What Will Survive Read Online Free PDF

steelworker, well known in the House as a sexist and a homophobe of the first order — Stephen had often thought that anyone with romantic notions about the nobility of the northern working class should spend an evening in Ray Dowling’s customary haunt, the Strangers’ Bar — aka the Kremlin — and they would soon be cured.
    â€˜You can’t be unaware of the regime’s record? A recent report from the US State Department documents in detail’– she lifted a bundle of papers from the desk in front of her, effortlessly locating the one she wanted and holding it up—‘the systematic abuse of women and girls up and down the country? Yet your government proposes—’
    â€˜Not my government, lass,’ the MP growled, prompting laughter.
    â€˜My apologies, Sir Ray. I haven’t forgotten you were first elected to Parliament in 1979, which makes you one of the longest-serving... backbenchers in the House.’
    Stephen looked down to hide a broad smile: Thompson one, Dowling nil. She had done her homework and knew that Sir Ray’s knighthood barely compensated for the ministerial job he had coveted during the Party’s years in opposition and failed to get after the election. She was now in full stride, quoting from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan — now there was an organisation Stephen had not previously heard mentioned inside the Palace of Westminster — and proving beyond doubt that the Taliban were not people you would invite home in a hurry. The same might be said, in Stephen’s opinion, about the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and one or two other countries that were currently Britain’s bosom buddies. Brought up in a household where religion was barely mentioned, except on occasions when his father launched a diatribe against some interfering bishop, his attitude to religious enthusiasm was composed of incomprehension and dislike — something he was careful to conceal on the rare occasions he visited the small but influential mosque, and the recently-constructed gurdwara, in his constituency.
    Stephen became aware that Sir Ray had retreated, pretending to search for something in a shiny new briefcase embossed with his initials, and the room was temporarily silent. The committee chair, whom Stephen regarded as a thoroughly nice man but a hopeless politician, glanced at his watch. ‘Any more questions?’
    â€˜Just one.’ Everyone turned to look at Stephen, who had not previously spoken during the morning’s session.
    â€˜Ms Thompson, I’m sure you’re correct in your estimation of the Taliban. But can you tell us what you think this committee, and moreimportantly the government of which Sir Ray is sadly not an adornment’ — he could not resist glancing across the room — ‘should do about it?’
    Her hazel eyes flicked to the card on the desk in front of him, bearing his name — Stephen Massinger MP — and he saw a flash of recognition. He waited for her reply, wishing he had not chosen today to wear the garish green tie Carolina had given him for Christmas.
    â€˜And which you’ve documented with immense care, as I’m sure members of the committee appreciate,’ he added to murmurs of agreement.
    She gave him a very slight nod and then she was off again, talking about boycotts, resolutions at the UN Commission on Human Rights, even making comparisons with South Africa.
    â€˜We didn’t take a neutral position on race apartheid,’ she said, ‘and I’m suggesting to this committee, and through it, I hope, to the government, that we shouldn’t stand idly by in the face of the most flagrant gender apartheid. It’s up to the democratic nations of the world to make clear that human rights abuses on this scale will lead to isolation from the international community, as the organisation I