It is 2028: The England Union, mostly bordered by salt water, comprises England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The remnants of the European Union borders to the East and independent Scotland - sits lonely but proud to the North. England is a nation of 'HAVES' and 'HAVE-NOTS' and the 'I'm alright' governing class is made up of inept, cynical, leaderless 'job-worthies'. In successive political colours Westminster bumbles on, with 'HAVE-NOT' tax payers seeing themselves as cash cows; financing vote buying benefits and privileges. National on-the-streets demand for change inspires the Representative Peoples Authority - the RPA. With a simple manifesto and without bloodshed, they oust the political party system and dramatically clear the green benches of Westminster. In power and in a hurry, the RPA meet manifesto obligation to begin radical reformation of the nation. Key concerns are tackled first: law and order; border control; public office sinecures; inconsistent sentencing, injustice and unfairness. (GCHQ)- Government's communication HQ - provides real time feedback to a rejuvenated Westminster. Their God like computer system is piped 24/7 into Downing Street. Part of the GCHQ service is the Perception of Public Support. Nourished by everything traversing the ether, the POPS programme analysis sifts, collates and graphically displays the degree of support for every proposed legislative action. With public demand - and POPS approval - an early and dramatic compliance is an execution: the first hanging for many years. As the clock creeps towards George Dent's death, television shows his common-law wife Sharon. Defeated; she waits with their two infants, outside the prison gates. This filming galvanises POPS reaction against the hanging. But in the death cell George Dent launches into a violent attack on Jim Murdoch, his warder - and the POPS reaction reverses. Again it records heavy, public support for the hanging. Murdoch is a senior psychologist in the RPA; the death cell warder is his alter ego. We find that he goads George Dent into that brutal attack. Positive POPS analysis is crucial for the radical RPA government and this POPS manipulation is Murdoch's 'means to an end'. Hard up New Scotland clears a remote Scottish island and leases it to England. It becomes His Majesty's Penal and Reconstruction Establishment - HMPRE Columby. Run on unforgiving military lines it is targeted to operate at neutral cost. Inmate's startling induction to HMPRE is free of charge but then they are required to work, earn and pay their way. Early inmates include George Dent's brother and his thug mate Leary. After the hanging they had engineered violent attacks on Murdoch and Sharon; unhappily they discover Murdoch is the boss of HMPRE Columby. Vic Hundley is another prisoner. Stopping a mite short of murder he exacts vicious revenge on his daughter's rapist. The computer-mastered sentencing tariff awarded him a lenient sentence, and Murdoch arranges his attendance - with wife and recovered daughter - at the rapist's trial. Paedophiliac rape is now a capital offence and the Hundleys see another sentence of death by hanging. Returning to Columby Vic becomes a key self-sufficiency player providing work and pay for the prisoners within his dairying initiative. It is October 2032: Terrorists are loading stolen nuclear bombs, onto a stolen airliner, in a recently formed Caliphate in Eastern Afghanistan. Pre-warned England vaporises the plane and cargo 1500 feet over the airstrip, confining collateral damage to the Caliphate. Onset of war puts the radically developing democracy of New England on hold.