Mock the Weak

continuing a theme from Mr Drew

The Words at War

A series in 14 parts

Part 8 The July/August plot.

Voiced by Sir Laurence Olivier

The once mighty Labour legions are in full retreat.

The financial tide has turned firmly against them. Hundreds of thousands of packages of debt, pouring across the Atlantic from the United States have holed the fabled West Wall in so many places that Herman Prescott remarked it was more like the string Vest Wall.

In Scotland, Labour Ministers and front line activists were rushed to shore up the second front, but on 25^th July Glasgow East fell to the partisans. Gordon Brown's friend and ally Wendy Alexander had been overthrown.

General Erwin Milliband,The Deserter Fop, one of the major contributors to the early years lightning successes, and commander of the original elite LeiBlairstandarte bodyguard has returned from the Russian front where the Russians have moved into Georgia, threatening to cut off the oil supplies.

Gordon Brown talks of revenge taxes and the inevitable reversal of fortune that will smite his enemies and cause “the fragile Tory coalition arranged against us to be dashed apart on the subject of Europe, as they were in 2001 and 2005. ”

Milliband is unconvinced.

He knows that this time they will not retreat. They are finally organized and well funded and have a war chest more than double that of the PLP. The usually cautious David Montgomery is buoyed by his outstanding victory at Crewe and Nantwich and moves cautiously, but decisively onwards.

Milliband knows that there is a plot to remove the leader. He has heard rumours that he is to be the new premier after the assassination. He has been careful to ensure that he is not directly connected with the plot, or to have had meetings with the ringleaders. But his outspoken criticism of the regime and his popularity with the rank and file mark him out as being complicit.

Perhaps he will see if the battle of Glenrothes forces the plotters hand. Perhaps try and shine at the big forthcoming rally. Or maybe Alistair von Stauffenberg's briefing bombshell in today's Guardian will cause enough damage to the leader's economic reputation to allow General Milliband to begin the coup.

Or will he continue to wait and possibly let events overtake him…?