London, United Kingdom (England and Wales)
Day 1,500
The second I turn my phone off airplane mode, it starts buzzing with an incoming call. Zara, of course. My boss is many things and even though she’s now the head of the British Intelligence Services she’s still a micromanager.
“Is that you back in London?”
How else would I be answering the call? “Yep,” I reply, as politely as I can imagine after an eight-and-a-half-hour flight following a two-day business trip spent entirely in windowless rooms talking to American politicians and CIA employees.
“A memo from the Child Lottery people in the States has been leaked. Maria Ferreira’s written an article about it. Press are going nuts. Gillian’s called an emergency meeting to discuss the child allocation plans. Her press team are worried about the optics; home secretary can’t be tarred with a bad brush.”
“What’s the general thrust of the memo?”
“Lying to the public about it being a lottery is the most damning thing. There’s also some very unpleasant stuff about single parents.” Zara sighs and I try to remind myself that, as she’s a rung above me, however many crises I deal with in a day, she deals with even more I’m never aware of. Thank the Lord. “To be honest, it’s not a million miles away from our plans but the optics are dire. Get over here as soon as you can. We’ll start the meetings as soon as Gillian arrives.”
My lingering excitement from being on commercial flights ebbs away. Even going through security was a novelty. No liquids? No problem. A half-hour delay? How very 2019 of you. I was intending to have a relaxing day of sleeping and spending time with my daughter but no, no. The Americans had different ideas.
I already have a link to the Maria Ferreira article sitting in my inbox, in an e-mail from Gillian titled: SERIOUS ISSUE??? NEED MEETING URGENTLY!!!! You’d think the home secretary would maybe only need to use one punctuation mark at a time.
“An American Outrage”
by Maria Ferreira
It was revealed today in a leaked memorandum that the “Child Lottery” in the United States is not the random allocation we have been led to understand it is. The opportunity to have a child through donor sperm is actually determined by an algorithm taking into account factors including relationship status, socioeconomic status and resources in the local area, among others. In other words, the American people are being lied to. We are being led to believe that our opportunity to have a child—that most primal and important of decisions, that many women desire—is left to chance when it is actually determined by a secret algorithm administered by a governmental department.
I can only get through the first paragraph. Oh God. Maria Ferreira. I’m still smarting from the hatchet job she did on us, even if to the rest of the world she’s the woman “Holding Power to Account” and the “World’s Most Popular Journalist.” At least she’s as excoriating of her own country as she is of mine.
There’s also an extract of the memo included in the e-mail.
National Demographic Recovery and Control Program Memorandum: From Nadine Johnson
To: Vanessa Edney
Subject: Public affairs; amendment to selection criteria; single-parent analysis
This memorandum is private and confidential.
Public affairs
There have been a number of discussions held internally regarding public communications of the Child Lottery system. We remain committed to using the term “Child Lottery” as it has positive connotations, implies the results are determined by chance and suggests low chances of success. This is important for expectation management. Further to our discussion, your concerns regarding “misleading” the public are noted. However, we are uncomfortable with the idea of providing more information. Statistically, we are still at a stage where demand for child allocations far outstrips supply. It is preferable for the public to believe they have a chance, rather than explain the details of the algorithm.
Amendment to selection criteria
Further to assessment of Q1 and Q2 data, decision has been made to reduce threshold of “ideal socioeconomic bracket” to $32,000 household income. Successful implementation of nationalized healthcare system across remaining states has reduced concern of healthcare provision for children.
Single-parent analysis
We are carrying out a significant study (quantitative and qualitative data) of single-parent families with two close family members living within ten-mile radius with over ten hours childcare per week. Hypothesis that women in this category should be upgraded to equivalence with those in long-term (three-plus year) relationships.
Suffice to say she’s lacking some tact. Nadine, author of the memo in question, is director of the American Demographic Recovery and Control Program. Some quick googling reveals that she used to work at the NSA. That won’t help either; it’ll feed into a narrative that it’s all a government conspiracy. Evil overlords doing evil things when, in reality, I suspect it’s a misguided attempt at doing the right thing.
