ando-in-the-mother-country

[ando-in-the-mother-country]

VB Day

It is a grey and wintry day, and rain lashes Westminster as we scurry to the crypt of St John’s, Smith Square, to caffeinate. In centuries past, the weather gods played their part in Britain’s defence, most memorably when they dashed the Spanish Armada to ruin. Today they rise to the occasion again, and snowflake Millennials huddle indoors, playing Fortnite on their phones, while the Finest Generation braves the driving rain and blustering winds to deliver them a better government than they deserve.

Today will be the culmination of all our long years of work. Having ensured the defeat of treacherous Euro-fellator Dominic Grieve yesterday, I decide to spend Election Day destroying the career of over-earnest Blairite opportunist Chuka Umunna, the once rising star of Labour. He abandoned the Corbyn ship to help the EU leadership create their own UK political party, Change UK, which lasted about five minutes until Jean Claude Juncker realised he didn’t have a vote and no one in Britain liked him. Then Chuka abandoned the sinking CU(c)K ship to run for the Lib Dems, when the Euroweenies discovered it was easier to take over an existing party than create a new one. Now he is running for Westminster & London. Time to Chuka him out.

British elections are genteel affairs: no television ads, no posters, no swarms of volunteers in brightly-coloured t-shirts. But on the streets of Piccadilly, placard in hand, I give little Chuka a taste of colonial electioneering.

It is hungry work. With victory now secured, I decide the time has come for magnanimity, and I lead the Fourth Australian Imperial Force to my favourite Italian restaurant, Bocca di Lupo, to forge our “peace through strength” with the Continentals. Some fried bollito misto with salsa verde and a tajarin with raw duck egg and parmesan are followed by the divine agnolotti dal plin, all washed down with a lovely Barbaresco.

Then we repair to Uberpatriot HQ to watch the results. Various talking heads call through to be interviewed on Sky, from former Gillard staffer John McTernan to former SA Labor premier Mike Rann. When the exit poll comes through at 10pm, JO and I temporarily resist the temptation to gloat. Then one of the deposed Lib Dems comes in, and our resistance collapses. We are delighted to see Chuka consigned to history, and even happier to watch European lapdog and serial bully John Bercow consoling the defeated Dominic Grieve over their mutual irrelevance.

Throughout the campaign, the architect of Brexit, Nigel Farage, has borne the slings and arrows of a contemptuous media delighting in the apparent downfall of his Brexit Party. Like Br’er Rabbit asking not to be thrown in the briar patch, Nigel has played his part well, radiating defiance even as he withdraws his candidates from Tory seats. As the results come in, his strategy is vindicated: the Brexit Party siphons off the Labour vote in critical Labour seats, as angry. ruddy-faced Notherners in white vans with St George’s Cross stickers storm the polling booths to vote for them in what one commentator described as a “gammon-quake”. This leaves the Tories free to pick up the seats under the First Past the Post electoral system.

In politics, as in life, you can achieve almost anything if you’re happy not to take credit for it. And so we chat and drink together with Nigel as we watch “Boris’s victory”, quietly smug as we contemplate our diversion of the stream of British and European history onto a new course. As I reflect on the long hours I spent in the non-EU citizens’ queue at Heathrow in my McKinsey days, for the first time, I feel no anger. My revenge is complete.

[ando-in-the-mother-country]

The Final Push

Mindful of Churchill’s dictum that the Opposition sits on the benches opposite, but the enemy is behind you, we decide to use Election Eve to depose the Lord Haw-Haw of our times. Dominic Grieve, who treacherously conspired with the Continent against his own country, is running as a pro-Brussels independent in Beaconsfield, and I am confident that our presence will secure his defeat. But the task is formidable as the electorate is at the far reaches of the British Isles, even beyond Zone 1 of the London Underground.

An army marches on its stomach, not on its boots. Although Wilton’s is fully booked, they rustle up a last minute table in the national interest. We contemplate the set lunch, which includes an attractive beef roast from the carving trolley. But I’m conscious that the polls are tightening, and that the price of victory is utter dedication. A Cropwell Bishop Stilton soufflé is followed by the house speciality: the magnificent Native Lobster Newburg. The “dessert menu” is tailor-made for me, with Welsh rarebit and Scotch Woodcock providing a further savoury hit.

Thus fortified, we make the arduous journey to Beaconsfield. At the “Beech House”, the local pub, we canvass locals over a pint. Two gentlemen express to us their admiration for the Australian approach to immigration, and one volunteers the northernmost island of the Outer Hebrides as an appropriate location for a UK offshore processing centre to match Nauru. I leave Beaconsfield confident that their votes have been won over to the Conservative cause, although more likely from a write-in for Tommy Robinson than from the treacherous Grieve.

