This is the eighth chapter of a novel being published in serial form in the Daily Sceptic. It’s a dystopian satire about the emergence of a social credit system in the UK in the near future. Read the first seven chapters here.
However much one understands that the modus operandi of all authoritarian regimes is to present the individual with a series of ever harsher choices – comply and become complicit, or stand firm and lose ever more consequential things or people – nothing can quite prepare for the moment that reality impacts.
Although one grasps that it is precisely by the slow turning of the screw that such regimes are able to survive and thrive, although on some level one understands that persistent non-compliance will eventually collide with unconscionable consequences, however ample the time to see that moment approaching, and however braced one believes oneself to be, the harsh reality of experiencing it first hand is incomparable to the thought of it.
For Ella and Theo, the moment of impact – or at least, the first moment of impact – came at about quarter to eleven on a Saturday morning.
A gradually more discriminatory environment had been drowned out by the weekly rhythm of work, school, sports practice; work, school, sports practice. Nothing had improved, but nothing had got massively worse, either. They’d become resourceful, and developed a resilience, of sorts. No longer able to access any of the village shops save Lillicos, they’d discovered that Robert the sceptical butcher had a thriving black market trade and Theo and Libby were fast becoming veg patch experts. The village dentist had closed to Non-Efficients, so they brushed their teeth with a renewed, religious fervour. Now acclimatised to the small but ritual humiliation of standing obediently in Lillico’s ‘Non-Efficients’ aisle, they’d avoid peak times, dodge eye contact, keep their heads down. In a way it had brought the two of them closer; they did more together these days — strength in numbers, or at least, that’s what Ella had thought. With a combination of expediency and ingenuity they were learning to get by in a world shrinking in. It wasn’t pleasant, but neither had it yet been awful.
That all changed on the day of Poppy’s County Youth rollerblading competition (sponsored by ‘ZEETA, YOUR CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE’, no hint of irony). For Poppy, at least, the competition was a Really Big Deal. The top two teams in each age group would go to the national finals in Sheffield. Poppy and her friend Verity stood a good chance. Poppy had barely talked about anything else for weeks, and had been practising with a devotion bordering on extremism.
By happy – or so it had seemed – coincidence, Theo’s sister Penny and her kids had flown down to visit for the weekend, so Mikey and Gracie, the cousins, would be going along to watch Poppy, too.
The night before they’d taken extra care to read the Competition Rules, scouring anything that might indicate there was an ‘Efficients Only’ requirement. They could see nothing. That made sense, because educational establishments were still exempt from the Efficiency Rules. There had never been any issue at any of the kids’ other sports fixtures plus, “the Therrofordian is a posh private school, right”, Ella had pointed out. “Surely it’ll be fine?”
Theo, making packed lunches for five children, had raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?” he’d said, “she’ll never forgive us if this goes wrong.” A brief debate about whether they should email the competition organisers just to check had ensued, but Ella had felt confident that she knew the rules, and in the end they’d agreed it might be worse to alert anyone even to the possibility of there being an issue. They’d agreed to leave it.
And so, a day that had started full of glorious opportunity and expectation and an almost excruciatingly excited 12 year-old, ended in inconsolable tears. An over-officious security official had asked them to scan their BIMS. Yes, the official understood, there was no formal requirement, but they were operating a strict EFFICIENTS ONLY policy; and yes, that was even though —
“There was nothing in the competition booklet about this” (Theo);
“I’m a lawyer and schools are exempt” (Ella); and
“But our daughter has put a year of practice into this” (Theo); and
“Please let me come in” (Poppy, with tears in her eyes); and
“Please be reasonable, there’s no requirement for children to have BIMS!” (Ella); and
“Please, you can’t not let me in, we’ve been practising for months” (Poppy, now almost unable to breathe); and
“Please let her in, she has to come in or I can’t do the competition either,” (Verity, walking up to the entry tents, distraught on realising the source of the commotion).
