Zac used his bulk to push into the centre of the group and made calming gestures. ‘We no longer believe that any of our mainstream political parties serve the interests of working people. We broke away from SAG because all they talk about is more marches and social media campaigns, and we saw how useless that was in April.

‘We need something more effective than marches and online petitions, but less psychotic than bombs and killer viruses.’

Georgia, Elodie and Kamila nodded in agreement, but Zac and Gerard seemed to grate on each other and the women’s warm response to Zac’s comment left Gerard with a face like a kid who’d had his presents confiscated on Christmas morning.

‘What about paint?’ Georgia suggested. ‘My dad programmed an impeller drone to paint a wall without any human input. You mix ordinary paint with thinner, so it comes through the impeller nozzle. Then fly the drone in and splat two litres of paint from point-blank range.’

‘That could work,’ Zac agreed. ‘But politicians get egged and flour-bombed all the time.’

‘Drone attacks are sexy,’ Kamila noted.

Gerard looked reanimated. ‘For serious publicity you’d have to dump a lot of paint on a top-level target.’

‘Queen, or prime minister,’ Elodie suggested, then looked at Zac. ‘What would the legal repercussions be?’

‘I’d need to check with my lawyer buddy,’ Zac said. ‘But how serious could it be? A non-lethal drone attack would get massive publicity, but from a legal standpoint I can’t see how it’s different to throwing an egg or a custard pie.’

‘Maximum publicity, minimum risk,’ Kamila said excitedly. ‘Georgia’s idea is perfect.’

‘We’d have to fit high-resolution cameras to the drone to get good footage,’ Georgia said, lapping up the praise. ‘We could live-stream the entire attack.’

Kamila had been tearful, now she was purring. ‘RAGS would have Georgia Pack, icon and legend,’ Kamila said. ‘And the first time anyone hears our name will be when a drone flies over the prime minister’s head and blitzes him with red paint.’

‘SAG will be eating our dust if we pull this off,’ Zac said keenly. ‘We’ll need a publicity strategy. Wendy Dewar’s the best in the business.’

‘Wendy’s still working for SAG,’ Kamila said distastefully.

‘Wendy’s a publicist first and a socialist second,’ Zac said. ‘She’ll love this, and she can make sure our side of the story doesn’t get destroyed by government spin and BBC bias.’

‘We’ll suspend meetings and recruitment and focus on this,’ Kamila said.

‘I’ll need money,’ Gerard interrupted. ‘The impeller unit is clever, but John Pack’s drone is poorly designed …’

Georgia felt a dent in her family pride and reared up. ‘It’s a survey drone designed to be flown by repair crews after half a day’s training.’

‘It can’t fly for shit,’ Gerard insisted.

‘Did you bring the drone, like I asked?’