the shutdown of railway lines linked to the oil issue?’
Before he could answer, another question was shouted from the back of the small room. ‘Prime Minister, there are rumours that several large oil distribution points have been taken over by the army. Is this the first step towards controlled distribution? Petrol rationing?’
‘Uhh, well, there will have to be some degree of rationing, of course,’ he replied quickly. ‘It’s only common sense at this stage that we—’
‘What about power supplies?’ shouted another. ‘Can we expect blackouts?’
Charles shook his head, ‘It’s too early for us to worry about shortages in power, food—’
Oh shit.
Several in the audience jumped on that.
‘Will there be an effect on the supply of food?’
‘What about the transportation of food supplies? Imports?’
He knew that he had to nail this down quickly. He raised his hands to quieten them down, before speaking. The chorus of voices in the room amongst the assembled journalists took a long while to settle down to a rustling hubbub that he could be heard clearly over.
‘There is no need for anyone to panic here. No one needs to panic. There has been a lot of planning, a lot of forward thinking about a scenario like this, a scenario in which there’s a temporary log-jam in the global distribution of crude oil—’
‘Is the army being brought back from Iraq to keep order?’ someone shouted out.
That comment left the room in near silence; a silence that Charles quickly realised he’d allowed to last one or two seconds too long.
They know that keep-the-boys-safe shtick was bullshit.
‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘we will require the army to help keep order.’
‘Does this mean we will be facing some form of martial law in Britain?’
He realised now that too much of the truth was out there. They had done as much as they could during the last eighteen hours under the veil of misdirection and various cover stories but, frankly, they were lucky not to have been vigorously challenged before. Perhaps this was the only opportunity, possibly the last opportunity, he would have to call upon the general public to keep calm, to pull together and not lose their heads.
There was a gesture he had once seen in a film, he couldn’t remember which film it was, but it had starred someone like Morgan Freeman playing the President of the United States. He remembered it being a powerful gesture, something, during the last three troublesome years in office, he had fantasised about doing himself. Well, here was the best opportunity he was ever going to get to do it. And at an instinctive level, he knew it was the right thing to do.
It was what the people of this country needed to see right now; something visual, something strong, something powerful - not just another politician puffing more hot air. Charles picked up the index cards from the speaker’s stand in front of him and silently ripped them up, tossing the shreds of card over his shoulder.
‘Okay, that’s probably enough crap for one day. You people deserve better than that.’
Once more the room was brought to an instant standstill. A droplet of sweat rolled down the side of his face.
‘Yes,’ he continued, ‘all right, the truth is we are in a bit of trouble. Whilst this mess is sorting itself out, we’re going to have to make do on the resources we have. We do have enough oil and we do have enough food to last us until normality returns. All right, it’s not stockpiled in some giant, secret government warehouse, but spread out across every city, every town, every street. Our corner shops, our supermarkets, our local grocers, our nearest petrol stations . . . all these places contain the reserves we’re going to need to draw upon to ride this thing out. I am asking all of you to work together with me. We are going to need to ration the food we have, restrict the sale of petrol and diesel to key personnel, in short, pull together, like we did once before, sixty years ago during the Second World War.’
And that was it. Charles realised he’d dried up. That was all he had to offer. The silence that followed was truly terrifying.
Oh God, what the fuck have I done?
In that moment he realised he’d been too bloody candid. Instead of inspiring the nation to dig deep and find within it some inner reserve of Dunkirk spirit, to pull together as once they had, and ride this thing out, he had