The Right Honourable (As featured in the Literary Lancashire Award Anthology 2020)

Hang on just a second, would you rather listen to this story? Dom’s actually recorded The Right Honourable into a nice little audio package. Check it out. You can also buy a real, proper, physical book with The Right Honourable in it (as well as a number of even better short stories); the Literary Lancashire Award Anthology 2020 is available now.

***

“Fuck it, we’re running this.”

“You sure?”

“I’m the editor, aren’t I?”

I press enter. Fuck it indeed. Publish. It’s his decision but my byline on the story. And it’s up, another few kilobytes of data taking up a minuscule space in the bottomless pit of the internet.

“Share it on Facebook, get it on Twitter, throw it on some of the Instagram stories and stuff.”

“Boss.”

Yes, my boss just told me to use Facebook and Twitter as part of my job as a journalist. I went to Newcastle, for fuck’s sake. No, it’s not Cambridge, but it is still Russell Group. I read shitting Classics, yet I spend half my day checking the Instagram accounts of celebrities, another quarter rearranging press releases and the rest posting on social media.

I check the article has gone up.

And there it is.

Calderdale MP caught in kissing shame at student nightclub

An MP was spotted kissing several men on the same night out.

Eleanor Baron-Halls, 24, the Calderdale MP, was snapped getting up close and personal with several different men during a drinking session at the Heaven’s Gate nightclub.

The newly elected representative reportedly polished off nine vodka and lemonades before hitting the dance floor and snogging half a dozen midnight revellers.

“I want an update in an hour.”

“An hour? What will have happened in an hour?”

“Just do a reaction piece, pull some extreme comments from social—you know, boomers talking about MPs from the old days, lads calling her a slag. Get some reactions from the Tories—Ian Duncan Smith’s on Twitter, isn’t he? He’ll have something to say.”

“I don’t know.” I look to my screen and back to him. “Won’t it seem like we are going after her a bit?”

“No.”

He shrugs in that noncommittal way that says don’t worry about it, screw your integrity. “Public interest. She gets paid eighty K a year to work for the people, not to get pissed and stick her tongue down some lad’s throat.”

I think about mentioning the time he went to a nightclub after the Christmas party and snogged Helen from marketing behind his girlfriend’s back. Hypocrite.

“Just do it.”

“Sure.”

‘Sure’—the shorthand for Sure, I’ll complete your mundane task, you immoral windbag, you are the kind of person that gives journalism a bad name, fuck you.

I check the office screen, the digital leader board of views for today’s stories. Mine is already at the top. More than 200 people looking at it, some 500 hits already.

“It’s flying.” My editor rubs his hands, sleeves rolled up to the elbows like he’s about to perform surgery, the sweat on his brow shining in the dull office light. “Well done, Dan. Great spot.”

I nod. ‘Great spot’ is code for Well done for seeing a bunch of photos posted online, downloading them and using them in an article before any other website.

“I’m off on a call.” He stands, stretches, ensuring his body odour makes it into every crevice of the office.

He looks like a microwaved corpse today. I’m yet to see an older journalist who looks good for their age. He could easily be forty-five but I know he’s yet to turn thirty. It’s the job. The endless pressure, the lack of decent money, the scrolling through social media, the constant—and I mean constant—lack of having a life outside of news.

“I want you to stick to Eleanor Baron-Halls’ social media. Call her office every fifteen—get her fucking PA on the phone. We want a comment as soon as. Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good man.”

And he’s gone.

A ding on my computer: it’s a social media notification, the signal that a wave of shite is coming my way.

“Here we go.”

“What?”

It’s Sadie. You won’t find her talking unless it’s about gossip, which is funny because news is a lot like gossip and her news sense is dog shit.

I check the notification: a reply on Twitter to my story, from a young woman. I can guess the meaning of her tweet before I even read it.

You fucking sexist bastard, woman goes on night out, has some fun, how’s this news? Slut shaming arsehole #womencanhavefun #fuckDanSamuels

I read it to Sadie, who coos with excitement, the new gossip filling her up like fuel, revving her engines.

“That’s so unfair,” she says, dark eyes wide, her face twisted in mock concern.

“You were only doing as you were told. It was a good spot!”

Yeah, and the Nazis were only following orders. I nod. “I know.”

I just want Sadie to stop filling the office with her voice.

I look at the screen: 1,500 people on the story, around 4,000 views.

“Jesus,” I breathe. Pointless story it may be, that is a lot of views in a short space of time.

“Oh my god.”

It’s Sadie again. She’s checking her phone, the unnatural blue light illuminating her face.

I act like I haven’t heard. I don’t want to see the latest stupid meme involving a Love Island star; neither do I want to read a tweet from Chris Pratt or some witticism involving a clip of Eddie Hearn.

“She’s retweeted your story. That’s why it’s doing so well.”

“Who?” Who is my mystery saviour? Does she hate or love the story? Does she despise me or despise Eleanor Baron-Halls? Is Eleanor Baron-Halls a public disgrace or is she just a fun-loving woman letting her hair down? You decide. Either way, click on that story and I get a view. The more views it gets, the happier my editor is.

“That woman,” Sadie clicks her fingers at me, once, twice, three times.

“What’s her name…oh, Carol something.”

Oh, shit.

“Carol Eve?”

“Yeah,” Sadie giggles as she buries her head back in the phone light, one overly large false nail clicking on the screen, scrolling through the endless posts.

