CONVERSATIONS AT THE COBBLERS EXCHANGE

For some time, as the general public have been aware, the policies of the three main political Parties have effectively coalesced so that their ideas seem virtually inseparable and they all seem to speak the same language. The process began around a year after the Coalition Government came to office and was soon picked up by the media pundits, however it has become altogether more noticeable as an established fact to the wider British audience in the last eighteen months. This interesting and unheard of situation of all three Parties sounding the same at the top has been a matter of widespread speculation let alone concern by the politically attached or unattached ideologues now frothing at the mouth at the lack of traditional Parliamentary democracy. The latter complain about having no-one to vote for anymore while the former grunt about UKIP, wonder whether they’ll still be in Parliament after the next election and continue collecting their tasty expenses.

The political chatter’s mainly been about each of the Parties wanting to capture what’s called the Center Ground of British politics because that’s where they believe the bulk of the electorate are and where most votes may be culled. They’re no longer after a left or right vote because party advisors are telling their Leaders that most people have grown tired of extremism and in tempestuous economic times they want moderation. A quiet politically moderate life of national coalition somewhere in the big middle ground. That’s where all politics is these days they suggest so that’s where the three Party Leaders have set up shop. David Cameron with Gay Marriage, Ethnic Minority Rights, and Green Save the Planet issues has mixed blue and pink and gone a light mauve. Ed, Florence the Snail Miliband has chucked the light pink for light blue and wound up playing kiss-kiss with Cameron while environmental Nick the Dick Clegg has come out a pale puce. They clearly want to please everyone they believe to be in the middle, the effect of which is that they all look the same.

Before I tell you where the Cobblers Exchange fits into the picture and what we ourselves have done to make it all happen I want to make certain things clear. It’s been said that Ed Miliband can’t open his mouth anymore or say anything politically serious because everyone knows that it was Gordon Brown’s Labour that fed the British people to the financial crooks and speculators, set up the perfect regime for corporate tax avoidance and much other dirt besides, with Ed keeping his mouth shut all the way through as one of Gordon’s best friends in Government. This may be seem reason enough for the smarmy Ed keeping his gob shut while taking a poke at the Unions, but it’s not the real reason. Likewise David Cameron going all touchy-feely and giving his blue back bench Thatcherites the chuck has got nothing to do with keeping Nick Clegg and the nation’s favourite Scarecrow all happy. He’s quite prepared to put the frighteners on his own Tory right with UKIP but that’s not because of Nick and the Scarecrow. He wants to win the next General Election and the Liberal-Democrats are expendable. The public see them as dirty and he knows they’ll walk The Green Mile. No, Cameron’s been told by some little snot-nose to go for the center and we at the Cobbler’s Exchange have helped him along. As for Clegg and his cheesy-on-a-stick clones it’ll soon become clear!

In the last year the Executive Committee of the Cobblers Exchange here in London has met on a regular basis to discuss and analyze the overall situation with regard to politics and the economy, talking the kind of cobblers we know represent the spectrum of views of our members. There were those who believed that destabilization might shake up the whole rotten system and lead to the logical outcome of a military coup. This view, having the support of many, was seriously preferred. There were others, however, who sought a more subtle direction. By no means ruling out such persuasive possibilities it was decided to explore an alternative avenue, leaving the taste of the stick in the background, next to the bench as it were. Coalescent politics might be best for the country. Getting everyone to move in a single direction. Party leadership could make it look how they liked with whatever new ‘causes’ and ‘issues’, even some, like Gay Marriage, distasteful, as long as the drift was the same. No-one saying or doing anything silly, anything extreme moderated  down with everyone coming into the center to create stability and order. We didn’t need any kind of Hitler for the time being. We’d do it all British style!

Consultation was therefore decided. With the stick in the background that is. Executive members of the Cobblers Exchange, already known to our good friends in Party leadership, would request talks. A series of private meetings at The Exchange to establish a process of dialogue during which we’d put our own views. At first advise and suggest but above all carefully observe. Help our friends understand that the decisions were theirs and had our support! Our first meetings were arranged with the greatest of care early last year. In utmost secrecy of course. For this we had the advice of those who I would say were certain, very select members. It isn’t every organisation of course that has the benefit of support from people with GCHQ connection but let me say that such benefits are purely for matters of national concern. The national interest as it were. Above Party or anything else. Initially informative though discursive in essence.