And then, once they realised there was not going to be any giving way and the full horror of it began to dawn, some minutes and a degree of escalation later,
“You can’t SERIOUSLY be saying she can’t come in, she’s a child!” (Theo); and
“BUT THIS IS FUCKING OUTRAGEOUS!! THERE IS NO LEGAL REQUIREMENT FOR HER TO HAVE A BIM” (Ella); followed finally by,
“No my wife didn’t mean to swear it’s just that this is extremely, extremely important to our daughter. May I please ask, is there a superior you could check with?”
Ultimately, requirement or not turned out to be irrelevant, as the sanctimonious puffed-up jobsworth official made unwaveringly clear that this was no place either for Non-Efficients or the progeny of Non-Efficients. Cold-hearted and apparently unbothered by the fact she was about to ruin a little girls’ year, she explained that the competition was committed to doing its bit for national efficiency targets. Yes, she knew it wasn’t technically mandatory but rules were rules (even when they were not) and no, there was no one else that they could speak to and yes she was the superior, so she was very sorry but could you please move out of the line now you are holding up others and you know, there’s always next year so it’s not such a big deal now, is it, and anyway what makes you so special that you don’t have a BIM when all the other families do.
An increasingly heated debate (“well that was quite a scene, wasn’t it,” Penny had tutted as they were leaving), had ended with them begging, literally begging for them to let Poppy in, even if they weren’t allowed in, as a crowd of what, 200 impatient other parents and children waited – everyone looking down, swerving eye contact; and Poppy wailing – actually wailing – with the shame and overwhelming injustice of it all.
The atmosphere in the car on the way home had been brutal, Poppy oscillating between stunned silence and inconsolable grief; an hour long journey punctuated only with convulsive sobs of, “But we were going to win!!! We were going to win!!!!!”
Over dinner, anguish had turned to anger –
“Why can’t you just do what they are telling you,” she’d cried, Penny watching on, nodding in agreement, silently. “Everyone else has done it. Why do you have to be different?” Theo had tried to talk it down, “It’s okay kiddo, there’s always next year, there’ll be more competitions, you’ve got time.”
But they all knew it rang hollow.
“It’s the most important thing I do,” she’d whimpered, eyes puffy and cheeks swollen red.
“And it’s ruined. You ruined it!”
That day marked a grim watershed: the point at which the screw tightened far enough to realise the situation was becoming untenable. Later that evening, lying in bed, staring in darkness up at the ceiling, they discussed – for the first time – the possibility of leaving. It was one thing to understand how bad things had become, quite another to face authoritarianism’s savage punishments head-on. Should they stay and fight, but risk sacrificing their children’s freedom, health and happiness in the process, or run – while they could – to a place where this nightmare couldn’t touch them?
Look out for chapter nine next week.
Molly Kingsley is a founder of children’s rights campaign group UsForThem.
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I wonder if this is something to do with the difficulty of counting people in the occupied parts of Ukraine? I don’t understand why but it is almost bound to make it a problem even defining if someone is part of the Ukrainian population or not.
We’ve just had a census yet, as Prof Norman Fenton keeps illustrating, we haven’t a clue how many people there are in the UK.
I suspect the authorities have got a pretty good idea of how many people there are in the UK, but they pretend not to because it suits them. I expect whatever figures there are have been kept vague enough to allow for plausible deniability.
And Russia has lost at least a million citizens to emigration.
‘This exodus is a terrible blow for Russia,” said Tamara Eidelman, a Russian historian who moved to Portugal after the invasion. “The layer that could have changed something in the country has now been washed away.”
Some say many more have emigrated. More than 3.8 million Russians left the country in the first three months of 2022, according to data from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).
https://www.fedstat.ru/indicator/38480
So now some state institutions are now asking even medium-level figures to refrain from foreign travel and banned from travelling more than two hours’ drive from Moscow without official permission.
The FSB have asked former officials who previously had access to state secrets to surrender their passports, and even some who never had access.
