At the next of our weekly meetings Mariam was there too, sitting next to Chris off to one side and I went and sat with them. Nick Boscombe on the other hand was conspicuous by his absence and Andy was chairing the meeting instead.
Where was he? someone asked and Nick explained; down in London for a few days, talking at a number of events on the Initiative, co-operatives, Left-localism and a Green New Deal, the whole set of concerns that were closest to him, and that seemed so urgent at the time, the only just way of dealing with the multiple crises that were approaching us. Plus it transpired he getting a bit of media training from the R.G.M.N the Red/Green Media Network. Lucy, whose absence was less immediately conspicuous than Nick's had also gone down with him, some talks on digital democracy and cheap local internet infrastructure along with the media training. He'll be down there best part of a week, due to do a spot on one of big politics shows, stay tuned for further developments.
A little ripple of excitement went round the room, London. TV, thing s looked serious, as though our ideas were beginning, to use Nick's favourite word, to scale. We were used to having a media presence, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, I forget what else was used at the time, getting the occasional sympathetic article in the Guardian, but the television still held a certain prestige and centrality in the political life of the country, was still another dimension in terms of reach, of getting the message out there.
A ripple of excitement but a cross current of discontent too. Why them, why not me, or at least, why wasn't offer made, or the decision arrived at democratically.
Why wasn't it you Andy? someone directly behind me asked. Nick's got the contacts, he said. Anyway I am happiest tinkering in the garage. I don't even want to chair this bloody meeting if I am honest! Let alone bloody go on Marr of a Sunday.
A ring of muted laughter that seemed to have a noticeable gap at my back, instinctively i turned pretended to look back out of the doorway to see who was sitting behind me. It was Dave and the woman who had asked the question. He had been at all the meeting s over the past year but had been increasingly quiet at each one. It was hard to read his expression in the momentary glance back, he w as chewing gum with his arms folded on his paunch, but then he always was.
If we were going to have spokespeople Nick and Lucy were probably the best ones to do it, it was so obvious that Nick had the confidence and charisma, the commitment, that Lucy had a calm, measured manner and the diplomacy to make our apparently radical ideas seem common-sense, practical, necessary. Even if we had gone through some democratic procedure it would have produced the same results, or if hadn't then we would have been worse off. It struck me, not for the first time that even the most rigorous democratic procedures could produce sub-optimal results. Democracy was of course the ideal that we were all promoting at the time. Another voice from behind me began asking why anyone need to be going down to London at all, why we were going to get pulled into dealing with the biased London media.
Well, Andy looked little uncomfortable at the tone of voice in which the question was asked, a voice I didn't recognise and I resisted the urge to turn and look again
It's sort of an arms race he said, a media arms race, Denham's been given training, Cuadrilla have got him in as regional spokesman among other things.
There was a certain amount of group-wide snorting and derision. dislike of Denham seemed to be a unifying factor at least? The name was vaguely familiar to me, I had heard him mentioned in passing by Nick, relaying his endless battles within the local council and Cuadrilla I knew from constant complaints and protests against fracking, Hydraulic Fracturing, which, as I understood it was extracting gas from underground seams by shattering rock with water. Dirty, polluting, water intensive, likely to create tremors ruin he countryside, there was a consensus in the local population against it, but the company kept pushing its agenda forward.
I know, I know Andy said. If there's an environmentally damaging industry or regressive policy to be defended Denham will be up there, shilling for them.
I half turned to Chris. Who's Denham? I asked. He shrugged.
I'd ask Andy if I were you.
Right? Andy said. Alright. First up. The Laundry.
A pause and then Jay got to his feet, coughed, spoke.
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