Michael Dobbs - The Final Cut

'Because I love my country. Because I have led it for too long to wish to see the end of my career languish in bitterness and anger. I have made mistakes, been unfair to you. I would like the opportunity to apologize publicly.' 'What-here? Now?' 'With your permission.'

'Never!' Maria interjected. 'You can't let him hijack your rally like this.' 'I wish only to apologize.' 'Then take an advert in The Times.'

'Maria, Maria,' Makepeace chided gently, 'this is our meeting, these are our supporters. Not his. I've just been complaining about the lack of free speech and compassion in the Britain of Francis Urquhart; is the Britain of Tom Makepeace to begin in the same ugly fashion? What have I got to lose, apart from his public apology? Anyway,' he jested, trying to deflect her protest, 'if I turn him back he's likely to get lynched.' 'Then I may speak?'

Makepeace turned to the microphones. 'It would seem that Mr Urquhart is so impressed with our gathering that he has come to offer his personal apologies to us.'

Released from the confines of face-to-face formality, the crowd indulged their true feelings. A chorus of wolf-whistles and jeers erupted.

'No,' Makepeace held up his hand. 'Unlike some, we are forgiving and tolerant. Let us hear him. Before we condemn him.'

The cries scarcely subsided as Makepeace made way at the microphones for Urquhart.

'I still don't care for it,' Maria was complaining. 'I'd rather watch the lynching.'

How much more suitable she would have been as a leader than Makepeace, Urquhart reflected silently, if only she made a better choice of sleeping partner. He moved forward, Elizabeth at his side. The jeers grew in a crescendo. They volleyed back and forth across the square, gathering in pace and ferocity, the sea of arms and upturned faces turning turbulent and breaking like angry waves against the base of the great column, threatening to overwhelm him.

Suddenly Urquhart threw his hands in the air. 'Marchers! Marchers for peace! I salute you.'

It was as though he had thrown a massive blanket over a fire. Calm.

'We carve the mistakes of men upon their headstones, and bury their accomplishments with their bones. If that is my fate, then let it be.'

Even those few in the crowd who had continued to protest were now hushed to silence. This was not what they had expected.

'This is a rally to celebrate peace and I am indebted to your leader Thomas Makepeace for his permission to address you. I, too, have come in a spirit of peace. And reconciliation. For at the end of an election campaign it is time to accept the verdict of the people, no matter how personally hurtful. To bind the wounds. To move forward. Together. That is what I hope for our country today no less than when I first took office as your Prime Minister. I cannot deny that it was my wish to continue in Downing Street, and if that has seemed selfish on my part, then I accept the charge. If ambition is a crime, then I plead guilty.

'I have held ambition for my office, for there can be no greater privilege or higher accolade in a politician's life than to lead this country and you, its people. You have been kind enough to confer that accolade on me repeatedly for more than a decade, and if you choose to deny me that honour now then again I have no complaint. And certainly not against Tom Makepeace, for he is a decent man.

'I have also held ambition for the people, for it is only through the people that a country may grow great. And if their comfort and prosperity stand at levels which could only be seen as a dream some years ago, then I do not care one jot who is accorded the credit. It is enough for a leader to see those dreams fulfilled and if others wish to ascribe such prosperity to the influence of Europe, to statistical euphemism or even to economic accident, then, once more, I have no complaint.' There was a shout from the crowd.

'No! Not even against Tom Makepeace. For he was a member of my Government for so many of those years. And he is a decent man.

'Yet above all I have been ambitious for our country, to restore it to the ranks of those nations considered great. Great Britain. Not simply another anonymous land indistinguishable from the others, but one for which we can raise our heads with pride and say "I am a Briton", and for that bold claim to be respected anywhere in the world. And particularly in Europe. I am not anti-European. It is not that I would be the last European, but that I would be the first Briton. That has been my ambition, and if it is an ambition which you do not share, as Tom Makepeace does not, then I have no complaint.

'Earlier today Tom Makepeace said that I owe you an apology and I listened to his words, the words of a decent man, with care. And if it is the view of you and other decent men and women that an apology is due, then it is freely given. As freely as I have given my heart and my life for you over these many years.'

His voice seemed to be on the verge of breaking, and there was silence across the square. Maria was staring in hard reproach at Makepeace; he in turn stared stonily at his shoes. Urquhart appeared to be searching the crowd as though trying to reach for each and every one of them. Or searching for someone. On perches and pavements around the square, commentators were rapidly attempting to rewrite their scripts.

'But let me say that I have been brought to this place not so much for Britain as for Cyprus. An island which I know well, and which I love. Many of you here will disagree not only with what I have done, but with what I tried to do in Cyprus. Say that I am guilty of confrontation and bloodshed. But that is not what I tried to do. My aspiration, as you all know, was to bring peace to the island. To stop the bloodshed. To bring together the communities. I have failed, but it is an attempt which has failed for over a thousand years in that unhappy place. Yet that prospect of probable failure did not stop me from trying. Yes, if you like, peace was my ambition, and why not? And if I should lose my office because of that failure, how much greater is the loss suffered by ordinary peace-loving Cypriots?'

And then Urquhart saw him, shuffling forward in the crowd, limping and with bent back, his features all but hidden beneath the beret. Drawing closer.

'There are those who do not want to see peace in Cyprus. Wicked men, men of violence. Who have never known peace and who cannot live with peace. Who linger over old death and lost graves rather than looking forward to new life. Who have tried to find division between Cyprus and this country, when some of us sought only reconciliation.'

The attack on Makepeace was all too blunt yet it aroused surprisingly few cries from the crowd. 'The bones. The bases,' one protester yelled from the foot of the platform, waving a banner.

'No, do not misunderstand me. I do not come to dispute Tom Makepeace's views, decent though they may be, I come only to show that there is another, genuine way. And if there is a division between the interests of Cyprus and Britain then I for one make no apology for saying that I am British, the head of the British Government, and proud to accept the obligations that go with it. Perhaps I have loved my country too much. If so, it has been a fault – a calamitous fault. And calamitously am I asked to pay for it.'

Maria was muttering vehemently into Makepeace's ear, nodding in the direction of the microphones, but Makepeace placed on her a restraining hand and shook his head. It was too late. The moment was indisputably Urquhart's. As if to emphasize the point, Elizabeth stationed herself close behind her husband's shoulder; if anyone were to make an attempt to seize the microphone, they would have to force her bodily out of the way first.

And Passolides had hobbled to the front of the crowd. He was leaning on his stick directly in front of the podium, less than twelve feet from where Urquhart was standing. He was looking up, the features beneath the beret contorted like an animal in pain, caught in a trap, who had chewed off its own leg in order to escape only to discover the hunter at hand. Urquhart lifted his club and began raining blows down upon his unprotected skull.