Travel to any country in the world that has experienced civil conflict over the last 60 years and find someone over the age of 70, and then ask them a simple question, 'Did you ever expect your country to fall apart like it has done?' The answer will always be the same, 'Not in a million years'. This has been the experience of a great many people in countries and regions across the globe, including mainland Europe and even a part of the United Kingdom. It will also quite likely be the experience one day for a great many more people presently living in the UK, the great majority of whom believe that the UK is a stable nation. It isn't. The ingredients of civil breakdown are there in this country, with violence, overcrowding and corruption the chief amongst them.
The corruption is very real indeed. British politicians from all three of the main parties in England have started wars on the basis of engineered lies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria and helped engineer wars in Yemen and Gaza. This establishment now issues threats against innocent people demonstrating against those same politicians. No wonder the country has fragmented, with the battle lines being drawn. The similarities with another age of civil conflict, the 1630s, are astonishing. In a similar fashion, the present establishment is trying to raise monies for foreign future wars, sometimes in support of hated foreign regimes, whilst society is now utterly divided between those who stubbornly support these politicians and those who are devoted to opposing them. There are even political and religious differences between ultra right-wing conservatives and reforming puritans, in various religions, along with abject hatred and disrespect underpinning and shaping much of the dialogue. Scotland, just like in the 1630s, has been in open revolt against rule from London over the last decade or more. The main difference now is that the Westminster establishment is protected by a modern paramilitary police force, the question being, would they remain loyal? This novel explores this modern reality.
