NEWS AND ANALYSIS

The Day We Went To Vote
ELECTION DAY 1997 was a bad day for the people - the government got back in. John Tweedledum resigned and Tony Tweedledee got to bow his knee to Queenie. His first Cabinet had no surprises; Harriet Harman was appointed Mistress of Public Morals, declaring the nation's motto for the next five years would be 'do as we say, not as we do'. Jack Straw got to be No-Home Secretary and announced that street people would be tagged and stuck in one Howard's Houses, as the cosy prisons, sorry involuntary hostels, run by Group 4 were now known. Things got worse...

October 1997
Rather than read the Queen's Speech, Brenda resigned and Charles III crowned by Shree Bhagwan Rajneesh, four ex-Bishops and their husbands, newly converted to the Church of Tony. John Prescott shot himself rather than be ousted as a closet socialist by Young Christians for Labour, an accusation proved false when it was conclusively shown that he was just a fat Northern.

January 1998
The Tories split after the Conference from Hell. Clarke and Hezzer formed a 'Get Rich over There Party' and moved to Tuscany to become MP's. Howard, Portillo and Lilley formed 'Break 'Em, Block 'Em and Flog 'Em', a party to deal once and for all with the unemployed, asylum-seekers and trouble makers. Tweedledum led the rump into alliance with Ulster's Unionist who immediately annexed Dundee and the Docklands to put them under protective rule before the IRA arrived.

April 1998
First challenge for the Government was putting the economy right. To stimulate demand everyone was required to shop 'One More Day for Britain', and what they purchased fed into a computer in Staines. Anyone spending less than £50 was declared fiscally immoral and made to take consumer classes at their local Sainsburys (which had won the contract to deliver education). Children in orphanages were given classes in how to sell themselves and many got work; the lucky ones went to Hampstead where servants were hired, those with unfortunate accents got to sell themselves outside Kings Cross...

May 1999
May Day was replaced by Stakeholder Day. All citizens were given shares in newly privatised schools, a shareout of newly created wealth made possible by banning strikes and introducing 'Workflex', a new system of employment that let people work whenever they were lucky enough to find a job and a master hiring. The first deportation for tampering with the Idchip under everyone's skin took place, the unfortunate non-European citizen being sent to Asia South.

September 1999
The Church received a big payout from the CIA for bringing down communism and bought the NHS, creating work for thousands of nuns recalled from famine work in Africa, now so well run by CDC (Christ doesn't Care).

March 2001
Unemployment reached zero, as New Labour had promised, since by now everyone worked or was digging ditches somewhere. No one was counting anyway. The last New Age Traveller was rounded up and forced into a uniform. She was given a job collecting toils on the ten lane access road to the new terminal at Heathrow airport, built by Project Work battalions from the Government's last big push against scroungers. Ross Perot was sworn in as President of America, then married Hillary Clinton after she divorced Bill. Power became the great aphrodisiac of the 21st Century and was bottled by Chanel.

Easter 2001
After a long-time of public service, Cardinal Blair resigned and was replaced by blessed Harriet, after Robin Cook was discovered in bed with Gillian Shepherd, the Archbishop of Canterbury. In a snap election, New Con, European division of Murdoch's News Corporation, was elected. It pledged everything would be different - but the same. No one noticed since the country was being run by a satellite beaming instructions from Newcorp HQ in America anyway.

October 2001
Peter Mandelson ran the campaign that got Tony Blair elected Pope. The Taliban in Paris issued a fatwah and British beef was banned again, along with Britain itself. Premier Tung was assassinated visiting an auto plant in Japan, as the forcibly unified Korea was now called, and China declared war. The Moral Militia joined in and launched the last of America's ICBMs in the 'Biggest Shoot Out Since the Last One', as it was to become known. Production (for the rich) and consumption (by the rich) were now so perfectly in harmony that poor people weren't needed and just caused unnecessary guilt. The rest is history...

The Day No One Went To Vote
Unelection Day 1997
What a strange and wonderful day that was, when no none went to vote. The police were bored, the polling stations closed early and all over the country, mounds of party food went uneaten except by dogs and the homeless who found the dustbins outside party offices overflowing. Pundits babbled, television blared and the newspapers predicted chaos, then fell silent. Ex-MPs turned up at Parliament and carried on talking, pausing only to chase curious mocking people off the benches. No one paid attention.

July 1997
John Tweedledee gave up and got a job as an accountant just as people stopped using money, then vanished into obscurity. Tony Tweedleum declared New Labour was now the Church of Nice. The stock market closed and was turned into a Cybercafe by enterprising youngsters from Camden who came across it while out exploring.

September 1997
Ex-Ministers tried to think of laws to pass and things to do, then gave up. Whitehall went up in flames as the last civil servant left and forgot to lock the doors. Realising teachers wouldn't work if they weren't being paid, the children poured out of their prisons and went home. Industry ground to a halt as people of all ages got to know each other again.

June 1998 Farming went organic as chemical plants closed and diggers and dreamers invaded the land. Thousands headed west and north to build wind farms and wavepower stations. The National Exhibition Centre was turned into the biggest car recycling plant in the islands - in they went and buses, bikes and trains came out. The last car was kept in a glass box for children top throw stones at. The first Cycle marathon around the newly grasses over M25 was held and won by a team from Critical Mass who, after all, had had lots of practice.

April 1999
Marriages and parenting claims dissolved as the housing problem was finally solved. Now everyone could live where and how they wanted. Millions of neighbourhood gardens planted in the Autumn began to grow and previously feared towns and estates came back to life. Everyone could live where they wanted. Soon hundreds of thousands of people were on the move, welcomed everywhere, and people talked for years about the friendships they'd made on the Great Road Home.

October 1999
The Church of Nice finally gave up trying to convert people. Religion previously feared was now just laughed at. Tweedledum got a job as linkman on Vatican TV. People from the Sharan Gardens, reclaimed the previous year, visited the Islands and proposed a joint effort to reclaim the Midwest Dustbowl, blowing since the Native Americans took back their water rights and turned the taps off.

February 2000
AIDS was final conquered and transmission rates plummeted. As stress, authority and fear receded and food became available everywhere mental illness and malnutrition started to go into history's dustbin. The pharmaceutical companies sued for protective bankruptcy and workers tired of poisoning themselves and the rest of the world didn't turn for work.

July 2000
The Moral Minutemen surrendered the last ICBM stolen in 1998 and went home, piling guns in vast mounds that soon found their way to the smelting plants. Millions of Mexican Americans were reunited as the border dissolved as did America itself. There was an attempt to reintroduce money and markets but the sight of people trying to buy and sell things you could get for free made so many people laugh that the 'Merchant Princes' gave up and handed back apartments stuffed with goods they didn't need.

January 2001
The next century arrived, just as the last government closed down and the last policeman hung up his gun. In any case, losing the uniforms the year before made policing seem less attractive somehow. The biggest Internet conference in history linked 4 billion people and satellite lasers were used for a fireworks display that moved around the globe.

The rest of your life
It was suddenly realised that there weren't too many problems left so people stopped trying - things would work out. The people who liked sorting things out could go on working at them, while the rest of the people did the things that they liked. Pretty soon people stooped fighting over the past and worrying about the future and started enjoying the now. The rest, as they say, was the end of history.