Chapter EightThe Prime Minister was weary and, unusually for him, irritable. What head of state hadn’t phoned him? He hated platitudes, yet he had become an expert, serving them in dripping spoonfuls. Even so, it mattered little what he said, for few believed him. One Eastern leader plainly told him he was lying. The US President believed him, though, but then he was a personal friend. Australia, Canada and New Zealand simply assumed his statements to be true, but very few gave him the benefit of the doubt. His European partners mostly saw ‘perfidious Albion’. Indeed, the majority of nations, with the possible exception of India, felt that England was up to her old tricks!
From the beginning Shaw had wanted to protect the Aliens from the free-for-all of a press conference, but Toby Simpso
