NationStates Jolt Archive

A well-furnished office at Stone's Arcade, Walmington Street, Great Walmington, Walmington on Sea

While Walmington's iron fist was off liberating colonials from the legacy of decadent rebels who barely knew that they were born, the velvet glove was working hard back at home.

"Well, I don't know much about Joyce, to be honest, but I can't imagine that Ulysses is half as funny as The Importance of Being Earnest!" Said His Royal Highness. A half-stiffled and considerably painful sigh emanated from the defected ex-Deputy Prime Minister as the Heir Apparent to the Walmingtonian throne argued away with George Mainwaring, one-time Prime Minister, on the topic of history's greatest Britons, Irishmen, and Walmingtonians. They still had to get through Canada, Iansisle, and, if the results didn't come in soon, quite possibly France and God only knows where else as well.

Walmington's parliamentary democracy, operating under a constitutional monarchy, had seen more turmoil in the few years since the uneasy peace with the continental Fascists (after doing-away with Der Fuhrer) than in all of its prior history, stretching back to the 1490s.

The nation's generations-old state of undeclared war with the United States (after Walmington's refusal to recognise the independence of the original states or the continental government) had cascaded into a terribly one-sided nuclear war, leaving hundreds of thousands of Walmingtonian and Imperial troops tied -by guerrilla opposition- to a shattered continent. This had proved just enough to win Anti-Fascist War leader George Mainwaring a vote of no confidence, leading to the unprecedented creation of HRH King Godfrey III as his own Prime Minister, and a last-ditch salvation for the long-standing Tory government at the general election they'd seemed set to lose over the American troubles.

If that wasn't enough, the humiliated Mainwaring, life-long Conservative and for so many years an extremely popular leader, had quit the Tories entirely and founded a new party, taking with him key members of his old cabinate including the respected Deputy PM, Arthur Wilson. The loss of key figures such as Wilson, and even Mainwaring himself, was viewed by Walmingtonians as a truly shattering blow to HRH's Conservative government, as it could clearly be argued that with so many defecting ministers, the Tories hadn't really got nearly so many votes as had been attributed to them at the election. In fact, if the votes placed by Wilson's constituents, and those of other defecting ministers, had been directed more at the men than the party, then the Conservatives would have lost to the Liberals, and Mainwaring's new party would have been about tied with Labour in a close third.

So a new election was called just ten months after the last, as if Walmington was trying to make-up for the one missed at the height of the Anti Fascist War.

But it didn't end there, oh no! For the lavish Stone's Arcade, on the night of the election, played host to Mainwaring's Whigs, assembled in their entirety as such: George himself, Premier-hopeful; Wilson, his long-suffering deputy; Baron (Alan) Thunder-ten-tronckh, former Minister for Foreign Affairs, taking perhaps his first ever stand against the tryanny of Tory Party doner Sir Henry Chaspot Wayne's friendship; General Sir Jack Jones, former First Minister For Defence; a host of minor politicians and party workers and supporters; and, most strikingly, the Heir Apparent and first born son of Mainwaring's most regal opponent, HRH Prince Edryd Virginia, Duke of Newry.

Mainwaring did consider his infant congregation of political superstars the true opposition, of course. The Standard (fighting its way back from the gutter after failing to report honestly on alleged Walmingtonian atrocities in 'the rebel colonies') had, actually, taken a number of polls, all of which showed the Whigs in an increasingly strong position leaving Labour and the Liberals for dead and hacking strips out of all but the most traditional strongholds of Tory support.

Thunder-ten-tronckh's fine Isabella wireless crackled softly in the background, the innocent up-beat warble of early wartime ditties passing the time between the close of polling stations and the reading of results as various of the Whigs prattled on about whether author Alexander Vale was a greater Walmingtonian than colonial military hero Sergeant Brent; and whether, if Wilde's mid-life residence qualified him, then, "those continental communist fellows" could be considered great Britons.

"...so sun and cheer and Walmy's beer will last another year!"

As the music cut-out, somebody turned the volume control to an appreciably higher setting.

"This is Great Walmington, calling, here is a news flash... The results of the one hundred and second national general election are in. The results, including those for all major and minor parties, coalitions, and independent candidates are: for the The Liberal Alliance, six percent; for the Social Labour Party, fourteen percent; for the Conservative Party, thirty-four percent; for the Newry National Socialist Party, nought point two percent; for the Whig Party..."

