The Bill he had drafted called for the strictest laws yet on the control of the internet. All British Service Providers would be held accountable in law for any unseemly traffic that passed through their pipelines. Barson-Garland called for an all-embracing firewall to be built around the island to keep the British family safe from the ‘tide of filth’ that threatened to ‘engulf’ the ‘young and vulnerable’ and other ‘at-risk members of the community’. (He had long ago overcome any scruples about using clichés. They worked. For some extraordinary reason, they worked and only a fool would consider himself above their use.) Under the terms of his proposed Internet Service Providers Act, an independent agency would be set up arid given the right to sweep all email randomly, much as police had the right to point speedguns at road traffic. Anyone who opposed such legislation might regard themselves as a friend of liberty, but Barson-Garland would demonstrate that in reality they were nothing less than enemies of the Family. Only those with suspect agendas or something to hide could possibly object to the purification of cyberspace. Ordinary, decent, law-abiding citizens would welcome such a move.

He did not expect his Bill to be passed into law, Private Members’ Bills almost always failed, but it was a way to plant a (patriotic) flag in the territory of family and to ‘force the agenda’. The Labour government already attempted to prove its family credentials by talking of family tax credits, child income allowances and other mechanisms that provoked yawns even from those who benefited directly from them. With his Bill, Barson-Garland had staked a claim that would force New Labour to play or pay. If they opposed him, he could make great political capital of their folly.

The middle-class tabloids were already on his side. Ashley Barson-Garland’s Great National Firewall appealed to the ‘instincts’ (as they preferred to call bigotry and prejudice) of the ‘vast majority’ who worried about ‘bogus’ asylum-seekers and ‘rampant’ Euro federalism. What was the internet after all, but backdoor cultural immigration of the most pernicious kind? Children (children for heaven’s sake!) were at the mercy of homosexual propagandists, anti-capitalist rioters, drug dealers and perverts. Thank God a man like Ashley Barson-Garland was standing up to all this. His Internet Service Providers Bill, all in all, ‘pressed the right buttons’ and ‘sent the right signals’.

This evening, this hero of ordinary decent law-abiding citizens was watching a BBC special on the ‘Dot Coin Phenomenon’ chiefly in order to see how much of what he had said in an interview to the producers of the programme had been cut, mangled in meaning or entirely omitted. When footage of Simon Cotter appeared he laughed contemptuously at the accompanying hyperbolic journalese, but his ears pricked up at the reports that Cotter was coming home to England. He opened his laptop, keyed in his password and made an instant note in his journal.

Like Winston Churchill, I find that sometimes it is enough just to read or hear ‘patriotism’ ‘England’ or ‘home’ for tears to spring to my eyes. I believe that ‘senile lability’ is the phrase for it. In my case it seems to have come early. What a turnaround … as a teenager, my prick used to twitch and leak at the mere sight of words like ‘youth’ and ‘boy’. In middle age ‘family’, ‘hearth’ and ‘country’ are the words that jump from the page and it is my eyes that do the twitching and leaking. Different symptoms of the same sickness, no doubt…

This Simon Cotter interests me. He has not nailed his colours to the mast. He thrives on enterprise and must perforce be a natural Tory, for all his hippy-happy appearance. Now that the glamour of New Labour is wearing thin he must be caught and cultivated. It is probable that he will instinctively see my bill as a threat. If I ask to see him however … suggest that I value his input, am anxious to consult all interested parties, canvas all views, hear all opinions, weigh all options, include not exclude, etc. etc., he may be flattered into some sort of cooperation. What a catch he would be.

Ashley closed the lid and looked up at the television screen once more. His Private Member’s Bill was being discussed. Some lank-haired millionaire yob in a tee-shirt was accusing Barson-Garland of trying to create a sterilised intranet that would cut Britain off from the rest of the world.

‘Cyberspace is like a giant city,’ the scrofulous oaf insisted in vowels that made Ashley wince and an intonation that rose at the end of every sentence as if everything this poltroon said were a question. ‘Along with the shopping centres, galleries, museums and libraries, it’s got its slums and red-light districts. Sure. That’s true in Amsterdam, New York, Paris, Berlin and London. It’s not true in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia or Montgomery, Alabama. Where would we rather live, London or Riyadh? Amsterdam or Alabama? Think about it, yeah? Wherever there’s freedom, you’ll find sex, drugs and rock and roll. The internet’s no different.’

Ashley snorted with derision. ‘And wherever there are sex, drugs and rock and roll,’ he said, ‘you will find desolated communities, dysfunctional families and moral wastelands befouled by gibbering nonentities like you.’

He was pleased with that and added it to his diary entry for the day.

Rufus Cade let himself into the flat and flopped onto a sofa.

‘I’m getting too fucking old for this,’ he told himself with a heavy sigh.

He could see the answering machine light flashing and ignored it. Probably Jo, Jane or Julie moaning about money. Why couldn’t he have married a girl whose name didn’t begin with a J? Just for once in his life at least. Given it a try. Lucy at the office, she was a good girl. A good girl and a damned good shag and all. Zoл too. And Dawn. They didn’t threaten him with court orders and solicitor’s letters. They called him ‘Roofy’ and teased him about his weight. In his next life he’d run a mile before speaking to any Js. Whining bitches the lot of them. School fees, health insurance, holidays. Every child, he thought furiously as he tapped out the last of his coke onto the glass-topped coffee table, every last sodding child has to have work done on their fucking teeth. Some bastard in Soho has decided that braces are now cool and there isn’t a teenager in the land without expensive multi-coloured metalwork wired across their front fucking snappers. Bollocks to the lot of them.

He picked up a newspaper. A new-laid pubescent dot.com millionaire grinned out from the front page, acne flaring.

‘Cunts,’ muttered Rufus. ‘How the fuck do they do it?’ Rufus had sent Michael Jackson, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe and the Prince of Wales to the launch of another new e-commerce company (e-tailers they called themselves now, ho, fucking ho) at the Business Design Centre just the week before. For some reason the people behind the launch – CotterDotCom, who bloody else? – had asked Rufus to turn up too, which had annoyed and puzzled him. He had better things to do than watch Madonna spilling wine and Michael Jackson having his hair pulled by drunken journalists. Why the hell did they want him there? He could hardly argue with them. Who pays the piper calls the tune and all that, and CDC paid better than anyone. Most people thought his agency was already over the hill (too eighties, sweetie, so vieux chapeau) which meant that the imprimatur of a hot shop like CDC took on special value. Rufus would have jumped naked through fiery hoops if they’d demanded it.

He had stood like a fat lemon watching his models move around the room with drinks and canapés. He listened to a presentation that bored and irritated him and he got drunk. Mind you, he did score, so it wasn’t entirely a wasted morning. Come to think of it, he reminded himself, checking his watch, John should be here soon.