Arransian Political History

3. 1965-1969

There were high hopes of the Liberal government under Patrick Scullion elected in May 1965 with an overall majority of 16. Scullion had a new, young team of ministers, including Frank Agnew (1918-76) as Minister of Finance. Ralph Brereton (1902-84) became Foreign Minister, while the post of Home Affairs Minister went to Walter Serpell (1911-72), who had been a Conservative MP between 1942 and 1949 and held distinctly hard-line views on a number of social questions. The youthful Martin Fogarty (1926-2002) became Minister of Transport with a pledge to kick-start Arransia’s roadbuilding programme. Although now nearing his 67th birthday, Scullion was on excellent form during the campaign and the country confidently expected him to get to grips with the the problems confronting it.

However, while this administration did achieve some successes, particularly in economic policy, overall it turned out to be probably the most disastrous in Arransia since the revolution of 1837, being overwhelmed by a tide of social change that its senior members were singularly ill-equipped to understand or deal with.

The initial impression was very good, with the Coronation of King Malcolm VII in September showing some deft nods to a more modern image for the monarchy, although some felt the celebratory fly-past by more than 150 military aircraft was somewhat over the top. (Few would have foreseen that over 50 of those aircraft would still be in service in 2005.) Malcolm was less interested in politics than his father King Andrew IX, and Scullion looked forward to being able to govern without royal meddling.

The economy was initially shaky, due to a downturn in Brunswick caused by the unrest that led to the secession of Almeria in 1966. However, after this, it picked up again strongly, and the period from 1967 to 1970 saw the highest sustained growth in Arransia’s postwar history. Frank Agnew was able to lower the basic rate of income tax while at the same time restoring some of the cuts in social benefits that had occurred under the previous Labour government. He also carried out a thoroughgoing reform of purchase tax which still in its main essentials applies today. With the benefit of hindsight, the economic boom was the last hurrah of the immediate post-war economy, but it was certainly a good time to be working at the car plant in Petersburgh or the petrochemical complex at Headlam. Even parts of the textile industry enjoyed a brief Indian summer. A downside was a growth in industrial unrest, as the workers sought a bigger share of the growing prosperity. The Petersburgh car plant became increasingly strike-prone, and in the Spring of 1968 there was a two-week rail strike which only served to encourage road traffic.

As Minister of Transport, Martin Fogerty announced the most ambitious roadbuilding programme in Arransia’s history. This was clearly inspired by the rapid expansion of Trunkways in Brunswick, and a National Roads Directorate was set up under an experienced Brunswickian road planner, Frank van Leer. Not all of these schemes came to fruition, but the 3-lane A1 Expressway between Stainton and Hebburn and the superbly aligned A2 from Danby to the Brunswickian border are legacies of this period. The cityscape of Danby was also transformed by the Coronation Parkway elevated urban expressway, which had been authorised in the dying days of the Ingham government.

There was not a large amount of new defence procurement as most of Arransia’s requirements had already been met by Scullion’s previous administration. However, Scullion took particular pride in seeing the entry into service in 1966 of Arransia’s first nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarine, the Narwhal. The Beadnell class of guided missile destroyers, intended to provide an anti-aircraft defence for the Queen Margaret, entered service between 1966 and 1969 and were much admired internationally for their sleek and purposeful design. In 1965, Brunswick put into service the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the 75,000-ton Constitution, which was something that was clearly in a different league to any other warship in the world. As there was already an officer exchange scheme between Brunswick and Arransia, the Arransian navy put forward a very well-argued proposal for a joint manning system for the Constitution and subsequent supercarriers. Perhaps because this used as an example the successful Mayonnaise-Arransian joint manning of the cruiser Le Tonnant during the Great War, it did not impress the Brunswickians and was rejected out of hand. This seemed to mark the beginning of a period of more distant relations between the two countries, not helped by the change of government in Brunswick in November 1965 to the National Democrats. The main defence orders during this period were for two dock landing ships and two tank landing ships to enhance Arransia’s amphibious capabilities.

It was in the field of social policy, however, that the government became very badly unstuck. After the austerity and hard work of the immediate post-war period, a wave of fresh thinking and desire for freedom and self-expression swept across the world, of which the spread of rock and roll music and a distinctive youth culture was the most obvious symbol. 1965 was the year when this, somewhat belatedly, exploded in Arransia.

One of the manifestations of this was a growing interest in taking various forms of drugs. As drugs had never been seen as a particular problem, Arransia had never passed any legislation prohibiting their use. In the early 1960s the country, despite its cool climate and conservative atmosphere, began to be seen as something of a haven by Brunswickian drug users. Brunswick complained that this was encouraging trafficking, and the Arransians accepted they needed to do something about it. Both parties promised in their 1965 election manifestos to take effective action against the drug problem. The authoritarian-minded Walter Serpell came up with the Dangerous Drugs Act which passed into law in October 1965, amidst general popular acclaim.

