The speech continued in predictable vein. The audience were exhorted to hold firm to their hard-won agreements on pay, conditions, and redundancy; to stand up to their new proprietors and show them who really ran the newspapers; and not to concede so much as a matchstick of dead wood to new technology. The rounds of spontaneous applause that greeted Union Jack’s cries to arms astonished Lindsay. It was a long way away from the stony silence that he’d had to face when he returned to office meetings with news of yet more concessions that Carnegie Wilson’s henchmen had wrung out of him. It was easy to see there weren’t many Daily Nation staff members at the meeting.

With an unobtrusive glance at his watch, Tom Jack wound up. “At the end of the day, we’re the ones with the ink in our veins. We know how newspapers work. Carnegie Wilson made his millions out of butchering sheep, and he’s found out the hard way that we’re no lambs to the slaughter. Carnegie Wilson and his like have to bow the knee to us, because without us, newspapers can’t exist. We have to remember, colleagues. They’ll never invent a machine that can knock on doors or comfort a grieving widow. They’ll never invent a machine that can persuade governments to change the law. Whatever the Carnegie Wilsons of this world would like to think their fancy computers can do, we have to remind them again and again, day in and day out, that without us, they have nothing to show for their millions of pounds of investments.”

It was a rousing finish, and some people even stood as they applauded Union Jack. Lindsay looked around and noticed with interest that Ian Ross and a handful of other Daily Nation journalists had not joined in the frenzy of applause. Tom held his hands up in the air, accepting the plaudits. As the applause continued, she remembered a rumor Ian had mentioned in the car. The JU’s long-serving National Newspaper Officer had suffered his second major heart attack the day before conference began. The word was he would be offered early retirement and the obvious man to step into his shoes was Tom Jack. He’d filled every significant post open to part-time lay officials. There was nowhere left for his ambition to go unless he moved into a full-time paid official’s job that could lead one day to the top job of them all—general secretary. Lindsay wondered if she’d just heard the first speech in an election campaign.

Tom sat down next to Shanti, who patted him on the shoulder as the applause finally died away. “I know some of you may have questions for Tom,” she said. “We have ten minutes left . . .”