The Blurt of Richard Davies

Chapter Fourteen

The Connies. When, or if critical histories are written about these times they will most likely date the time the King was taken ill as the moment the Consensus as we know it began. In reality though, the strands of Consensus thought far predated the Crises. It was in the post-Crises power vacuum that the movement transformed itself; beginning as a woolly-minded Royal vision of the disparate elements of society being united by circumstance into an apolitical government for the common good, before mutating into the hard-edged nastiness we know today.

It would be churlish to blame the King or his Regent for the direction their well meant idea would ultimately take. How could they have possibly foreseen it would all go so terribly wrong? But with politics and the political class as we knew it suspended, those who sought to run - and ruin - the lives of others were waiting for the opportunity to worm their way back into power. The King's incapacity was just the chance they needed.

As the Regent wanted to be a more distant, disinterested national figurehead he made no objection or paid too close attention when some sympathetic members of the Council suggested they could make use of the experience of a very few carefully selected individuals who were familiar with the principles of organisation, and knew intimately how the mechanisms of government worked. The civil service had been rather bereft of direction recently; they really weren't as enthusiastic as they ought to be about carrying through the King's grand vision. They were a bit too institutionalised; used to a particular way of doing things. Perhaps some new faces at the helm would reinvigorate the process of creating a new society from the top down?

The overworked committee members were only too pleased to accept the help volunteered in the spirit of the times; and so the political class began to insinuate themselves stealthily back into public life. Along with them came a new wave of fellow travellers from varied backgrounds.

There were the health campaigners and members of the medical professions who believed their qualifications also gave them the right to dictate how others should eat, drink, and exercise. The authoritarian social workers who daily used their powers to make arbitrary life-changing decisions regarding those in their care. Head teachers involved in the administration of education rather than teaching, who - perversely for those in their middle age - obsessed to an unhealthy degree about what the pubescent children in their charge wore; down to the exact length of their skirt hems, their hairstyles, their socks or stockings and their shoes. They were used to being obeyed without question, and meeting out punishments to the disobedient.

Joining them were a whole raft of dirigiste environmentalists, convinced that if people wouldn't voluntarily comply with their prescriptions for an ecologically 'correct' way of living, they should be coerced into doing so. In addition came the public sector bureaucrats, for whom every problem could be solved by stricter rules and a more stringent enforcement of them. Also the Law and Order lobby; and the Sunday afternoon pub bores, who alone knew how to set the world to rights.

The Consensus as it came to be known wasn't exclusively left or right leaning. Instead it garnered support across the political spectrum from the hidden legions of would-be dictators and curtain twitching nosey parkers. Anyone who displaced their lack of social skills and psychological deficiencies by seeking to impose their values upon their fellow citizens; those whose lives revolved around making plans for and the didactic regulation of the lives of others; all now found with the sweeping away of the old order - along with its last remaining checks and balances - a fresh canvas on which they could paint their vision of a perfect world.

To begin with the members of the Council were unused to being in such a position of authority, but they soon began learning their way around their new roles; tentatively pulling on the levers of power.