Night watchmen

  ‘This is the BBC Breakfast News. Good evening.’

   ‘The House of Commons passed the third reading of The Hate Crimes Mental Health Bill yesterday, which will now pass to the Senate for its final Upper House reading. Commentators agree that there is little likelihood of the Upper House making any serious amendments and it is likely to go online for the People’s Assent just before the midwinter recess.

  The BBC’s Social Affairs correspondent Sylvia Kennedy has this report’:

  ‘In an almost unanimous vote, MPs passed the historic bill at a little after 4 AM yesterday. In an increasingly common pattern of crossbench unity, the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Appointed Members backbench Public Health Alliance all spoke in favour of a measure praised by experts as ‘the beginning of the end for hate’ in Anglia.

   ‘Crossbench spokesperson for science and ethics and leader of the Appointed MPs, Victor Jarvis, thanked the House for supporting the popular bill: “No longer will the mentally ill peddle hate and create division and strife by lawless media access and spread the poisons of bigotry and pseudoscience. While committed to preserving the sacred British tradition of free speech, this House has just taken an historic step towards bringing our law in line not only with our European partners but also with the American government’s bipartisan Health and Security Administration. We now expect our own health professionals, in conjunction with the civil police, to move swiftly after the expected Assent to stamp out the terrorist cells that have been ruthlessly abusing the media to spread their message of intolerance and murder. This is a gentle dusk for the peoples of our islands and we look forward to the peace and health that ending hate speech will bring.”

   ‘The Bill was draughted on the recommendation of the all-party Plenipotentiary Commission into Violence after the so-called ‘Survival Riots’ of last summer when over thirty public servants, leadership cadre and diurnal support staff were murdered in terrorist dawn raids against private homes and health facilities throughout Anglia, Scotland and the Shared Sovereignty Counties of Ireland. Right-wing militia and religious fundamentalist terror cells were universally blamed for the violence and though the civil police and Health Service Security responded effectively and promptly, both pulsed and unpulsed lives were tragically lost.

   Then-Prime Minister, Douglas Hart, made legislative reform the centerpiece of his Resignation Speech before he went to the country to ask for a new electoral mandate. Although he was defeated after a hotly contested count amid widespread accusations of server tampering and poster intimidation, his successor had offered a more flexible proposal - for a Plenipotentiary Commission - which he mooted immediately after Hart’s funeral. Assent was granted by an unprecedented landslide. The final draught of the Commission’s findings was introduced to Parliament barely a month ago. The swift passage of the Bill through committee and two reading stages by members of both parties: elected and appointed; backbenchers and Ministers, pulsed and unpulsed in each House has been praised by observers as an epochal show of unity in the face of unforgivable violence by anti-health, anti-reform extremists determined to return to the days of division, disease, hatred and daylight timekeeping.’

  ‘Meanwhile, European aid workers came under intense terrorist attack across North Africa and the Middle East again yesterday; from the Anglo/Spanish area of anti-infection operations in Western Sahara and Morocco to the Turkish/German aid cities in Syria and Egypt. In a joint communiqué the Secretary General of the United Nations, Victor Jent and EU Health Commissioner-General Sigfrid Jaeger tonight announced that voluntary codes of co-operation between local civil and military authorities had served their purpose but must now be replaced by a more robust and flexible regime to overcome the scientific challenges and to defeat anti-health terrorism across the region.

   ‘Herr Jaeger announced a detailed plan to “- eradicate infection and those who harbour it throughout this deeply troubled and strategic part of the world. Air, land and sea elements of the Eastern Mediterranean Joint Health Command will move into Infected and Infested areas of the Northern Galilee Quarantine Zone of the Lebanon Directorate. Operations against Infected holdouts in the Samaria/Al Quds Demilitarized Zone have already begun under authority granted to the UN by the Cape Town Treaty of ’43; starting with an anti-virus bombardment by medium- and long-range missiles from naval assets and Egyptian launch platforms. Disinfection-in-detail is expected to follow shortly once it has been established that it is safe for ground troops to be deployed against any remaining criminal gangs.”

  ‘And finally, it’s good news for cricket fans.

   Panhaemon Pharmaceuticals announced in York tonight that its sponsorship of the Floodlit Championship will be renewed at the end of the season; bringing much-needed security to the finances of the sport in Northern Anglia for a further three years. Newly-appointed Panhaemon Chairman, Seward Jennings, explained: “Panhaemon plc is proud to announce a boost for the region’s favourite game. Starting in May this year, the site of our former filtration plant and regional headquarters near Skipton will be redeveloped as a Cricket Academy and multi-pitch sports village where the cream of Anglia’s cricketing youth will mix with and be tutored by the best players from the Northern Hemisphere, as well as training alongside the best of the Southern Hemisphere’s disinfected veterans. The first clearance work at Skipton has already begun thanks to our architects’ timely completion of the Minster Remodelling Project and our recent relocation to our new corporate headquarters in Constantine House in the heart of the Shambles Redevelopment. On a personal note I’d like to pay tribute to my predecessor - who was also my mentor, friend and sire - Colin Johnson. The Cricketing Academy was his personal passion and it seems only proper that the place of his tragic death in the chemical fire earlier this year should be the location of his dream come true and also bear his name. The loss of the Pacific and Trans-Himalayan Regions to infection and insurrection need not be more than a temporary lull in cricket’s renewed rise to global status, and CJ would no doubt be overjoyed to know that his vision and industry will surely play a large part in the sport’s resurrection after the loss and suffering of the Changes.”