Carol Eve. The popular feminist of our age. More Twitter followers than I could imagine, a loyal gang of army ants ready to come out of the woodwork and bury themselves in my flesh.

She definitely hates me. In her eyes, Baron-Halls is certainly a hero; she was just letting her hair down and I’m a bigoted hack who took her merriment and crushed her beneath my patriarchal hand.

“Great,” I groan. “Fucking fantastic.”

Sadie types, false nails clicking like a room full of tap-dancing children.

“It’s okay. I tweeted my support of you.”

Oh, good. Sadie Swift, five hundred followers, as much influence as a dying gnat. Revered amongst other reporters as exactly what she is: a trainee who regularly forgets how to structure a sentence and would need a Thesaurus to write anything longer than an Instagram post.

“Thanks.”

“No worries.” She beams me a false smile.

I pick up the phone and call Eleanor Baron-Hall’s office.

“Hello, Eleanor Baron-Hall’s office,” a woman’s voice answers, high, panicked, flustered. A newbie, I can tell. The MP’s a newbie, her staff are newbies—at twenty-six, I’m actually more experienced than them. What a novelty.

“Hi there. It’s Daniel Samuels—a journalist from YourWestYorkshire.com.” I pause, let it sink in. Let the name of our third-rate website, with a shit name and a worse reputation, filter through her mind.

“Oh, hello.”

Yeah, she’s got us.

I smile. It helps to smile through the phone. People can hear it when you talk. Trust me, I’ve spoken to people on the phone enough. I can hear the smiles,; I can hear the frowns.

“We wondered if Ms. Baron-Hall had a statement regarding the images circulating online?”

Big volley down the middle, caught her off guard. Surely a fifteen-love situation.

“The images in your article, circulating online because you published them?”

Nice one. Solid backhand. Fifteen-all.

“Come on,” I drawl. You’ve got to drawl when you’re talking to these people—be superior, sound like what you’re saying is common thought, a popular opinion, one established fact.

“We all know those images were everywhere before we published. It was hardly news, was it?”

Static. The sound of one angry breath in and out.

“We’ll get a statement together shortly.” ‘

Shortly’—the word people use to mean several fucking hours, but sometimes it’s the best you can hope for.

“Thank you. Do you need my email?”

“No.”

The line goes dead.

“Nice to talk to you too, bitch.”

“What?” Sadie again, bright eyes above her screen, nostrils sniffing fresh gossip on the air.

“Just that MP’s PA.”

“Oh, right.”

She giggles, gets back to her phone, the rumour-fuelling station, the pipeline of useless knowledge.

My editor’s back, pointing at the office screen, at my article which is currently fizzing through the numbers.

“Look at it!” He beams. “So beautiful.” He puts his hands behind his head, his round eyes awed by the spectacle.

“I called her PA,” I say, returning to my screen, seeing another dozen notifications on my Twitter, and wondering how far my name has fallen amongst the female of the species.

“Statement ‘soon’.”

I sketch the quotations in the air with each hand.

“Tomorrow then?” He laughs, throws his head back, striding back to his desk, plonking himself down. Still laughing at his own jokes.

“Yeah,” I agree, putting on my own forced laugh. “Looks like it.”

“Well, get on her Twitter, see if she’s deleted anything from her past. Get reactions.”

“Oh my god.”

Sadie, again. What now? Has my story reached Hilary Clinton or Loose Women? Are my metaphorical balls being fried by Brie Larson? I daren’t ask, but of course, my editor does.

“What’s up, Sadie?”

The phone is back around and pointing in our direction.

“You’ve gone viral, Dan, and it’s not good.”

“What?”

One false nail scrolls down to a picture of me, nineteen, my cleanly shaved lips clamped onto a blonde girl from my university course. I can see my friend Nick, his drunk face in the foreground pointing at me. A classic shot from the days I spent chugging supermarket cider and kissing any girl who would have me.

“What the…?”

“They’ve gone through all your socials.” She giggles. “Who’s the blonde?”

My editor laughs. “Classic.”

He turns back to his own computer, trawling through emails.

“Fuck. They weren’t supposed to go through my personal life.”

I snatch the phone off Sadie.

“Be careful! That’s new.”

Fucking Carol Eve, sharing my story, ruining my life.

“How the fuck…”

Another tweet, a picture of me, aged fourteen, a can of Fosters in my hand, two of my old Rugby teammates, one either side of me.

“You should put your Facebook on private, mate,” my editor says.

“I would, but you wanted us to keep our accounts open to share all the stories.”

My teeth are tightly gritted, the words escaping slowly. My editor shrugs and returns to his emails. And that is all the support I will get on the matter. Don’t expect your boss to stick by you in journalism. If things go south, the captain jumps from the ship first and leaves the crew to go down with it.

Two dings on my computer: notifications on Facebook this time. I open them.

“Shit.” Shit indeed. Oh god, I’m done for now. This isn’t just underage drinking, embarrassing nights out territory. This is serious. The editor is over my shoulder, peering at my screen.

“What the—”

I smash one finger into my modem button, turning the screen black. My editor’s looking dumbstruck.

“Was that…you?”

Sadie is out of her chair too, eyes almost stuck to her phone, mouth a perfect ‘o’ of cartoon horror.

“Oh my god.”

The phone rings.

We all look at it. Suddenly the most everyday thing becomes a time bomb.

“Answer it.”

My hands shake as I pull the handset from its cradle.

“Hello, newsroom.”

“Hi, it’s Jane Crown from the Evening Mail. Can we talk to Daniel Samuel about the images circulating online?”