The Shaking

Chapter Two

06.59. Downing Street; Whitehall.

Deputy Prime Minister Stuart Pullman was becoming frustrated. Yes he wanted - had to - to get rid of the useless old fart Rampling, but he dare not play his hand too soon for fear of coming badly unstuck. Anthony Rampling had the air of a dead man walking about him and should have been eased out of his position by now, that much was a given; but a wounded animal is the most dangerous of all. As the deputy PM Pullman was in pole position to take over, yet he remained vulnerable to Rampling's influence, declining though it may be: The Prime Minister was still powerful enough to lash out in his death throes and take Pullman down with him.

But the political clock was ticking. The Influential Ones who were in contact with Pullman as they were with the major figures in all of the mainstream parties had let it be known to him they were impatient for greater progress to be made on their covert agenda. They'd also told him that if this government couldn't or wouldn't deliver the reforms they sought, then regrettably they would have to hold their noses and lend their support to the Opposition.... After all, there were very few ideological differences between the parties these days...

No, thought Pullman, that could never be allowed to happen. Rampling and some of the softer members of his cabinet might balk at the radical policies They wanted to see introduced, let alone the public; but Pullman and the Young Turk right wing caucus he led wouldn't flinch when it came to doing what needed to be done. They'd just need to be careful about how they acted with the balance of power between the factions in the parliamentary party and cabinet being so finely divided.

And there was his problem. Just as Rampling did, Stuart also walked a political tightrope. A mis-step on his part, acting too presumptuously too soon, would set off a divisive and electorally calamitous civil war, while waiting too long would see the so-called Soft Faction consolidate their power and in a desperate attempt to court popularity steer the government in a different - to his mind disastrous - direction. Or worse still, Rampling might do as his successor had done and throw his backing behind a surprise candidate other than Pullman.

Deciding when and how to act would be the judgement call of Stuart's political career, one requiring all of his intellect and nous. They didn't tell him when the opportune time would be to make his move, it was left up to him to prove he had the balls to force the issue when he felt confident enough. The trouble was that he was fully occupied just coping with the workload involved in being the Deputy PM to concentrate on dethroning the Prime Minister. It seemed as if Rampling was deliberately giving him extra duties not only to test his ability to cope with the stress the ultimate post would impose on him, but also to wear him down until he cracked under the strain and so nullified the threat of his challenge. The old bastard didn't like him; that much was obvious, and Pullman was only too aware he owed his position as a sop to temporarily cement a fragile party unity.

Though his time would come soon, it was not now, not yet. So in the meantime Stuart would just have to put up with what he was given and demonstrate to everyone he was equal to the job. However that didn't mean he had to tolerate the amount of crap which ended up in his in-tray.

Take for example this report - a printed one rather than an electronic file; Pullman found paper copies easier on the eye - it should never have reached his desk, nor he had to waste part of his most productive early morning hours reading it or the attached multi-page commentary. Yet here he was shaking his head in disbelief at the obviously deranged ramblings written by a high ranking scientist in UKGeoScan, the recently fully 'commercialised' former British Geological Survey. Stuart had been responsible for the process - hiving off the organisation to a conglomerate of industrial interest groups along with the ubiquitous company which had more or less taken over the provision of most government services these days - during the time he held the Environment portfolio, while at the same time he'd been busy purging every notion of the Climate Change agenda from the Ministry's name, organisation, activities, and ethos.