Meanwhile, a colleague from the Howard era, Simon Berger, makes contact to organise our attendance at the Election Eve rally with Boris, Priti Patel and Michael Gove. Berger is too wily an operator to give it away, which is why he was chosen as an intermediary, but it is clear to me that the PM has personally requested our attendance to provide real momentum going into the final straight. After racing back to London and out to Stratford, we are delighted to learn that the teetotaler influence of killjoys like David Gazard has not yet infected British politics, and we are able to down pints of full-strength beer while the politicians serenade us. As the phrase “point-based Australian immigration system” is used for the twentieth time, I feel a surge of national pride at our policy leadership.

I ask Berger to tell Boris not to spend his precious time in the final hours thanking us: there will be time for that later. We head back to Uberpatriot HQ after our long day’s combat, just in time for Laura to borrow my rally placards for her live cross.

[ando-in-the-mother-country]

On the hustings

I have a narrow escape from embarrassment. Yesterday’s anti-Tory media was filled with stories about Boris Johnson’s reaction to a photo of a young boy who was kicked out of his NHS hospital bed to make way for an emergency patient, and was treated briefly on the floor. Fortunately, the media fails to discover that the emergency patient is me, suffering from the effects of three consecutive days of over-consumption.

Just joking. If I were feeling sick, I’d go back to my private GP on Harley Street, not to some staph-infested socialist NHS hellhole. Also, the hospital was in Leeds. I’d sooner holiday in Mogadishu.

I kick off the day with a visit to the twice-attacked Borough Markets, to demonstrate my imperviousness to the threat of Jeremy Corbyn’s ISIS allies. My comrades have been exhausted by the blistering pace I set, and petition for a ‘light lunch’. Disgusted by their lack of resolve, I snack on a scotched egg and a duck rillettes wrap.

The time has come to take the fight to the Soviets. In suits and ties, we board the Northern Line and head to the socialist commune of Camden Town. Tattooed freaks with implausible body-piercings line the streets, and the scent of marijuana wafts heavy in the air. We comfort ourselves with the thought that, after Thursday, all these people will be in gaol where they belong.

Wandering the Stables Market, I introduce my comrades to a favourite store of mine, which sells secondhand British military dress uniform jackets, pawned to them by young men leaving the service. Unfortunately, in this age of scrawny vegan Millennials, none of the jackets on offer is suitably dimensioned for patriots. Instead, I procure an Iron Maiden t-shirt that captures the spirit of the trip.

We press on for pre-dinner drinks at the East India Club’s magnificent American Bar, the front line in this campaign, and run some impromptu focus groups, which reveal majority support for massive income tax cuts for the rich, keeping out foreigners and bringing back hanging. I make a note to communicate our findings back to Team Boris. Sadly, Nigel Farage, one of my favourite members of the Club, is absent.

As enlightened post-Cameron Tories, we are well aware of the need for the party to appeal to the ethnic vote, so we make an excursion to China Town for a Cantonese dinner. JO looks dubious as I propose post-prandial cocktails at the hipster bar Opium, when all he wants is a pint of bitter at the local, but is won over by the oriental exoticism of a “gin and tonic”. Then it’s back to Uberpatriot HQ.

I awake early the next morning to discover Alan Jones performing a live cross from our living room.

[ando-in-the-mother-country]

In the trenches

Days before our victory in 2016 , we had dined at the East India Club with Alex Deane, a prominent Tory Brexiteer, to plot out the final week. Cognisant that many commentators identified this session as the turning point in the 2016 campaign, I organise a similar dinner with Deano. My approach is two-pronged: we will again align on final week strategy, but in addition, I am confident that news of the dinner will filter back to Downing Street and boost morale at the working level.

Our day begins with a bracing caffeine hit near Australia House, where we meet with expat entrepreneur Nick Tolley and his lovely wife Natasha, along with their eight week old daughter Tabitha, whose silent dignity is a pointed rebuke to the whiny Jo Swinson. From there we march on to Simpson’s in the Strand, as tradition dictates.

Suddenly, over sharpeners, disaster strikes! Two of my lunching companions propose outrageously to move “straight to mains”. But I catch a certain glance from James Campbell, that doughty warrior for truth, and I inquire whether he is looking to me for leadership on this matter. Upon his confirmation, the mutiny evaporates, and a round of starters is ordered at the 11th hour. Victory is snatched from the jaws of defeat, and we “take back control” with a round of Scottish rib carved from the trolley, washed down with South African red.

After a trip through the National Portrait Gallery to pay our respects to Sir Francis Walsingham, JO and I walk along the Thames, each in private pancreatic apprehension at the thought of more meat and wine after our indulgent luncheon. When we reach the table at High Timber, Deano is already seated and drinking, with a bottle of Super Tuscan and magnum of Chianti decanted and waiting. Channelling the spirit of the men at Rorke’s Drift, we steel ourselves and our livers.

