The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [467]
Article in The New Oppressor,
the official mouthpiece of the Whig Party
How did Kaine rise so quickly to power?” I asked incredulouslyas Joffy and I queued patiently outside Swindon’s ToadNewsNetwork studios that evening. “When I was here last, Kaine and the Whig Party were all but washed up after the Cardenio debacle.”
Joffy looked grim and nodded towards a large crowd of uniformed Kaine followers who were waiting in silence for their glorious leader.
“Things haven’t been good back here, Thurs. Kaine regained his seat after Samuel Pring was assassinated. The Whigs formed an alliance with the Liberals and elected Kaine as their leader. He has some sort of magnetism, and the numbers that attend his rallies increase all the time. His ‘British unification’ stance has had much support—mostly with stupid people who can’t be bothered to think for themselves.”
“War with Wales?”
“He hasn’t said as such, but a leopard doesn’t change its spots. He won by a landslide after the previous government collapsed over the ‘cash for llamas’ scandal. As soon as he was in power he proclaimed himself chancellor. His Unreform Act last year restricted the vote to people with property.”
“How did he get parliament to agree to that?” I muttered, aghast at the thought of it.
“We’re not sure,” said Joffy sadly. “Sometimes parliament does the funniest things. But he’s not happy just being chancellor. He’s arguing that committees and accountants only slow things down, and if people really want trains to run on time and shopping trolleys to run straight, it could be done only by one man wielding unquestionable executive power—a dictator.”
“So what’s stopping him?”
“The President,” replied Joffy quietly. “Formby has told Kaine that if Kaine pushes for a dictatorial election, he will stand against him, and Yorrick knows full well that Formby would win—he’s as popular now as he ever was.”
I thought for a moment. “How old is President Formby?”
“That’s the problem. He was eighty-four last May.”
We fell silent for a moment and shuffled with the queue up to the stage door, had our identities checked by two ugly men from SO-6 and were then ushered in. We took our seats at the back and waited patiently for the show to begin. It seemed hard to believe that Kaine had managed to inveigle his way to the top of English politics, but, I reflected, anything can happen to a fictional character—a trait that Yorrick had obviously exploited to the full.
“See that nasty-looking man on the edge of the stage?” asked Joffy.
“Yes,” I replied, following Joffy’s finger to a stocky man with short hair and no visible neck.
“Colonel Fawsten Gayle, Kaine’s head of security. Not a man to trifle with. It’s rumored he was expelled from school for nailing his head to a park bench on a bet.”
Standing next to Gayle was a cadaverous man with pinched features and small round spectacles. He was holding a battered red briefcase and was dressed in a rumpled sports jacket and corduroy trousers.
“Who’s that?”
“Ernst Stricknene. Kaine’s personal adviser.”
I stared at them both for a while and noticed that, despite being barely two feet from each other, they didn’t exchange a single word or look. Things in the Kaine camp were far from settled. If I could get close, I’d just grab Yorrick and jump him straight to one of Jurisfiction’s many prison books, and that would be that. It looked as though I had got back home just in time.
I consulted the complimentary copy of The New Oppressor I had found on my seat.
“Why is Kaine blaming the nation’s woes on the Danish?” I asked.
“Because economically we’re in a serious mess after losing to Russia in the Crimean War. They didn’t just get Tunbridge Wells as war reparations but a huge chunk of cash, too. The country is near bankruptcy, Kaine wants to stay in power, so—”
“Misdirection.”
“Bingo. He blames someone else.”
“But the Danish?”
“Shows how desperate he is, doesn’t it? As a nation we’ve been blaming the Welsh and the French for far too long and with the Russians