This set out a single schedule of prohibited drugs, and provided for maximum prison sentences of ten years for trafficking and five years for possession of any quantity of any drug. The Home Affairs Minister could add any further drugs to the schedule (except alcohol and tobacco) without needing further consent from Parliament, as he did in January 1967 for LSD. This was probably the toughest anti-drug legislation in any democratic country, but a major problem was that its one size fits all approach lumped cannabis in with heroin. Inevitably, heavy-handed magistrates started doling out disproportionate sentences for very minor offences of cannabis possession.

In the summer of 1967, a well-known Brunswickian rock musician was sentenced to three years for cannabis possession, which led to a major public outcry. After a few days in jail he was deported, but vowed never to set foot in the place again. The law became a major disincentive for foreign musicians to visit Arransia. There was more ill-feeling when one of his Arransian counterparts actually served two months for a similar offence. Despite this, cannabis use amongst the young seemed to expand exponentially, helped by the fact that Arransia’s colony of the Terrapin Islands was one of the chief sources. Even before the events of 1968, many pragmatic police forces were starting to adopt a softly-softly approach, although the Danby police continued to apply a hard line. There was clearly a major credibility problem, and a whole generation of young people had been alienated.

Even more embarrassment was caused for the government over the issue of homosexuality. Although Arransia had various laws against abuse of minors, importuning, indecency and “predation” (a specifically Arransian concept of family law), and also, in the armed forces “conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline”, adult male homosexual acts in private had never been specifically illegal. This was confirmed by a particularly salacious divorce case in 1960 which was one of the main reasons why the press reporting of the details of divorce proceedings was banned. While Arransia wasn’t exactly full of screaming queens, this led to a somewhat unsavoury press campaign for homosexuality to be outlawed, on the grounds of the protection of children.

In response to this, Serpell duly drew up a Sexual Offences Bill that would implement such a ban, which was presented to the Cabinet in January 1966. He was stunned when Patrick Scullion said bluntly that they really could not go through with it. While there were many reasons behind this, the crucial factor was that Randle Brereton, the younger brother of Ralph Brereton, who was Scullion’s brother-in-law, was what would come to be known as gay. When Ralph reminded Scullion of this fact he clearly recognised that the legislation was unviable. The moralistic Serpell immediately resigned and began spouting off about the danger to Arransia’s children and the unsavoury protection of people in high places. The popular newspaper The Torch carried an infamous feature on “Arransia’s 50 Leading Queers” – including Randle Brereton.

Scullion announced this decision with obvious discomfiture, saying that while many people would disapprove, what adults did in private was their own business and should be tolerated. Serpell was replaced by Alec Rankine (1915-2002), who had a similarly hard-line view on many social issues, particularly drugs, but was a more pragmatic politician. Rankine had then, through gritted teeth, to pilot a bill through Parliament to specifically legalise private homosexual acts between adults of 21 and over. This also effectively decriminalised those between people aged from 16 to 20, of similar ages, under the concept of “predation” or the lack of it. While Labour officially supported this, they gave the government little help and seemed to delight in their discomfiture.

Ralph Brereton eventually found the vilification he was subjected to intolerable and resigned his office in the summer of 1966, which was a sad end to the career of one of Arransia’s ablest post-war politicians and a genuinely decent man. He was replaced by Louise Kirkpatrick (1914-97) who remains the only woman to serve as Arransian Foreign Minister. Shortly before the 1969 general election, she and Rankine swapped jobs. Ralph Brereton made a point of posing for a photo-call with his brother and his wife Lucy who was Scullion’s sister. Scullion managed never to be photographed with Randle Brereton while he remained Chancellor, but it is acknowledged that privately he was very supportive of him.

Not surprisingly, Scullion and Rankine got the security services to research the family connections of all the MPs for homosexual connections. The rumours that this was happening seem to have led to a couple of MPs, one on each side, abruptly resigning their seats for personal reasons. They also, astonishingly, discovered that Serpell’s son Martin, who was then at university, was gay. This revelation seems to have somewhat unhinged Serpell. In 1968, using Parliamentary privilege, he denounced the prospective Queen Imogen as a “whore”. When he repeated this outside Parliament, he was imprisoned for three years for “criminal libel of a royal person”. He emerged a totally broken man and died in 1973 at the relatively early age of 62.

