‘When I was at the League meeting on Friday, the only thing I heard was Cullen stirring up racial hatred against Asians. What I don’t really understand is what you’re trying to achieve.’

‘One might say we’re trying to do your job. But that would be facetious. The truth is, we’re trying to build a grassroots base, a response to what’s going wrong in our communities. This isn’t about racism. Institutional racism is a scourge, in absolutely all its forms. What concerns us is how society confronts these issues. The country is on the wrong path. Disastrously so. The assumptions that underpin our society are rotten. There’s a failure even to say what the problems are. The idea of the League is to get some momentum, to bring these ideas into the public eye. To make decency mainstream again.’

‘Decency?’

Turner was already moving towards the door.

‘Please, let me try to explain.’

The two of them stepped outside. They stood there, looking across the valleys of West Yorkshire. The mist was lifting, and the view was remarkable.

‘That long valley?’ Turner said, pointing to the east. ‘Do you know what it’s called?’

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to help me with the geography.’

‘It’s the Calder Valley. But they call it Happy Valley. You may have seen the TV show. A police drama, entertainment for people who don’t have to live there.’

Joe knew the reputation of the area, but not the TV show. The towns of Hebden Bridge and Todmorden had been focal points of hippy communities in the sixties and seventies, and the following generations had inherited the drug culture, which had spread along the valley and become deeply ingrained.

‘Drugs,’ Turner continued. ‘It’s no longer about well-to-do kids having a spliff at college. Or the educated middle classes enjoying the occasional line of coke. It’s children from deprived homes getting addicted at eleven, twelve. Pushers hanging around outside schools. That’s where the growth market is. Go and park up outside a school. You’ll see them, every day. The result? Dysfunctional families, kids growing up with no role models, no one working, no stability, no normalcy. It’s destroying the fabric of our communities, creating a drugged, aimless underclass.’ His eyes lit up. ‘You see? Underclass? One of the words we’re not allowed to use anymore. Yet it exists. Like I say, go to Happy Valley. See how happy they really are.’

Joe looked out across the valley. It was so achingly majestic that he couldn’t quite believe that he lived in the same county. He’d never appreciated what he had on his doorstep, what he’d always had. Mint sauce!

‘You make a persuasive case,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you should be the one leading the Patriot League.’

Turner shook his head.

‘A popular movement needs a popular leader. Populist, if you like.’