God's Country

Part Thirty-Seven

'I started reading the Bible. All of a sudden the words jumped off the page and became real.'

Austin Peck

"See? Dozens and dozens of them...I reckon it's about ten to one for," Brogan Hardcastle insisted, handing Gavin her iPhone to read the comments beneath the report of Buckingham's question and answer session online. "Their policies are popular, Gavin...despite the weird stuff they are getting real support..."

"So...we are following Hooks not Buckingham...Brogan, concentrate." Gavin gave her the phone back and gladly returned his attention to his own computer screen, planning their schedule. "Can you shadow Simon Hughes after the manifesto launch and I'll take Hooks and try and get a follow up interview?"

"Should be easy enough...there will hardly be a queue." Brogan muttered, refreshing the comments and finding five more positives for Buckingham, most of them saying the same things. Refreshing and honest, good ideas, personable, connected to real life; Buckingham was certainly the star of the first week and she was stuck following dinosaurs. Simon Hughes had lost his seat in 2015 but had won it back in the May but he was still yesterday's news and cold news at that.

"Is this or is this not the highest paying contract you have had since you left college?"

"You know it is." Brogan admitted. Her internship hardly paid her bus fare, but Williams had convinced his editor to pay her a decent rate to help them cover the election. She had been living off her savings, money she had inherited from her stepfather, of all people. The man whose very shadow was still convincing her that she could get under the skin of the Reformists better than anyone else.

"So stop moaning...the editor isn't going to switch resources to a party fighting twenty five seats and you will be building up some column inches."

"Well maybe he should, because the way this is going Buckingham could have more influence on the next government than Hooks...and no one is getting into the background here."

"Oh don't start that again...you can't go undercover now and turn down all this work and exposure?" Gavin sighed, entering their names against the relevant targets, so that his editor could see who was covering what.

"I know...I know...it's just so frustrating...but thanks for getting me the passport...it's kind of you, Gavin."

"Yeah...whatever...just focus on now Brogan, you're obsessed with the CDP."

"I am not...I just know a good story when I smell one." Brogan insisted, before giving up and giving the Liberal Democrats her full attention for once. But she really was obsessed, of course. Williams knew the signs. He used to be like that, when he would never let a potential story go. But he had learned his lessons, and whilst he would still do almost anything for a story, he knew when to stop digging and focus on the bottom line. Brogan did not know when to stop.

"No one cares. It's fun...everyone is enjoying the CDP floating their kites because it makes a refreshing change from the usual bollocks, but they will still be lucky to get one seat...no one is going to give them any air time for one fucking seat. Just drop it, and build up your inches. That is what will get you a proper job and then you can go stalk someone else. When are you going to learn that this is a dirty job...stardom does not beckon...it's all hard thankless work for sod all."

'Many of us view the Bible and other religious teachings as mythology.'

Richard King

"You are kidding...right?" Samantha Fitzgerald demanded as her mother almost pushed her out of the lift, just about managing to keep her voice down in the busy store. It was not the sort of shop she commonly frequented in the first place, but she could never remember being on the fourth floor of Bachelors before. It was the ladies and girls department, according to a plastic sign hanging on a chain from the ceiling but it looked like it had not changed in about one hundred years. "I am not getting anything from here."