That Corbyn fella...

It was a cold bright day in Jeztember, and the clocks were striking, in solidarity with the MiningBots, so I didn’t know the time.

I would be late, but knew better than to curse the strike aloud. They would be listening through the telescreen. If I was overheard, the TwitterBots would go into Outrage Mode and, unquestionably, I would be vaporised.

I pulled on my state-issued socks, buckled my People’s Sandals, and left hurriedly for work. I went by foot. Private cars are forbidden and the only public transport vehicle— the People’s Fixed-Gear Bike— is shared between the 20 million inhabitants of Equalitysberg (formerly ‘London’). It will be my turn to ride in about 80, 000 years, providing the Bike isn’t on strike that day. It almost certainly will be.

I work at the People’s Quantitative Easing Plant. Every day, we print millions in banknotes and give them to poor people, who are then immediately arrested for being too rich. As I arrived at my workstation, the telescreen was broadcasting BlairWatch: 24-hour live footage of the former Prime Minister and convicted war-criminal, pushing a boulder up a slope, with commentary from an increasingly exhausted and deranged Ant and Dec.

On the adjacent wall had been tacked a coloured poster depicting an enormous face: the face of a man of about seventy-five, with a wispy, grey beard and ruggedly handsome features. JEZ WE CAN, the caption beneath it ran.

After a few dull hours, the speakers began to blare out the National Song: a dubstep version of The Internationale by Billy Bragg, ft. Alt-J. It was lunchtime. I filed into the canteen, where I took my usual meal. My People’s Falafel Wrap was dry and tasteless, while my state-issued pear kept bursting into flames.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something stuck to the bottom of my Solidarity Sprite. It was a folded scrap of paper. I opened it furtively. It read:

Block 9, Sector 42. Tonight.

They had said it would happen this way: I’d been invited to join the Resistance. Beneath the table, I shredded the note, which was written on state-issued paper, swallowing the strips. They were dry and tasteless and kept bursting into flames.

A bloodshot eye peered at me through the letterbox. Its owner demanded the password: ‘aspiration’. A pause. Whispers. Then, with a clatter of bolts, chains and keys, the door opened a crack.

There stood Tristram Hunt. I knew his face from the ‘wanted’ posters, though three years in the underground had taken their toll. He wore an eyepatch, his cheek was scarred, and he hadn’t trimmed his state-issued beard— an arrestable offence.

Hunt led me down a staircase to a crowded bar-room, dimly lit by state-issued candles (these are dry and tasteless, but keep bursting into flames, which in this case is a plus). The air reeked of an evil-smelling liquor. I guessed it was the moonshine, brewed under Chelsea Bridge by the tramps— bankers, once— now long since taxed into destitution and madness.

The rabble diminished to a murmur. All eyes were on me as we moved through the room. I recognised Liz Kendall, her cyborg-hands dealing playing cards with lightning speed. She gave me a curt nod, exhaling a thick cloud of cigar smoke.

‘Who’s that?’

I nodded towards a figure wearing the torn remnants of a Savile Row suit, playing the Knife Game with a hunting blade.

‘That’s Chuka Umunna,’ whispered Hunt. ‘He’s been with us from the beginning.’

The man, Umunna, stared at me, and began to laugh maniacally, slowly drawing the knife across his palm. He licked the blood.

‘I warned you!’ he muttered, to no-one in particular. ‘I warned you all!’

Sitting at the bar was former Conservative MP, David Davis. His hunted, vacant stare marked him out as a man who had seen too much. Shortly after the 2020 election, the Tories had been banished to Toff Island (formerly ‘the Isle of Man’), to live out their days being hunted by a giant, genetically-engineered fox. Only Davis had escaped with his life; though not, they say, with his sanity.

Hunt took a spoon and tapped a state-issued glass for attention. When the flames had died down, he called the meeting to order…