OOC: this sounds cool, but you might want to edit your italics. ;)

Darn it, and I'd have said that I remembered checking for that sort of thing, too. Apparently my dreams are just becoming exceptionally dull!

The Commonwealth of New York

The Governor's official residence, once called the Flatiron Building, had been created a government facility after its bomb-damaged silhouette caught the eye of its owner-to-be during his first tour of the city-wide clean-up programme. Its refurbished condition gave it lavish offices and grand bedrooms; lined its corridors with trophies taken on Cape safari, photographs depicting the life-long exploits of a once dashing Walmingtonian adventurer later a fat businessman in personal crisis, and newspaper headlines describing such deeds in first admiring and later critical fashion; and seemed to hang it all with a mien of some associated regret.

Certain of its rooms supported in their atmosphere a good deal more than that. Such smoke and intoxicant vapours as to keep the man at their centre isolated in a miasma all his own and little penetrated by even his personal staff. Nobody since Thunder-ten-tronckh had been able to stand the Governor's company for very long, and since the Baron's departure -betrayal, the Governor would mumble- Sir Henry's presence had become still more the taxation on those forced to endure it. The sexagenarian (or was that septuagenarian? There was much dispute on the subject of Chaspot's age, or at least there had been while he was an admired young adventurer on the Dark Continent) hadn't bathed for days leading up to the election back in Walmington, unless in the particles of smoke and sprinklings of port that escaped his lungs and dodged his lips. He wasn't feeling terribly well, thought he should go outside. Didn't care to.

"Master Wayne... Sir... forty-three percent."

There was a long silence after the aide's report, broken only when he could stand no more of the Governor's fog and excused himself to no reply from Sir Henry.

Well, that was it, then. He'd backed the wrong horse. "That damn little...!" Wayne finally sounded, cursing his estranged friend, Thunder-ten-tronckh, who'd jumped ship for the Merry Whig just before the Conservatives ran aground. For a moment Sir Henry even entertained the terrible prospect of being replaced by the diminutive Baron, and, in the end, the call he'd come to dread seemed something of a relief. He didn't remember Lady Maltby all that well, but it was better to be replaced by a forgotten acquaintance than a bitterly remembered friend, he supposed.

Swallow Bank House, Walmington Street, Great Walmington, Walmington on Sea

Prime Minister George Mainwaring moved down the famous street from Stone's Arcade to Swallow Bank at something hardly short of a skip, his round face dancing with a smile the likes of which Walmington hadn't seen him wear since Operation Minos snatched Sicily from the jaws of Fascism. He would try to collect himself before the brief and modest tradition of accepting from his beaten opponent the key to Swallow Bank House, but he wouldn't do a terribly good job of it, all in all. His Majesty would grit his teeth in reply to the radiant Mainwaring's obviously bitten tongue as the two shook hands on the pavement outside the traditional Prime Ministerial residence before George toddled inside, leaving the out-going head of government to await his taxi by the roadside. It was the Walmingtonian way.

Civil Servants Barton Bartlett and James Tinker, posted to Swallow Bank, watched the exchange of power with a distinct sensation that one might convey by the words, "here we go again!"

((Ah, I knew that this Mainwearing-less state couldn't long endure!))

The results of the Walmingtonian general election were flashed along the same lines which had not so long ago carried friendly reports of a combined war against the fascist menace around the world: from Great Walmington to the Free French territories in North Africa to British Egypt to Aden to Vollumbo in Ceyloba to Fort Manly on Batam island to MacMillan Station to Ianapalis itself. The receiver, however, was neither the High King's Combined Parliament nor the news conglomerate IanCorp - both were institutions defunct for the shortest eternity in history.

The reports instead climbed into Jameston Place and found themselves in the hands of one Charles Bradsworth, the first premier of the National Assembly of Iansisle, who was still riding high on the results of his country’s own recent elections. The most fair election in Shieldian history had shown mass popular support for Bradsworth’s moderate revolution and seemed to be confirming that even a tiger could be tamed if ridden by one with enough skill.

Keen eyes surveyed the report. Bradsworth was surprised, to say the least, to see that Mainwearing and his cronies had won an election even after being directly implicated in starting the war of aggression that was even now threatening to destroy Walmington on Sea. Of course, he thought with a wry grin, A Shieldian is poor candidate to lecture another nation on their government. He scrawled a hasty signature on the bottom of the document and sent it on its way to the International Tower, where former IanCorp employees now in the pay of the state would see that the information was dispersed across the Shield.

