First Response

CAMBERWELL (12.35 p.m.)

Roger Metcalfe, OBE, really didn’t enjoy meeting the great unwashed, but his majority was under threat from a growing switch of his electorate to the United Kingdom Independence Party, which meant that his biweekly MP’s surgeries were more important than ever. If he could help a constituent with a planning application or write a letter in support of a visa application for a family member, hopefully that constituent would vote for him and, even more importantly, spread the word. The problem was, he wasn’t sure that he could help most of the people who came to the surgeries, and when he did help, he never seemed to get the credit. He could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times a constituent he’d helped had written to thank him.

He sipped his coffee and waited for his assistant to bring in the next contestant, as he liked to think of them, because, more often than not, the consultation would turn into a battle. It always started the same way, with a smile and a handshake, but once they had outlined their problem and grasped that there wasn’t much Metcalfe could do to help them, their true natures were revealed. Metcalfe had been sworn at, slapped, spat at and had his life threatened more times than he could count. It was the sense of entitlement that he found so worrying. Men who had never worked a day in their lives felt they were entitled to a larger house for their families. Parents who spoke next to no English themselves, despite having lived in the UK for years, felt their children were entitled to teaching staff who spoke their home language. Obese women in disgustingly short skirts would bang on his desk and demand that the NHS pay for their gastric bands or boob jobs. Former asylum-seekers who had only just been granted citizenship would jab their fingers at him and demand that their newly discovered wives and children be allowed to join them in the UK. Metcalfe always promised to do what he could but there wasn’t much that was within his gift, these days. He’d been an MP for the best part of twenty years and had never felt so powerless. He was giving serious consideration to packing it in at the next election. The pay was bad and the public scrutiny was soul-destroying; he was treated as a punch-bag by his constituents and as voting fodder by the leaders of his party. He’d earn more money and have more respect if he went back to his former career — accountancy.

The door opened and his assistant, a recent political science graduate called Molly, who was prepared to work for a pittance to gain experience at the cutting edge of politics, opened the door and ushered in an elderly woman with white permed hair and skin the texture of parchment. The constituents who wanted to see him waited in an outside room until it was their turn to be brought in. Metcalfe had tried meetings where he addressed groups but they never went well and it didn’t take much to turn an unhappy bunch into a lynch mob. At least one at a time they could be controlled. She was wearing a cheap wool coat and had a black plastic handbag clasped to her chest. She sat down and perched the bag on her lap. ‘This is Mrs Ellis,’ said Molly. ‘She’s having problems with the council with regard to her spare bedroom.’

‘Bedrooms,’ said Mrs Ellis, primly. ‘They say I have two spare bedrooms even though one of them is a sewing room.’

‘It’s a council house, is it, Mrs Ellis?’ asked Metcalfe, his heart sinking as he anticipated exactly how the conversation would go. Thousands of council tenants had been hit by changes to housing benefit introduced in the Welfare Reform Act of 2012, which basically reduced the amount of money given to those who lived in homes larger than they actually needed.

She nodded and tightened her grip on the handles of her bag. ‘They want to cut my housing benefit,’ she said. ‘By twenty-five per cent. If they do that, I can’t live there any more. I just can’t afford it.’

‘Well, as I’m sure you know, the councils are trying to get the maximum use from their housing stock.’

‘But this is my house. I moved in there with my husband forty years ago, God rest his soul. Forty years, Mr Metcalfe, and now I’ll have to move out.’

‘No one is saying you have to move out, Mrs Ellis. The council is just asking you to pay for the rooms you don’t need.’

‘But that doesn’t make any sense. Why should I pay for something I don’t need?’ Metcalfe was struggling for an answer when the door burst open. A young, bearded Asian man stood there, with a look of confusion on his face, as if he wasn’t quite sure where he was.

Molly jerked out of her iPhone reverie but he had walked in before she had even got to her feet.

‘I’m sorry, there’s a queuing system,’ said Metcalfe. ‘We deal with people one at a time. You talk to Molly here and she’ll take your details.’ He smiled but the man didn’t appear to be listening. He walked up to the table and Metcalfe caught a whiff of stale sweat. There were flecks of white lint in the man’s straggly beard and hair and the whites of his eyes were threaded with tiny burst veins. Metcalfe wondered if he might be high on drugs. He stood and held up his hands defensively as the man continued to swivel his head from side to side. ‘Look, please, you really need to wait outside in the other room. I will get to you eventually.’

The man mumbled something and spittle peppered the table. Metcalfe caught a strong whiff of garlic. He looked at Molly and started to tell her to call the police but the man grabbed him by the wrist, his nails digging into the MP’s skin. Then something metallic flashed and Metcalfe yelped, fearing a knife. He ducked away but the man’s grip held firm and something fastened around Metcalfe’s wrist. The garlic smell was almost overpowering now.

‘Allahu Akbar!’ the man shouted. ‘Everyone do exactly as I say or we will all die here today!’

Metcalfe began to tremble. His face reddened with embarrassment as he felt the warm liquid around his groin and realised that he’d wet himself.