We began with the Conservative Party and one of the most senior advisers to the leadership, the bright, well informed and congenial Turdy Roundstone. Someone who might best be described as an Issues Specialist, listened to and respected right at the top. Turning to Labour, Ed Miliband, aware of the context, proved equally amenable, sending his foremost Minority Rights advisor Pinky Perks. Contact with Mr Perks, once established, proved exceedingly useful for as we soon learned we had the ear of Labour’s leader himself. Most pleasing of all perhaps was the effusiveness of the Liberal Democrats, a Party only too keen to discuss just about anything with an institution such as ourselves. Our Executive Member for Party liaison had only to mention The Cobblers Exchange to illicit an instant response. A call from the Party Leader himself… Most glad to hear from us… How could he help! I remember it all very well. His call transferred to my office, his manner affable as ever. After a congenial exchange of greetings, a brief explanation after which his deferential response. The Party would certainly be interested. I deliberately kept it all vague. Informal discussion at this early stage. A policy advisor would certainly be welcome. Someone he knew well. Who would indeed have his trust. It was how we came to meet his most senior advisor Dilly Claypole the following month.

The above information is meant to inform you of the general background. Our careful approach you may be interested to know was indeed instrumental in setting up a framework for future formal discussion with Party leaders and their confidential advisors. Our objective needless to say was molding the kind of ideological coalescence that would best serve the national interest. The country didn’t need any more of what it had been getting for the last sixty years. There was to be no more pointless accusation, no more political points scoring. Instead a genuine blending of views and harmonization of policy in respect of the Economy, that being the banks, corporate taxation and the helpful attitudes of the Inland Revenue in this respect, Utility price rises and an understanding of the need of the Energy Companies and suppliers cartel to be profitable for their shareholders, the Trades Union movement, the National Health Service, Civil Rights, Flexibility on future large scale Immigration, Ethnic and Minority Groups and their causes, Benefits control with a necessary curb on the Welfare State, and last but by no means least, Pensioner and Elderly issues.

What surprised us most at the Exchange was how willing all the three party leaders were to come together and abandon what at first seemed un-surmountable differences. Ed Miliband’s Labour willing to compromise with David Cameron in matters of privatizing aspects of the National Health Service for example, along with their joint attitude towards strict means testing of the disabled, initially a Gordon Brown idea, and this time getting seriously tough with the scroungers. And then all three leaders united in their determination to face down and rough up the Unions. When we first put these ideas to Labour’s Pinky Perks we soon sensed that we’d have a positive response from his boss, so long as Gay Rights and other attendant issues weren’t on the table and it became clear not long after in our conversations with Turdy Roundstone that his pleasure at Labour’s new flexible approach would receive a reciprocal welcome from Cameron with more employment opportunities opening up in the Housing Sector for immigrants.

It took time to put things together. Our patient liaising with all sides, separately at first in a constructivist approach quickly bore fruit. It soon became clear that Labour already had a new approach under Miliband and this wasn’t altogether far from that of the Coalition Prime Minister. Any differences there were after the General Election had soon become softened and with a little work on our part could be finally smoothed out. The Labour Leader’s attack on the Unions said it all, once and for all! Nationalization was out and the working class along with it. Ed Miliband, such a nice chap, was more smoothed out even than Clegg. The dervish in the woodpile in that area of course was the Scarecrow making all those silly noises of his from time to time thinking he had to be radical then of course doing little to nothing so it was all empty air anyway. The man had to be given something to do to keep his mouth shut so a word in Dilly Claypole’s ear went straight to her boss with ridiculous Vince hobbled in weeks with taxation sillies.

A progress report in the middle of last year showed all the advances we’d made. Ideological differences straightened out and the political pathways of the Parties running in the same direction it was time for their leaders to put on a public face to show unanimity. Where might it be best done? At the Cobblers Exchange itself , a champagne party perhaps with some five star ethnic minority entertainers on tap. No, altogether too private. Something more ‘establishment’, in full public view to be seen and appreciated was better. We had it immediately. Something for the Parties and the nation to share. Something bigger than all of them, The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, joint celebrations with Clegg, Miliband and Cameron side by side at the Abbey, suited and booted. The coalescence of the political leaders and their policies beneath the flag of the sovereign, beneath the banner of the nation!

Hardly a word needed saying. They were seen there first but later, in official celebration, they met together at the Cobblers Exchange. Nothing formal you understand. More of a private affair in company with many of our members. Naturally nothing said. Not even a whisper. Just the fact that all three were there under the big chandelier of the ballroom was a tacit recognition of our patient hard work. Of what had already been quietly achieved. Everything in its place for a genuine economic recovery. With ideology out of the way all that remained were the political ambitions of the participants. These had to be dealt with and assurances given!

Have you guessed what was agreed? It’s all going to be fun with each of them having a hand in running the country! A Conservative victory at the next General Election, clear cut and decisive. Labour far behind and the Liberal Democrats cut down to size. Five years on in 2020 a victory at last for a silver-haired Miliband, his Prime Minister’s role alternating with Clegg. Cameron gone to the Lords, his party wiped out with UKIP and Nigel now the official opposition.

All is already agreed. After 2020 we here at the Cobblers Exchange will all look up to heaven and await the second coming of Christ.

You might know who it is. Might even have guessed, but I couldn’t possibly comment!

 

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