Head of State: The Bestselling Brexit Thriller. Andrew Marr

3. Monday, 18 September: Referendum Day Minus Three

Who is Alois Haydn?

The Dither Fund

Professional Logistical Services

The Romance of Fleet Street

Conversation Piece

Constitutional Monarchy

       In the Little Brick Terrace

       A Club Lunch

       4. Friday, 15 September: Referendum Day Minus Six

       A Queer Turn of Events

       ‘He Can’t Do This’

       The Gamble

       Dirty Work

       The Decapitation Strategy

       An Awfully Big Adventure

       The Great Escape

       5. Saturday, 16 September: Referendum Day Minus Five

       The Saturday Delivery

       A Little Politics

       6. Sunday, 17 September: Referendum Day Minus Four

       Rosy-Fingered Dawn

       7. Monday, 18 September: Referendum Day Minus Three

       The Voice of the Nation

       8. Tuesday, 19 September: Referendum Day Minus Two

       The Campaign

       A Coffee Break

       Syntax and Sincerity

       Double-Cross

       Alois Haydn Can Fly

       The Quarry

       The Chase is On

       Scrambled Eggs at the Wolseley

       On the Road

       The Tea Game

       9. Saturday, 16 September: Referendum Day Minus Five

       Rewind …

       10. Sunday, 17 September: Referendum Day Minus Four

       Boys’ Stories

       11. Tuesday, 19 September: Referendum Day Minus Two

       Virtual Reality

       Reptiles

       Old Flames, Flickering

       On the Verge

       Over to Olivia

       Enter, a Bear

       Jen Blows It

       Speaking Plainly

       12. Wednesday, 20 September: Referendum Day Minus One

       Phoebus Awakes: A Pageant

       Death in the Morning?

       Turbulence

       The Second Message

       A Dénouement

       Female Wrestling

       But Where is Ned?

       Marshmalice

       It Isn’t Over

       13. Thursday, 21 September: Referendum Day

       The Rise of Lord Croaker

       The Nation Decides

       14. Friday, 22 September: Referendum Day Plus One

       The Birth of a Free Nation?

       Epilogue: Monday, 9 October

       About the Author

       Also by Andrew Marr

       About the Publisher

       The people of Britain will vote on a definitive ‘in or out’ question on the country’s membership of the European Union in a referendum to be held on Thursday, 21 September, the prime minister told the House of Commons yesterday.

       ‘This will settle the question for a generation to come, and fix the course of this great nation for our children and our grandchildren,’ he told the cheering backbenches of the ‘grand coalition’.

       The announcement follows many delays and disappointments for those campaigning for such a referendum, a matter which the PM said could not be delayed ‘for more than a few months, for all our sakes’.

       The prime minister, who was in Hanover last week to put the final touches to his agreement with the German chancellor for a looser, more market-friendly EU, assured the Commons that he would be campaigning unequivocally for a ‘Yes’ vote.

       Leading the ‘No’ campaign from the opposition benches, Mrs Olivia Kite, who was until recently serving under the PM as home secretary, promised a ‘no holds barred, passionate, honest and patriotic campaign’ to persuade Britain finally to sever its ties with what she called the ‘soft, corrupting dictatorship’ of Brussels.

       Polling for this newspaper suggests a close vote in three months’ time, with the character and leadership abilities of the prime minister a major factor for swing voters.

       National Courier , London, Thursday, 22 June 2017

1

       Cock of the Walk

      A dirty wind gusted. There were just three days to go before the referendum that would settle Britain’s destiny. The Golden Cockerel swung proudly from the balcony on the top floor of one of the City of London’s most repellent buildings. Even among the swollen glass spikes, cheese graters and vegetables crowding the capital’s horizon in 2017, this pastrami-and-lemon-coloured confection from the boom of the 1980s stood out – vile colours, ill-judged proportions, cheap materials. Architecture is one of the most certain measures of cultural and social decline. Inside the abomination, the Cockerel restaurant offered a cold-eyed English catering executive’s idea of French peasant cooking. In recent years the ‘Cock’ had gained a certain notoriety, because its outside smoking terrace had become popular with City suicides.

      A South Asian accountant, bullied at work, had thrown herself to her death after dinner. A City trader whose losses were about to be exposed had leapt the eight floors after a couple of Cock of the Walk martinis. The almost famous and thoroughly cuckolded president of the Society of Costermongers had made a witty speech to a gathering of his best friends, then vaulted over the guardrail into the traffic below, bouncing off the top of a passing bus before experiencing his last convulsions under the wheels of a kitchen-delivery lorry.

      This Monday morning there lay, foetally curled in the grey half-light on the pavement below the Cockerel, the young constable’s first corpse. She took in a dark-blue jacket of a Portuguese cut, a pair of German designer jeans pulled down around his ankles, scuffed but new-looking English brogues, arranged at unlikely angles; and finally a mop of dark, curling hair nestling in a half-dried archipelago of blood. This was a