Chapter 76

There was no more inner cabinet making decisions on behalf of the government. The votes had to include at least 80% of the ministers. There would always be times when some could not attend. There would be a chairman to oversee meetings, but the person tasked with this duty would change every 6 months.

These were some of the new rules introduced in the first days following the arrest of Nicholas Salter. Before any other changes could be made the OWG had to get its own house in order. The debate about how society would be made better would be ongoing. Small amendments were made to demonstrate to the people that things were moving.

The whole political landscape was changing. Action groups, letters and individuals lobbied the OWG about their pet projects. Women's rights, education, care of the old and infirm, and the justice system were just a few of the things on the agenda. The discussion about what to tackle first had ground on for weeks.

"I know that we are being pressed to act, but this must be done properly."

Another minister was adding his voice to the debate. The majority wanted modernisation, but they could not do everything that the people wanted straight away.

"Let us select five areas and concentrate on them. When that is done, the next five and so on."

Eric was seeing a lot of debate and no progress. He had to suggest a plan which would actually see something achieved.

"Okay, everyone, write a list of the top 10 things that need to be done and we will no doubt find what is most important."

The ministers each had a piece of paper in front of them. Some were writing furiously and some were scratching their heads and looking around. There was some cribbing as they looked at each other's lists and eventually the suggestions were stacked in the centre of the table.

The first item on each list was given 10 points and the next was given 9 points and so on. The tally was taken of the points and the subjects had been chosen. Frowns and objections from some, but smiles and the buzz of approval from others. They were never going to make all the ministers happy.

Women's rights had squeezed in at number 5 and Eric said a quiet "Yes." as he saw it. He thought of Sarah and Samantha and felt that he had begun to honour their deaths. It had made it by virtue of just 5 points and that reflected the intransigence that a lot of the ministers still had with regards to females.

Small steps. There would not be a woman minister for many years. It would take a few generations before the effects of the changes to education and, mostly, the attitudes of men got better. Pockets of resistance would survive and some men would still tyrannise their wives.

The government worked long hours. Civil servants covered miles as they dashed back and forth along the corridors gathering information and then planning and implementing changes. It was never fast enough for the public who wanted everything now. Especially those in the labour zones who were most disadvantaged.

Nicholas Salter and the inner cabinet would serve prison sentences following their trials. They had been convicted of gross indecency as well as misuse of public funds. Other charges for blackmail and murder had been more difficult to prove. Salter was a clever man and he had ensured that he and the others were distanced from these acts.

The biggest punishment for them was that they had lost their status. Salter watched as the laws were repealed, amended and changed, with him not able to have a say on any of it. He screamed and shouted at the newspaper as he read about overseas territories getting more autonomy.

There were no servants cowering as they heard him rant. No scurrying around to bring him whatever he demanded. Nicholas Salter no longer lived in his enormous house. He didn't eat the delicacies which had been specially imported for him. He had a small house on the edge of a leadership town. Sending him to the labour zone would have been a death sentence. He was not popular there.

Salter never appeared on television. He was not interviewed by the newspaper. He wasn't asked for his opinion. He wasn't asked for his advice. Why didn't they need him? He knew more about the OWG than any man alive. He had run the whole goddamn world. His most painful punishment was obscurity.

Salter sat in his small, two up two down, house, on the outskirts of District 31. He avoided looking in the mirror because the man staring back was old and defeated. He had run the world and had it all, but now he was nothing. His own son had abandoned him and had even changed his name.

The fate of the other members of the inner cabinet was not any better. All of them had served time inside a prison. The opulence of their lives had been replaced with the privations of a life of imprisonment. Even the obese Alastair Barton had lost weight when he was first locked up. The food that they were served was barely edible compared to what they were used to.

The convicted politicians were separated. They shared cells with common criminals, not gentlemen like them. Rough overalls replaced hand made suits. They were following orders, not giving them. Hands that shuffled paper and pushed pens were now used to stitch mail bags and help with the cleaning.

Alastair Barton's wife had left him. There would be no stigma attached to her divorce. Who could blame her for wanting to distance herself from a man like him. A man who beat her and carried on with prostitutes behind her back. He was destined for an apartment in a concrete block which he seldom left.

Barton would go out early to spend his meagre pension in the food store. No foie gras for him anymore. He might be able to get a bit of steak every now and then, but that was as good as it would get. If he got to the shops and back without someone yelling something about his "fat white arse" he was very pleased. Those photographs had been devastating.

James Rutherford had gone from mouse to lion and then back to rodent. He was the rat who had been a member of the inner cabinet. His wife had stood by him and had stoically faced the change in their circumstances. He was younger than Salter and Barton, so had wanted to go back to work after his prison sentence.

He worked at the library. He had wanted to do something within the civil service, but was not allowed. Rutherford had great experience of the way things were run, but he was not going to be let near to the OWG again. His quiet scurrying around the, near silent, building reminded him of where he had started out and how he had ended up back at the bottom being overlooked.

Sven Helland had not been pictured in The Military Times. His brain worked in a different way to everyone else. Dan thought that he was somewhere on the autistic scale. Pleasures of the flesh were not important to him and he had therefore avoided being caught doing anything bad on the night of the party.

He had coped with his incarceration quite well and he now devoted his retirement to the study of statistics. He had been useful to the inner cabinet rather than a true member. It never occurred to him that his punishment should be less than theirs. He had accepted the extra money and luxuries. He had voted for dubious activities. He had been complicit.

Dennis Parisi had viewed the pictures of the party with a critical eye. He compared himself to the others and thought that he looked rather good. His love of all things luxurious had meant that he found prison life extremely hard. He had never gone for so long without the company of a woman.

He had earned some money on the outside from his memoirs. The autobiography genre was made for a man like him who was so self-absorbed. The fact that he was happy to include the picture from The Military Times amongst the many others that were featured spoke volumes about his vanity.

Charles Davies was the only one that did not go to prison. He was 82 years old when the inner government fell and he did not live long enough to participate in the trial. A combination of shame, stress and being ostracised stole his will to live. His final betrayal of his colleagues ate away at him until the end.

Salter had hoped to gather people around him who wanted to go back to the old ways of the OWG. Five years in prison meant that the landscape had changed hugely since he had been put away. There was no appetite to turn back the clocks. There were a few that opposed reforms, but there would never be enough to put him back in power.

He wrote a lot of letters. He wrote to government departments making suggestions and offering help. He wrote to the newspaper criticising what was being done. He occasionally wrote to his old cadre. No one acknowledged or answered his concerns. He could not even get printed in The Military Times.