OOC: Tag, I always liked reading your stuff, WoS. This is also an info based tag, with slight IC implications, so that ICI can watch that damned Bradsworth...

(Yes, it seemed proper that Mainwaring not preside over the ugly times, during which I could not... be arsed to properly look after WoS, hence his rather vague and untidy ousting in favour of something that clearly could not last. I just have to get around to figuring out what this will do to the monarchy's relationship with the people, and then try to find a country or two that doesn't yet want Walmington's blood :) Ah well, it's something to do. And thank you for saying so, Imitora, spy away!)

(tag...with a wave to walmington)

Walmington's streets; lined by terraced houses furnished with floral-pattern wallpaper, doilies, wireless radios from more companies than could be named, tin bathtubs, and neighboured by outhouses, frequented by horse-drawn milk floats, rag and bone men, and beat-walking bobbies; saw scenes of typically, well, Walmingtonian celebration. Flags weren't waved, but did hang by the dozen on strings cast from one side of the road to the other; girls didn't shriek and scream, but did giggle and shout, "hurrah!"; and children didn't jump on parked cars or light fireworks, but instead clapped little hands and role-played politicians and war heroes or simulated Anti-Fascist War dogfights in coats made RAF Spitfires and on brooms cum-RWAF Musca. George Mainwaring was Prime Minister, again, and it seemed that his atomic indiscretion had been forgotten in a nostalgic haze and a clamouring of anti-Tory tedium gone to the boil.

Mainwaring himself was so happy that he'd not bothered to chastise the long sidelined radio stations that -for a couple of decades- had been trying to force 'modern' music into the kingdom. The WBC even played a little jazz, blues, and some imperial ethnic music from the Cape Colonies and such, after having managed to get less than thirty hours of foreign tunes out since the start of the Anti-Fascist War over ten years ago, during which Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit was supposed to equate colonial racism with the Nazi's holocaust, and later during the Anti-Rebel War in the former British colonies, where... well, exactly the same thing happened, actually. Some conservative elements worried that Walmington's wirelesses may start piping-out the Soviet Internationale or, worse yet, some immoral liberal racket from the new Shield (said in that Walmingtonian tone) or that loud, loose claptrap starting in the under-blitzed American states, but it was probably the case that even the elated George wouldn't wallow in his own crapulence for long enough that things would get so out of hand.

He -and his Whigs- did have big plans, yes yes. If the Tories had lost more than the Whigs had won the last election, then it would probably be a Social Labour candidate sat in Swallow Bank to-night. Mainwaring's gang were in power because they'd made some crazy new promises, not just because they were the other guys, which was Social Labour's platform -designed probably before anyone realised that Mainwaring was about to break-away from the Tories, and stuck-to because changing half-way through a contest -as Mainwaring had done- just wasn't Walmingtonian. The Whigs certainly had some funny ideas all right. Campaigning to win, however unsporting, was just the beginning. They would also introduce a good deal more. The Walmingtonian Home Health Service would be born under Mainwaring's second administration, assuring all nationalised residents of the home islands a certain standard of paid-for emergency and long-term health care, to be paid for by a new tax programme as would also fund the exploration of nuclear power as something besides a weapon of war. The RWAF would become a majority jet-powered service, and the civil aviation sector would get its first high-speed and inter-continental airliners and cargo planes. The RWA would get its first new tanks since the Cavalry Cruisers and Marching Tanks counted their years-since Siciliian annihilation at the hands of so few Panzers the major blackspot of Operation Minos. The Empire's industrialisation would be used to benefit subject peoples as much as home-islands populations, as Mainwaring had been advised was absolutely necessary to minimise colonial rebellion and placate domestic naysayers on the Empire's future.

And the American question would be finally finished with, as there was barely a Walmingtonian left untired of the affair. The Prime Minister announced that General Sir John Le Mesurier was to be made Field Marshal in charge of the North American Theatre, and that his office would be in direct consultation with Swallow Bank House at every step of the campaign's resolution, which now was to be actively sought.

He [the PM] was also trying to reform the nation's religious life, after splitting from the Conservatives, hoping to appoint a new Archbishop. But, as one of those two civil servants pointed-out, "Getting the PM to choose the right bishop is like a conjuror getting a member of the audience to choose a card. With the Church of Walmington the choice is usually between a knave and a queen."

