33. Into the Breach, Dear Friends

What Ho Proles!

The modern conservative is a big beast in a world of gadflies and other insignificant political insects. Trapped between the safety of the old night and the threat of a new morning, we move carefully forward through the vast political jungle but only at the risk of squashing our core Tory supporters under our rather large cumbersome feet. We Tories are meant for a sedentary lifestyle, rarely moving from the shade of common sense. Not for us the small minutiae of government record or that ticket clipping tedium of policy making. We are animals of broad features, outline, contrast, big ideas, and noble concept. We live for Liberty and her sister Freedom, we live for drives through the countryside in a Ford Anglia before dropping into some quaint village inn where real ale is quaffed by the yard and rosy, cheeked, buxom, and wench are the words of the day. We are, in short, an animal native to the blessed shores we call Albion.
To switch metaphors with my characteristic fleetness of foot, I tell you to yarn me no tales about social equality and the welfare state. They are mere decorative flanges on the great political crust we all share.

Yet when we Conservatives fail to move with the times, we are prone to mistakes.

Take as you example, this humble man, pen in hand and with only good intentions towards you, my dear reader. I marched off that day April 2005, armed only with two polished metal pipes rigged together with a wooden stock in walnut and a well greased trigger. If I was to call myself a truly modern Tory, I should have realised the ineffectiveness of a shotgun against the armoured tank which is the modern bulldozer. I should have packed a shoulder launched antitank weapon or at the very least armed myself with some mines to disable it in its tracks. As it was, I was armed with the every faithful Bessie of the double barrels, one anxious estate manager, a failed journalist from the BBC, and Samantha Spoon who was proving to be a bothersome bee in my ear.

‘I do not pay you to make policy decisions,’ I informed the woman who seemed to have decided that if she was going to chaperone Harry Lamb to the bottom field, she would also take this opportunity to remind me of the implications of defending my home against intruders.

‘But this is political suicide,’ she whispered as we turned the corner of the field and approached the style leading to the festival site. ‘What will Central Office say?’

‘You can’t tell me that David Davies has never been in a similar situation,’ I told her. ‘The man’s built for moments like this. And don’t worry about what people will think. Harry here can write it up as a glorious defence of the homestead.’

‘I could do that,’ Harry agreed licking the end of his pencil as though raring to get scribbling.

‘You’re playing with fire,’ she warned me again as I set myself to climbing up the style.
I was in no mood for debate.

‘You worry too much Miss Spoon,’ I assured her and threw my leg over the fence.
Something tickled me from below and I felt the crotch end of my trousers snag on a nail protruding from the gate.

‘Now here is a situation that does call for worry!’ I said I carefully set about unhooking myself and jumping clear. ‘Let that be a lesson to you, Miss Spoon!’ I said, fingering a small hole in my herringbone tweed. ‘Politics may be about detail but therein are the dangers. Be it a nail or a bulldozer, each is as likely to derail a political career unless they’re dealt with as soon as you feel their nefarious tug.’ And with that, I looked out across the field to where I was sure another nefarious tug awaited me.

Those of you who have hitched your caravan and trundled into C--- N--- may know that the Murgatroid lands stretch for miles in nearly every direction around the Hall. You are also likely to know that we intensely dislike caravaners and there is a local ordinance which gives us the right to put you in the village stocks should you dare erect a chemical toilet in the shire.

However, so long as you have a rudimentary idea of the geography, you’ll recognise the name of Mathew’s Field, as it is known, the site of the annual festival.

It is the smallest of all the Murgatroid boundaries, backing as it does onto the Marley-Wood estate. Mathews’ field, itself, takes its name from an old servant of a great uncle of mine, accidentally added to the day’s tally during a pheasant shoot in 1747. The event might not have gone into the popular mythology of the region had my great uncle’s shot not caught the man in the thigh. He might have lived too, if only the doctor had got too him before my great uncle, who had served in many military campaigns, decided to put the poor man out of his misery there and then. When you consider the field still bears the servant’s name, I’m sure you’d agree that it was a small price to pay for his immortality.

I rounded the path, leading to the field I took my first glimpse of the giant bonfire.

The wicker man towered more than fifty feet above the field; the product of three weeks work by Mr. Hawking and the C---- N---- Festival Committee, a loose affiliation of farmers, shopkeepers, local organisations, and sundry druids who ensure that the traditional elements of the festival are adhered to. The role of Chairman of the committee had been handed down through generations of Murgatroids and I’d carry it on by attending the annual general meeting, preferring to leave the day to day running to those who enjoyed such matters. At moments like this, I confess, I felt 100% chairman and so damn proud of that mighty pile.

‘You’ve done a wonderful job,’ I said to Hawking, my breath fairy taken by the magnificent sight.

‘An handsome sod, isn’t he sir?’ said Hawking.

I might have replied but just then a bitter wind swept up the valley and I heard the coughing splutter of a diesel engine.

Hawking turned to look towards the bottom edge of the field where a set of gates block the road. A group of cars were parked beyond, followed by the yellow shape of industrial plant-hire cloaked in the distinctive thick black smoke of trouble.

‘I just hate to see so much work go to waste,’ he said.

‘They won’t take this from us,’ I answered.

Hawking’s face darkened, his brows rumbling down the sharp incline of his brow to come to rest blocking access to his eyes.

‘Don’t they know that this has been a tradition in these parts for millennia? Not centuries, you hear, but thousands of years?’

I shrugged my shoulders and shifted the weight of the gun under my arm. I was certain it would have a say or two in matters before the day was out.

Our small group wandered down to the end of the field where a gate opens out onto a lane that stretches towards the village at one end and the estate of another local landowner in the other.
Jeremiah Finch was not alone but had brought a team of officials with him. Three of them men appeared to be identical clones of a fourth, though as to which one of them was the original I could not venture to say. They each stood a hand and fist above six feet and to walk around them would take a journey to make Michael Palin go cold.

‘Mr. Murgatroid,’ said Finch as he approached. He didn’t extend his hand but gave me the non-committal nod of quangodom. ‘We have the proper paperwork to enter this property and dismantle that monstrosity,’ he began, thrusting sheets of tightly types writing into my hands. I cast them to the breeze and looked at the man in his eye. It’s the only legal language men of honour need.

‘You should have read those papers, Mr. Murgatroid. You’d have seen we have the law on our side.’

‘My passport is the only document I need,’ I replied.

‘Can I quote you on that, J.P?’ Harry shouted from some way back.

‘So you intend to block us?’ asked Finch, barely giving Harry a glance.

‘Damn right he does,’ said Mr. Hawking.

Finch looked at me and a strange smile perched on his lips. He waved his arm and the bulldozer roared into life. I thought it all a show given that Hawking had organised quite a roadblock to cover the gates but my heart missed a beat as the large monster turned on the spot and came crashing through the hedgerow.