The Nelson Touch by Bob Baynes

Captain Brown had served his whole life in the Home Office Quick Action PC Brigade.  He left Cambridge University with a double 1^st in Revolutionary Studies and Persona Moulding.  He was the darling of the recently formed Woke Party which had virtually annihilated opposition; the Tory party was left with just 2 seats in the Peoples Parliament.  His loyal activists, all IT experts to a person, had dispatched every effigy of Churchill, Wellington,  Nightingale, slave traders and to his huge personal satisfaction, Maggie Thatcher, to various concrete crushers, incinerators and deep waters in the Atlantic, along with all other so called national icons.  He revelled in the satisfaction that the people of the Democratic Republic of Little England were now very similar to North Korean voters in their support for Wokeism.

The only icon he still had to consign to oblivion was Nelson, and the plan to achieve that was well advanced.  But there remained a strong underground movement opposing Woke policy, so it was minor worry.  When the last straight, white man was sacked from the BBC and replaced with ethnic minority dedicated LGBT presenters, he felt nearly fulfilled.  The dangerous reactionary and right wing Liberal party, despite being 100% LBGT was his last great political obstacle. 

He totally understood military requirements, and now the heads of all three services were safely in female hands, their allegiance to the King cut out of any oaths of appointment and all lethal weaponry replaced by tasers and pepper sprays; that he felt, was heading in the right direction too. 

Also well advanced were a number of other successes.  Success in shutting down the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and Daily Express was complete.  Effective banning other extremist periodicals, and granting full independence to Scotland, Cornwall, Wales and ceding Northern Ireland to the republic, the closing of competitive sports clubs and games, and exams in schools, with all these things Brown felt reasonably satisfied.

The year was now 2030, Brown was getting over confident and technology had been leaping ahead and making great strides.  Time travel, although in its infancy, was possible for the ruling party.  Captain Brown’s thoughts turned again to the knotty problem of neutralising Lord Nelson’s legacy.  He thought if he were to actually meet Nelson, and persuade him to back his New Woke Nation, that would be a major coup.  It would also be the nail in the coffin of any lingering admiration for the colonial past.

Brown packed a portable power point presentation with the necessary battery supplies, headed for a government timewarp capsule and dialled up the coordinates of Nelson’s home where he was recuperating from losing his arm following the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.  He pressed the ‘Start’ button’.  He arrived in Nelson’s bedroom, appearing initially as a transparent image, wavering on to a more solid form.  Nelson watched this with great interest, and took another huge swig of laudanum and rum to make sure he was seeing things right.  Brown set up his power point presentation and after arguing with Nelson for permission, presented the wickedness of Empire and colonisation that Nelson’s generation was guilty of.  Nelson was fascinated, and asked many questions, all comprehensively answered by Brown.  Would Nelson wish to join the debate for the good of future generations?  Nelson reached into his bedside table, pulled out one of his duelling pistols, and shot Brown between the eyes.  He took another swig of his pain killing potion, called in his major domo, and said, “Bury this fucking idiot in the woods.”