We receive temporary reprieve, as Deano takes us on a tour of the restaurant’s private dining rooms and cellar, where a stock of his own personal wine is maintained for his convenience. A collection of Zimbabwean notes sounds the alarm on the fate that awaits Great Britain should we flag or fail. Then it is time to order. With a half kilo of Scottish beef still digesting, I look desperately for a way to maintain my reputation. Then my eye alights upon the burger, and Deano extols its virtues: the restaurant will happily cook it rare!

With dining companions of such high intellectual calibre, dissent is redundant, and we spend the meal agreeing furiously on all matters. Then Deano proposes that we wander out onto the river terrace for “intercourse”, and I shift uneasily in my seat as stories of the Major-era Tories flash through my head. Happily, the wag is proposing a cigar before dessert. As we gaze across the dark waters of the Thames, striking a Churchillian pose, it is difficult to remain unmoved by the lost opportunity our two countries have foregone by not simply outsourcing all matters of policy to this august forum.

[ando-in-the-mother-country]

The Surge The dawn brings reinforcements. The rest of the Fourth Australian Imperial Force is due to land, and I have been charged with preparing the beachhead. Uberpatriot HQ has suggested a traditional pub lunch to restore the fighting fitness of the new arrivals after their harrowing journey through the EU lines. I settle upon the Green in Clerkenwell, a well-appointed boozer with an extensive range of English ales, specialising in Sunday roast. Those who have saved Great Britain from Continental subjugation in ages past are towering figures: Elizabeth I, Lord Nelson, Churchill – and, of course, the Duke of Wellington, who became in his later years the grand old man of the Tory Party. It seems auspicious, therefore, that the Green is serving Beef Wellington, and the four of us tuck into the hearty meal with gusto. Each rich mouthful is another blow to the dignity of France; each accompanying draught of British ale a repudiation of Frau Merkel’s hegemonic Germany. Then, with spirits revived, we head off to establish Uberpatriot HQ, the nerve centre of our campaign (and of the Australian SkyNews coverage: Laura Jayes, who secured the apartment, is running her SkyNews live crosses from our magnificent balcony). We secure supplies, and spend the evening enjoying our new home. After a fantastic twelve hour sleep, I wake to the news that the forces of Continental tyranny have been plunged into disarray by our ambush: Survation has the Tories 14 points ahead on 45%.

[ando-in-the-mother-country]

Insertion

Watching the D-Day episode of Band of Brothers on the flight over, I am struck by the similarities of my own mission. My brothers-in-arms have opted not to rise early for the 6am flight, and are due to arrive the morning after me. I am dropping by air into hostile EU-occupied London to establish a presence behind enemy lines and support the subsequent landing of the larger force. Across the gulf of history, the ghosts of the 506th Regiment reach out to me in silent fellowship.

Like those brave paratroopers, I will enjoy no respite upon my landing. The stakes are too high for rest. Racing towards the landing zone near Trafalgar Square, I have only minutes to establish a temporary camp before my first engagement: an Australian expat friend, Melanie, and her fiancé, Ashley. As Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK, they are entitled to vote, and I determine to strike my first blow here.

The operation has been flawlessly planned. A dinner booking awaits us at Hawksmoor Air Street. French disparagement of “les rosbifs” has inspired the choice: my favourite London steakhouse, which has established several additional venues since I first frequented the initial Spitalfields restaurant. Hawksmoor is unapologetically and ostentatiously British. To add symbolic weight to this first strike, the Air Street venue was once occupied by “Gaucho’s” an Argentinian steakhouse that hosted corporate power lunches at the beginning of the decade. The takeover confirms that the Falklands War spirit lives on, and the shadow of the Iron Lady looms over the dinner table.

I have not previously met Ashley, but he quickly earns my respect by ordering the potted beef and bacon with Yorkshire pudding for his starter. Loyal as always to Her Majesty’s Empire, I eschew Continental vino and settle on a Stellenbosch Cabernet to accompany the British beef. Fuelled by a pint of London Pride at the Red Lion before dinner, plus sharpeners and wine at Hawksmoor, we proceed to my old local, the Library in Islington, to close out the evening with a courageous strike into the heart of enemy territory. As I part company with the happy couple, Ashley assures me that he will be voting for Boris later in the week.

I retire to my camp with the satisfaction of having drawn first blood, but I know the battle has only just begun. It is, as Churchill remarked, merely the end of the beginning.

[ando-in-the-mother-country]

Deployment

Sydney International Airport, 4.30 am. As I sit in the Emirates Lounge, steeling myself for the ordeal of 24 hours of air travel, I ponder the narrowing but still substantial polling gap between the Conservatives and Labour. I am about to embark upon a sacred mission, a crusade, to consummate the result of the referendum which I previously travelled to London to secure. Again, I am ready to put my body on the line in the battle for Britain, and fight this out to the end, pint by grueling pint.

Only one of my erstwhile companions from that expedition, the Third Australian Imperial Force, will accompany me, but we have recruited two new loyal subjects of Her Majesty to fight for the liberation of the Mother Country.