An even more serious issue was the growing wave of student unrest. Arransia had some very well-respected universities, but historically they had always been known as places of quiet, serious study rather than hotbeds of revolution. But in 1966 and 1967 the student population, inspired by the worldwide demand for change and liberation, started calling more and more established thinking into question, and were increasingly backed up by tutors with a new-found confidence in expressing radical ideas. Arransian’s ramshackle, inconsistent, pragmatic system of public administration found especial disfavour, and a book published in 1966 entitled “Land of Anomaly” became required reading. The country was condemned as an insufferably dull, petty-minded, conservative, marginal backwater with ridiculous ideas of its own importance. More and more people described Arransia as “the world’s most boring country”, where there was nothing to do but dig coal, watch football and get drunk. Scullion did not help his cause when, in a speech, he went through a list of interesting and challenging things people were doing (which was not in itself unreasonable), but concluded by saying the previous weekend he had enjoyed an excellent day’s sport with the Vale of Barrow Hunt, which only served to make him seem totally out of touch.

Worst of all, people began increasingly questioning Arransia’s role in the Great War. The received wisdom was that, while the country may have backed the wrong horse, the Arransians had fought very bravely and achieved miracles of improvisation on the home front. But more and more voices were saying the whole thing had been a waste of time and the effort expended had been a futile sacrifice demanded by grossly incompetent leaders. In late 1967 Scullion was rendered absolutely incandescent with rage by a musical that opened in Danby portraying (amongst other things) the battle of the Badger and Marblehead as a play-fight of toy boats. The cast were subjected to a very heavy-handed drugs raid, but there was nothing the government could do to suppress it.

It began to seem that every week there was some kind of sit-in, protest or demonstration, all too often requiring the intervention of the police, and Rankine’s hatchet face became a familiar feature on TV praising the courage of the officers and condemning the threat to order and the rule of law. Calls of “Scullion Out!” and “1968 not 1948” were common currency. It all came to a head in June 1968, when a combination of the end of the university exams, unusually hot weather and a series of high-profile drugs raids by the Danby police turned the usual low-level unrest into full-scale rioting in the city. The police were heavily outnumbered and withdrew under cover of CS gas shells. The following night, the rioting spread to Stainton and Hebburn, and in Danby fires were started and some government buildings attacked. This prompted Danby’s police chief to ask for military assistance, and the following day an enormous column of tanks and armoured personnel carriers streamed into the city from the west like an invading army, with smaller detachments sent to the two northern cities.

The Marines were issued with rubber bullets and CS gas, but they had not been specifically trained in riot control. It should also be remembered that the typical Marine was not a young squaddie but a long-term career soldier who had probably chosen the service in preference to going down the pit. He was unlikely to show much sympathy to a bunch of hairy hippies and students. There ensued a series of sporadic pitched battles lasting from late afternoon into the early hours, with the Marines being pelted with paving slabs, traffic signs and even petrol bombs. Once they worked out some effective impromptu tactics, the soldiers began to prevail, but it was a miracle that nobody was killed. Similar events on a smaller scale took place in Stainton and Hebburn.

There were a large number of broken bones and cracked heads, but the most serious casualty was a Brunswickian student called Katrina Hall (b 1948) who was blinded by a rubber bullet. She subsequently allowed herself to become something of a martyr for the cause and was paraded at various events as a reproach to the Arransian government. She was offered a substantial financial settlement but refused it as it involved a no-comment clause, and was unsuccessful in her attempts to sue the government – who obviously passed an act of indemnity for the Marines’ actions within a couple of days. She was brought along in an attempt to disrupt Scullion’s funeral in 1995, and the now very elderly but ever-sardonic Alec Rankine was heard to observe that it was a pity they hadn’t shot the bloody woman dead in the first place.

There were a few attempts to revive the rioting the following day, but heavy thunderstorms soon put paid to it, and calm returned to Arransia’s cities. It was estimated that over $10m of damage had been done. Scullion addressed the nation on television, unreservedly condemning the rioters, saying that no grievance in a democratic country justified such behaviour, and pledging his determination to maintain order. He also admitted his lack of understanding of the problem, and his message seemed to be “I don’t know why this is happening, but I do know we’re not going to stand for it!” Although Brunswick had experienced similar problems, with an added element of campaigning against nuclear weapons, it had never descended to the level of tanks on the streets, and many in Brunswick found amusement in Arransia’s discomfiture.

After this, there seemed to be a taking stock on both sides, and matters greatly calmed down, helped by the rest of the summer of 1968 being particularly cold and wet. The intensity of the protests seemed to diminish, maybe as the novelty wore off, and the courts were issued with guidelines that a custodial sentence was not normally appropriate for cannabis possession. It must also have become obvious to Scullion and his ministers that, with Labour enjoying a 20% lead in the opinion polls, defeat at the following year’s general election was virtually inevitable.