In this case, Archbishop Frank Williams was tipped for replacement by Timothy Farthing, Cardinal of the Armed Forces during Mainwaring's first administration.

(Well, I was quite sure that I had another post all written-out in Word Pad, but, if I was correct, it is certainly nowhere to be found. You shall have to make do with an idle bump in compensation. Next up: a real post. Hopefully.)

"Play up, the Stockshires, play up! Come on, lads!" Sergeant-Major Sergeant bellowed in encouragement to his men as they picked their way through the Bronx, the 14th Platoon King's Stockshire Rifles trying to chase-down the 'rebel detachment' before Sergeant-Major Major and the Kenilworth Light Foot Rifles beat them to it.

"I don't want to have to play a forward pass to objective because Major's lot got there first!" Sergeant shouted again, shaking an old leather rugby ball in the air as .30 calibre rounds flicked off the concrete around him.

The Mainwaring government may have been restored, but it was no easy matter for George to take the American stove off the burn, and though the Royal Walmingtonian Army's strength in, "the rebel colonies" had fallen way below its peak four hundred thousand as left by the last administration and reduced its scope primarily to the defence of New York, those troops still on the ground continued to find themselves drawn into the conduct of a war.

"Huzzah, another try for us! That's twelve-eight, eh Sergeant?" The sharper refrain of the Kenilworther's triumphal shouts carried through to the Stockshires, who were still under fire in spite of their comrades' implied claim to have captured the rebel unit up ahead. Sergeant's men could also pick-out the confusion in the other unit as an NCO mistakenly responded to Sgt.Major Major's taunting of Sgt.Major Sergeant, and then, just as they drew close enough to pick-out the little Walmingtonian shapes standing over the bent frames of relatively huge American prisoners, they also heard the rush of rocketry and saw the flying debris of a Bazooka shell's impact close to the Kenilworth Light Foot, who promptly scattered, leaving their prisoners to break for the ample cover provided by the bombed-out Bronx.

It was months since His Walmingtonian Majesty -acting then as his own Prime Minister- had announced the defeat of the US army, navy, and air force, and classified American militias on a scale including bandits, warlord militias, terrorists, regime loyalists, and insurgents; but the eastern seaboard saw military combat operations conducted most days of the week, seeing both Walmingtonian and American offensive missions carried-out. The rest of the shattered union was witness to the RWAF's continued domination and brutalisation as The Standard and the Empire Service spoke of the the newly free American government and its democratic mandate.

Washington DC

"The Chair thanked Mr.Sheldon for raising the important issue of the forty thousand persons killed in the fighting around Atlanta and in the assocaited air attacks, but thought that the issue is a little outside the brief of the national council, so asked could he please refrain from straying beyond the subject of what animals the American people would like to see featured on their postage stamps and currency starting next September... And, ah, that concludes the minutes of the early April meeting.

"Ah, the Chair recognises the Councilor for North Carolina North-West."

A small, frumpy woman cleared her throat. "With regards to the tank battle in my constituency, we've had complaints from some of our residents suggesting that some of the heavy marching tanks have been a little careless with people's gardens and small holdings, and we've some documentary evidence of track-marks rather ruining prize winning plots. We were wondering if maybe something could be done about this, and one of our residents has suggested that the disused highways be given over to tank battles."

"Mh, well, we regret that the military situation can't be influenced by the Democratic Continental Government, but we can suggest that at 6,684 feet and as the highest point in the east of the nation, Mount Prince Edryd is unlikely to see heavy tank action and might be a good place to plant rock gardens, at least for the duration."

Prime Minister Mainwaring was quite pleased with the way things were going, fighting aside because it really wasn't anything a bomber/battleship/tank couldn't handle, and felt confident that he'd done the right thing, as he told the media. Last month, he'd assured American leaders that the people would be able to run their own country -since the majority of the population wanted the Walmingtonians out- and that just to make sure it all went well, the Walmingtonians were going to run the elections and help set up the new government, which they'd done. Then, to be certian that democracy was maintained and the American people were free to run their own country, half a dozen permanent military bases would be established in the east of the country. Voting had been free and fair, with ballots granted to all citizens except those who happened to be undergoing interrogation or otherwise detained by the assisstance they were granting to counter-insurgency investigations; and for the good of the American nation, Walmington's finest and oldest firms had taken-over secure administration of the management of natural resources.

It was as if there'd been no occupation at all, said the newsreels!