“Now they are coming to certain people and saying, ‘please hand in your red civilian passports, because you have access to sensitive information for the motherland, so we want to control your movements’,”
Alexandra Prokopenko, former Russian central bank official
I followed that link but couldn’t make much sense of it. Any tips? It’s not clear whether these are permanent departures.
Where would 3.8 millions Russians be able to go and live, legally?
I’m not questioning the statistics particularly, but Fedstat isn’t Russian, it’s a division in the US Department of Commerce… and I suppose were Russia quoting figures for America we would be expected to treat them with some scepticism?
….the Russian comparison would be Rosstat….
Not only have Ukraine lost 8 million legally, there have been thousands of men leaving illegally, numbers vary from 12,000-15,000 depending on who you read…as this is what they are willing to admit, it could be many more?
As the population is @ 43 million V 146 million, in Russia’s favour …. Russia probably have a long way to go before they are depleted!
The Unified Interdepartmental Information and Statistical System (EMISS) was developed as part of the implementation of the federal target program “Development of State Statistics of Russia in 2007-2011”.
The purpose of creating the System is to provide access via the Internet to state bodies, local governments, legal entities and individuals to official statistical information, including metadata, generated in accordance with the federal plan of statistical work.
EMISS is a state information resource that combines official state information statistical resources formed by the subjects of official statistical accounting as part of the implementation of the federal plan for statistical work.
Access to official statistical information included in the statistical resources included in the interdepartmental system is carried out on a free and non-discriminatory basis.
The system was put into operation by a joint order of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications of Russia and Rosstat dated November 16, 2011
No. 318/461 .
The EMISS coordinator is the Federal State Statistics Service.
The EMISS operator is the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation”.
In case of problems while working with the system, please contact us:
info@fedstat.ru , emiss@digital.gov.ru
…as usual I have no idea what this is about..
So Rosstat use a computing system called EMISS…?
You can bet your life they won’t be going anywhere near Ukraine, which actively discriminates against Russian speakers.
Those who did run away to escape the anticipated conscription were clearly listening to Western misinformation, since it was clear that the process would only involve reservists, not raw recruits. And they claim these people were the “elite”. Clearly not very bright and a little yellow.
The FSB reported a slight uptick in Russians traveling to war-torn Ukraine — 328,435 (Jan-Mar 22), up from 316,286 in January-March 2021.
That sounds suspiciously like the number of Russian troops in the liberated regions.
Or maybe something else?
‘RVC reports that it “again visited” Bryansk Oblast, where the fighters managed to perform “combat tasks”, communicate with residents, hand them their postcards and “ask them to hide during the hostilities”.
As proof, the corps released a video in which its fighters really communicate with the residents of the village of Sluchovsk and conduct combat operations there.’
06 Apr 23
Oops……!
In case of problems while working with the system, please contact us:
info@fedstat.ru , emiss@digital.gov.ru
or
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/13/russia-diaspora-war-ukraine/
Take your pick
What she says she said to the FT was “Russia’s security services have almost total leeway to interpret the rules under revisions to laws on state secrets, espionage and treason. Basically any information can be deemed secret, so the embedded FSB officers start telling you that you have sensitive information. What is it? Why is it secret and who decides that? Nobody knows,”
Not quite the same thing.
It is highly likely that Ukraine have lost hundreds of thousands of troops.
Former Pentagon adviser Colonel Douglas McGregor shared secret data on the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
“When Zaluzhny was in the US, he met with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and General Milley. He secretly told them that Ukraine had lost 257,000 people since the beginning of the conflict,” the retired officer shared.
A Turkish publication, citing Israeli intelligence agency MOSSAD, claims to show the real number of casualties for both parties in the conflict as Ukrainians killed in action reaches staggering 157,000 with 2,458 NATO soldiers dead and 234,000 injured.
Russia 18,480 dead with 44,500 injured.
