When The Kissing Had To Stop - Constantine Fitz Gibbon

 WHEN THE KISSING HAD TO STOP -

CONSTANTINE FITZ GIBBON

Pulp fiction frenzy! Pulp fiction frenzy! Reveling in the tawdry! Reveling in the cheap!

And with that opening gambit I'm half-way to writing a song by The Fall, unpicking the lock to the secret of Mark E Smith's song writing technique. That's not why I'm here, however. Rather, it's to lay down my thoughts on the latest book I've happened to read so as to save anyone else the bother of having to read it themselves.

On picking up this one, it struck me that isn't British politics and all that we see in the news also pulp fiction? Boris Jonson was the opening chapter and now we're getting into the stride of the story having been introduced to the likes of Farage, Starmer and Kemi fucking Badenoch. But I digress.

Written and set in 1960, When The Kissing Had To Stop, by Constantine Fitz Gibbon is the stuff of Right-wing media fantasy, nightmare, and secret desire. It's the sentiment behind every 'What is the world coming to?' editorial comment you have ever read. It's the constipated howl at midnight from the Tory Old Guard. It's the mindset of the public school education system, on its knees but still begging for one more lash of the whip.

It opens with England in the throes of societal and moral collapse. London in particular seems to be going to the dogs with open prostitution everywhere, rampant knife-crime, race riots, and unchecked police violence. Moreover, there is a growing anti-nuclear Bomb movement hand-in-hand with escalating antipathy to American missiles being based on the mainland. All of this under a Conservative government who advocate for an Increased Powers Bill under which all police would be armed and their pay doubled. The Bill, however, is rejected by Parliament whose demand for closer parliamentary supervision of the police is denied. In a bid to gain a mandate, Parliament is dissolved and a snap general election is called.

Watching at the sidelines - or even actually pulling puppet strings - is Russia who suddenly advocate unilateral nuclear disarmament beginning with the dismantling of their rockets in Poland. On the coat-tails of this historic decision the Labour Anti-Nuclear Bomb committee sweep to victory and with this all American missile bases within the UK are closed.

It's all a communist plot, of course, and from thereon Russia is free to subvert, manipulate and through connivance and stealth take over British politics for its own ends, leading ultimately to the complete take-over of England as whole. Though not before the Royal Family manage to flee to Canada, so suggesting not quite everything is lost in the end...

The thing about When The Kissing Had To Stop is that actually it's a very well-written book and clearly written with serious intent. Russian interference in British politics is a serious issue and is obviously of great concern to the author. It's a serious message he's conveying and he wants it to be taken seriously.

The problem with the book, however, is in its politics in that it is the politics of the Tory Old Guard where 'British traditions' and 'British values' are always to their advantage and the crumbs are for the masses. It is the politics of the Telegraph newspaper and the Daily Mail where fear of an egalitarian society reigns supreme. It is the politics of the ladder pulled-up and the drawbridge closed. The politics of stranglehold on power. The politics of death grip.

For all that, When The Kissing Had To Stop is weirdly fascinating but in the same way that watching a slow motion car-crash can be. It's like the revealing of a Tory firebrand's sexual proclivities with prostitutes at the back of King's Cross station, where you nod along sagely because it comes as no surprise. When The Kissing Had To Stop is weird but weird well-written.

John Serpico