After an all too quick nap in the car, I make my way into the office. Zara meets me in the corridor before I go in.
“Thank God you’re here,” she hisses. “Gillian’s being a nightmare.” I actually quite like Gillian, so I stay silent. Although, I don’t like her enough to defend her to Zara, who has no doubt been dealing with her many concerns for the last two hours while I made my way here from Heathrow.
“She’s panicking that our plans for the Child Allocation Service will be interpreted in the same way as the Americans’ has and she’ll be made to look like the bad guy.”
“Understood. We’ll sort something out.” Zara visibly relaxes and I, not for the first time, wonder why she’s my boss when she’s prone to panicking like a flustered chicken.
“Dawn!” Gillian sounds pleased to see me, at least. After the many hours we spent sorting out the Working Draft together, she’s come to respect me. Her fears pour out of her. Our proposed system is similar to the American one, people seem horrified by the use of socioeconomic factors to determine who has a child, we weren’t planning on setting out the criteria, does that mean we’re keeping secrets, what if it leaks, what if it’s all a disaster? It reminds me of when my daughter started at a new school when she was eleven and every day she would come home with multiplied anxieties, spilling out over the dinner table, ranging from not being good enough at math to seven more years of school feeling like a very, very long time.
“Everything is going to be okay,” I say. “The plans have been well thought through. We’ve been working on them for months. You didn’t throw them together in a few hours. Let’s start with the first concern.” If in doubt, make a list. My mum taught me that and it’s never done me wrong. “The biggest concern is public perception and the simple answer is that we must announce the Child Allocation Service sooner rather than later, and be honest about the criteria through which women will be chosen.”
My announcement wasn’t intended to be controversial and yet I’m met with silence. Zara is frowning.
“That wasn’t the plan,” Gillian says hesitantly.
“Circumstances have changed and we need to adapt to them. The public’s views have shifted, thanks to the American leak. At the very least, you can’t be accused of deceit. People might disagree with the plans but they can’t deny you’re being open about them.”
Gillian nods; she’s convinced. “Next, the criteria for choice. We were already going to allow councils to have some flexibility in their application of the criteria and that should be emphasized.”
“Keeping it local makes it sound less ‘Big scary government controlling everything,’” Zara says.
“But the response has been so vicious,” Gillian says. “The use of the criteria seems to be an inherent problem. Shouldn’t we make it random?”
“No,” I say simply. “That would be irresponsible. Age, health, proven ability to look after a child. Those are not the criteria of a mad dictator ruining lives. Those are sensible pieces of information that have to be used to ensure the highest chance of success of demographic recovery.”
“It just doesn’t seem fair.” Gillian sighs and I’m reminded, yet again, of why she is a politician and I’m not.
“None of this is fair,” I reply in as patient a tone as I can muster. “There are many more women who wish to have children than men and donated sperm. It will never be fair. The goal is not to be fair. The goal is population recovery with minimal civil unrest. The US government and the UK government have almost complete control over who within those countries have children. Almost no baby is an accident now. We all have to get used to that idea.”
“But the prioritization of people in long-term relationships? Surely that’s unfair.”
“As the only person in this room who has actually raised a child alone, I’m fairly well placed to say that raising a child as a single parent is very difficult. We can remove the prioritization of women in relationships if it makes you feel better, but don’t delude yourself about what having a child alone, in this world, will take.”
Zara and Gillian look at me in stunned silence and I suppress the urge to sigh. I rarely bring up my personal life and this is why. Once you develop a reputation as someone who is professional, competent and private, any information about your personal life is treated with the same care and awe as a nervous breakdown.
“If only for the public perception, I think we should take out the required prioritization of people in long-term relationships. We can allow councils to apply relationship criteria as they see fit,” Gillian says.
We spend the next few hours changing the plans and running the public statement through the various communications people who need to approve it. Finally, finally, it’s ready to go to the prime minister for her approval.
Gillian goes on her merry way and Zara and I sit in the meeting room, exhausted.
“Did you ever think,” she says, “when you decided to do this job, that you and I would have a meeting about which women are allowed donor sperm?”
I shake my head. “Weirdly enough, no. It never crossed my mind.”