US Military analyst William Schryner wrote in January 2023 that “Ukraine has now suffered approximately 500,000 irretrievable (military) casualties and virtually the entirety of their original inventories of military hardware – the equivalent of ALL the personnel and equipment (both active and reserves) with which they commenced this conflict.”
Telegram channels from the frontline show Nato heavy weapons being destroyed on a regular basis and Ukrainian troops and Nato country mercenaries being destroyed by the hundreds every day which confirm the above figures may be accurate with very little Russian losses.
In February 2022 Ukraine passed a law where they would compensate the families of servicemen killed in action.
Ukraine are so corrupt that they would rather designate those killed as “missing” instead so they don’t have to pay out the compensation.
https://imetatronink.substack.com/p/ok-doomer?publication_id=1085164&post_id=95312586&isFreemail=true
This was posted by geo-political analyst Pepe Escobar.
Ukraine have lost 387,000 conscripted soldiers killed in action.
Plus 31,240 mercenaries have been killed.
Ukrainian Telegram channel “Observer”: Open Source INTelligence (Intelligence from open sources), based on reports from funeral agencies, extracts from morgues, as well as the results of an analysis of radio, cellular and satellite exchange of forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, reports that as of October 20, irretrievable losses of The Armed Forces of Ukraine amounted to 402,000 people, of which 387,000 were killed. At the same time, to date, the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Ukraine has allegedly prepared more than 320,000 appeals “about the fate of the missing soldiers,” but the SBU has forbidden filing applications with the prosecutor’s office for national security purposes.
https://vk.com/wall578617852_26297
Even the pro-Nato propaganda merchants the BBC stated that only 16,071 named Russian troops had died in total up to March 2023.
They daren’t tell the world the Ukrainian losses which are in the hundreds of thousands.
https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-64840229?ocid=wsrussian.social.in-app-messaging.telegram..russiantelegram_.edit
The BBC have revised this figure to just 17,375 named Russian troops.
https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-64984414
..a whole generation of young men…a whole generation who won’t be father’s…it’s a fuc***g tragedy……
Peace talks NOW….….
but no the USA has just authorised (yesterday) a new $2.6 billion package of U.S. military aid to Ukraine which includes $500 million for immediate supplies…
They weren’t kidding when they said…’to the last Ukrainian’…..that’s what literally will be left……
It is a sad situation. I speak to Ukranians and Russians frequently and they seem remarkably bright and many of them have a wonderful facility for language and really enjoy learning more about English. I think people’s names sound much more beautiful in Russian and they have the patronymic and the diminutive which we seem to have lost so long ago that nobody could possibly notice anymore.
You should always be mindful of the western neurotic fear of death. Terrorist organisations and intelligence agencies all over the world know and have perceived this reality. If you are in that state, the state they want you to be in, then you have to grasp it and snap out of it. Because very shortly there aren’t going to be any comfortable options. You either apply yourself to working with others in order to survive or you don’t.
None of us really appreciate how much we need the next man, whether its taking out bins or whatever, We need to be mindful of just how fragile life is for most of the people in this country, who live in cities. We are moving into a different phase now. I don’t care what happens I know where my loyalty lies. At least in the horror to come we will find out about true character.
There is an assumption that it being encouraged here – that if you knew the reality you could control it. Believe me by the end of this year you are going to see governments showing their people some rather unpleasant tactics. Of course in the volatile times we live in, I would say that the average life expectancy of any government is about two weeks.
Look at the current trajectory in terms of econmics. The dollar based system has a couple of weeks left and the pound is totally subservient. This is a major disruption but people pretend it isn’t going to happen. I can tell you that it is going to happen very soon.
I know how hysterical people are at the moment and really worried and looking for guidance, When this situation g ets seriois you are going to have millions of people who haven’t got the faintest idea about it. A lot of people are simply going to crack up. You have to accept this reality.
It isn;t easy trying to make people understand about the reality to come. We can obviate that if we comne together. If I have one desire it is to keep our people together.