Year One
Part 1: May to August
A New Order Story by Freddie Clegg
Introduction
What was it like in the early days of New Order? Not from the politician's perspective, you understand -- that has been written about in countless political memoirs over the last twenty years -- but from the perspective of the man in the street. Some claimed the election of New Order was a great intellectual triumph, an imaginative harnessing by women of their own power for their own benefit.
The trouble is ‟intellectual" doesn't have a great track record here in the UK. I'm reminded of the W.H. Auden poem that goes: ‟To the man in the street who, I'm sorry to say, is a keen observer of life, the word 'intellectual' suggests straight away, a man who's untrue to his wife."
Our ‟man-in-the street" is David Anders. For reasons we don't know, David started to keep a journal in May 2021, just when New Order was elected. It's not clear how it survived, but it did. As well as creating the journal, David saved a number of press cuttings and other items. These are reproduced in the location they appear in the narrative. Now the journal is providing social and political historians with new insights into the early days of New Order.
From what we learn in the journal, he works in an office in Stanbury, a small provincial town about fifty miles south west of London. He lives not far away in a small village called Fordswell. He has a girlfriend, Angela Casey, that he has been with for the past few months. He's not sure if she is ‟the one," but they get on well and it seems to be working. She has her own place but sometimes sleeps over with David. From the journal it seems as though Angela was not one of the founding New Order activists but she soon develops enthusiastic support for their programme.
The Diary of David Anders
Thursday, May 13
th
2021
Well, this election campaign has been a right farce. The Liberal -- Labour coalition has been a disaster -- it's surprising it lasted as long as it did. Neither Labour nor Conservative seem to have any answer to the shambles the country is in. I've listened to both of them and, apart from each blaming the other for the Brexit fiasco, neither of them seem to have the slightest idea of what we should be doing next. I didn't vote. Can't see how either of them are going to make any difference.
I suggested to Angie, my girlfriend (we've been together about two months I guess), that we forget about it all and get an early night. She wasn't in the mood though — wanted to go and watch the results with some girlfriends of hers. Shame really, I quite fancied a fuck to take my mind off it. Had to make do with a beer from the fridge.
Friday May 14
,
2021
Blimey, I don't think anyone saw that coming, least of all the press.
Turns out pretty much everyone agreed with me that the two main parties didn't have a clue. Plenty of people didn't vote -- a record low turnout the pundits say. But those that did have put this ‟New Order" party in with a massive majority. I can't say I took much notice of them during the election. There was one woman I saw on one of the television debates trying to talk what sounded like sense but she got howled down by the others there. Don't think I saw anything about them much in the papers. They had a lot of posters around, now I come to think about it, stuff on social media and there were a few meetings in the village hall. Angie stood me up for one of them. I was a bit pissed off about that but she'd come back saying it was all very interesting and we'd had great make-up sex. Her on top -- she doesn't usually want to do that.
So, we'll see what this lot do with the country. They can't fuck it up any worse than the last bunch of useless dicks.
Angie was back late from work. She works in admin
for a small firm of lawyers
. It's not that well paid -- she feels she's wasting her degree, but it was what she could get and the firm do quite a lot of civil liberty work which Angie says means she feels at least she's involved with something worthwhile.
Sunday May 16
th
2021
Had a good long lie-in until Angie kicked me out of bed. ‟Haven't you heard, women are running the country now. You ought to get me breakfast!" We had a good laugh but then I thought, well, fair enough. It meant we spent the whole morning on the bed, fooling around. Coffee, orange juice, bread rolls, the Sunday papers, and a lazy screw: can't ask for more really, can you?
There was a big feature in the newspaper on the front runners for government posts. I made the mistake of saying the woman they think will get Minister of Culture and Arts looks like a stripper. Angie wasn't amused. Turns out she'd been at that meeting Angie went to and Angie thinks she's got some really good ideas about how to run the country and, she said, ‟One is we won't put up with that sort of sexist shit any more!" You wouldn't believe how much being hit with a rolled-up copy of the Sunday Times magazine can hurt. Laughed about it afterwards, though.
I don't think there's going to be any men in the Government if the article is right. Angie reckons that's what she'd expect. Seems that New Order want to ‟get away from male dominated decision making," she says. They seem to think that's what gave us the financial crash, Brexit, the farce over the Argentinians finally taking over the Falklands Islands, and that last round of jobs-for-sex scandals in Parliament. Can't argue with that really, I suppose, so maybe a change will be a good thing.