Geoffrey Ingham, the Labour leader, had died suddenly in early 1968 from a massive heart attack, and was replaced by George Rostron (b 1913), who was more of a right-winger in Labour terms and presented a conciliatory, avuncular image that seemed much better suited to the mood of the time than that put across by Scullion and Rankine. Rostron needed to do little but sit and wait, and power would fall into his hands.

There was an episode of relief in September 1968 in the wedding of King Malcolm to the well-known actress Imogen Wallace (b 1939). A few eyebrows were raised by the fact that Miss Wallace was a commoner with a “past”, and had appeared in a couple of tame nude scenes in highbrow films, but in reality she was primarily a serious stage actress who was very pretty and also a transparently nice person. The wedding was very well staged, with military involvement toned down to a single flypast by a squadron of jet fighters showing the national colours in smoke trails, and the enthusiastic popular reception helped reassure the government that the country hadn’t entirely gone to the dogs.

Over the winter of 1968-69, the police seemed to switch their focus from cannabis to traffickers in harder drugs and achieved a number of notable successes, including one where a smugglers’ vessel was chased and boarded by a destroyer. Apparently Scullion contemplated standing down in favour of Frank Agnew, but they eventually concluded that it would be better for Scullion to remain in charge and in effect “go down with the ship” so his successor would not be tainted by election defeat. The Liberals in fact put together a very coherent programme for their next term of office, including a review of the drugs laws and further economic liberalisation, but it was abundantly clear that they would not be able to put it into practice. Shortly before the election, in an attempt to improve the government’s image, the energetic but abrasive Rankine became Foreign Minister, with the formidable but slightly more conciliatory Louise Kirkpatrick taking his job as Home Affairs Minister. Mrs Kirkpatrick was an interesting character, having in her twenties been a solo explorer in some very remote places, but unfortunately she lost her seat in the election and never returned to active politics.

Scullion, looking tired and aged by far more than four years from 1965, delivered a famous election broadcast in which he pointed out the prosperity that his government had brought to many ordinary families in Arransia, who were now buying cars and jetting off to sunshine holidays in Esparta. But he went on to say that many of the events of the past four years had been hard to understand, and when the country was heading into uncharted waters it needed an experienced captain at the helm. Rostron responded to this that it might be an idea to buy some charts made later than 1943.

When the election came, the Liberals suffered the worst defeat in post-war Arransia, winning only 130 seats to Labour’s 161, with 5 Independents. It was the only post-war election in which the outcome was totally clear after the first round of voting. In fact, the Liberals did better than many feared, and a number of their leading figures were in fact trailing on the first round, but picked up some sympathy votes on the second. Even Scullion just failed to win an overall majority in Lawrenny, although once it became clear that Labour had won the election and he was out of office, he received over 70% of the second-round votes as a gesture of respect. Rostron was duly sworn in as Chancellor and promised to do his best to restore harmony to Arransia without any sacrifice of prosperity.

After the election, Scullion swiftly resigned the party leadership and spent most of the summer yachting in warm waters with his long-suffering wife Mary, daughter and son-in-law, which seemed to work all the stress out of his system. He was given the title of Earl of Stackpole – the only new earldom to be created in the 20th century – and during his long retirement enjoyed a lucrative career on the international lecture circuit, generally sticking to defence and foreign affairs and scrupulously avoiding social policy. His seat at Lawrenny was taken over by Simon Hassall (b 1939), the son of the family solicitor, who has proved a conscientious constituency MP with no ministerial ambitions. Frank Agnew decisively defeated Alec Rankine in the election for the Liberal leadership, although the two men knew they would have to work closely together to rebuild the party’s shattered fortunes and rapidly developed an effective nice policeman/nasty policeman double-act.

In hindsight, any government would have struggled to deal with the 1960s counter-culture revolution. However, Scullion and his senior ministers, a group of middle-aged and elderly men with military backgrounds *, were singularly ill-fitted to understand it and persisted with a policy of denial and repression long after it became clear that a more accommodating approach was needed. Much of the naďve optimism of the late 1960s was extinguished during the dark days of the 1970s, but in a number of ways Arransia did take the spirit of the decade to its heart, and it continues to be expressed in areas as diverse as the country’s biker culture and its enthusiasm for small-scale nature conservation projects.

* although neither Brereton nor Rankine were career military men, both had distinguished war records, Brereton having risen to be a naval commander in charge of a minesweeper squadron, and Rankine a Major in the 2nd Edirn Lancers which had converted to be a tank regiment

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