Parliament, Waring had not been able to ferret out the traitors and turn them once more to the Dark Side.

More MPs arrived in the chamber and took their places; the galleries began to fill up with journalists and friends of Parliament. Now Waring’s cabinet was assembled in force on the front bench across the House divide. Grim-faced, haggard, sweating in their expensive suits, they had the look of men who had been stoking coal-fired furnaces with shovels two sizes too small. The image gave Donald a fleeting comfort.
Get used to it, lads
, he thought,
this is just the beginning
.

By six o’clock, the chamber and galleries were at standing-room-only capacity, with members and essential officials still crowding in. The press pack, scenting blood on the wind, had assembled in full force; if history was going to be made, no one wanted to miss a moment. Donald looked in vain for his co-conspirators, but could not locate them in the throng.

At twenty past six, Prime Minister Waring entered with his three closest advisors. He moved with confidence to his place on the front bench and, after a brief exchange of words with those around him, sat down. Of all the Government MPs, only Waring himself seemed anything other than miserable; he looked edgy, angry, itching for a fight.

At Waring’s appearance, the Government launched its first attempt to keep the Highway Bill from coming to the floor. The Home Secretary led the first attack. “Mr. Speaker,” said Patricia Shah, “it has come to this government’s attention that a recent cold snap in the northern counties has left a considerable number of elderly and homebound citizens without adequate heating. It is this government’s duty to put forward emergency legislation to provide for an increase in home energy allowances available to old age pensioners and those on disability benefit. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I do move to suspend the business before the House in order that we might put this time-sensitive legislation through while it is still possible to do some good.”

The opening volley was particularly well aimed, thought Donald. They had attacked a place where the Opposition was traditionally weak — their advocacy of the poor and infirm. In effect, they were attempting to bribe the weaker Opposition members with valuable constituency propaganda.
Give us the Highway Bill, they were saying, and we’ll let you have some votes for your marginal seats
.

Waring knew full well there would be those in Huw Griffith’s camp who would find resisting such temptation very difficult indeed.

It was Huw Griffith himself who picked up the gauntlet. “Mr. Speaker,” he bellowed, taking his place at the dispatch-box, “while we grant that an increase in home energy allowance is desperately needed, we cannot agree that this motion is of sufficient urgency to suspend the day’s business. If it had been so, we believe this government would certainly have introduced it properly under standing order number twenty. However much we would like to accommodate the Government on this point, I beg the Speaker to disallow the motion and proceed with the business before the House.”

Speaker of the House Olmstead Carpenter agreed with the Opposition that the application for an emergency debate should have been made prior to commencement of the day’s business, and suggested that introduction of the proposed legislation at this point amounted to an unnecessary delay.

The Government took the denial of its motion without grumbling, but swiftly made two more motions to set aside the day’s business. The clock ticked slowly on, and the great shambling Welshman stood to his work; with patience and skill, Huw Griffith doggedly met each stratagem with cogent and plausible arguments. Although it took the better part of another hour, by seven-thirty he had cleared the way, and the House moved on to the first agenda item.

By prior arrangement with Opposition backbenchers, legislation was allowed to proceed unopposed, which brought the Highway Bill to the floor at last. The Government, desperate now, objected on the grounds that, owing to the lateness of the hour, the bill would not get its full share of final debate.

“Mr. Speaker!” shouted Charles Graham, leader of the New Conservative Party and Huw Griffith’s loyal shill. “As this legislation has already received two complete readings, I suggest the Government’s motion amounts to an egregious waste of time and taxpayers’ hard-earned money. I must therefore object, in the most strenuous terms, to any further delay in bringing this important and necessary bill to a vote.”

The Opposition benches erupted with “Hear! Hear!” and, “Bring the bill!”

When relative order had been restored, the Speaker of the House ruled that there was no compelling reason not to proceed with the vote. “The Government will bring the bill,” he commanded sternly.

Prime Minister Waring, icily calm on the front bench, nodded slowly, and the Transport Secretary, Michael Gowring, took his place at the dispatch-box. “Mr. Speaker,” he said without enthusiasm, “I move that the bill before us be now read for the third time.”

He then proceeded to read out the bill in all its tongue-tied legalese, and closed with the standard recommendation that the bill should be passed as read, whereupon the question was opened for the third and final debate. As expected, there was no real debate at all. While no one liked it very much, the renumbering of British motorways to conform to the European highway numbering system was a foregone conclusion; it had to happen if Britain expected any future EU money for roads.

When no members stood to speak, Charles Graham rose and said, “Mr. Speaker, I move that the question be now put.”

Division bells were run throughout Westminster, and in all Commons rooms. There followed eight interminable minutes during which those already in the chamber shifted restlessly in their seats while the few stragglers were rounded up and herded in. When the Speaker called the question, instructing the members to vote aye or no, each MP reached for the pager-sized keypad on the bench before him and, after entering their personal ID number, pushed one of two buttons: green for yes, and red for no.

Donald, almost faint with anticipation, tried to read the expression on the face of the Clerk of the Chamber as the latter watched the electronic counter installed in his podium; but the man gave nothing away. Olmstead Carpenter called for the votes to be submitted, then asked for the result.

The Clerk turned to the Speaker’s chair, and declaimed in a loud voice, “Mr. Speaker, the vote has been cast and tallied. The result is as follows: for the ayes, three hundred and forty-five. For the noes, three hundred and forty-five.”

A moment of complete silence followed the announcement, and then the chamber erupted in roars of triumph and groans of defeat, over which the Speaker pounded his gavel, shouting, “Order! Order! Order, ladies and gentlemen, please! Order!”

When some semblance of decorum had been restored, Carpenter, in his stentorian voice, repeated the numbers, and added, “It would appear, Honorable Members, that the chair must cast the deciding vote.” He paused, considering, perhaps, the effect of his next words. “The Chair elects to maintain the
status quo
by registering a ‘no’ vote. The bill is hereby defeated by the margin of three hundred and forty-six to three hundred and forty-five.”