Rheinbund
Established Nation
THE NEW CHANCELLOR
12 April 2010
“Well, you’ve achieved it, Chancellor,” King Albrecht said to Von Seydewitz. “But I still have the bad feeling that I helped you with a dirty plot.”
“It is too easy to say that you can’t work in politics without getting your hands dirty, Your Majesty,” Von Seydewitz said. “Believe me if I say that I hated to do this, because if there’s one thing I hate, then it is a dirty plot. Most people carrying out dirty plots only think of themselves. I don’t want to see myself as someone who only thinks of himself. Unfortunately, I have to confirm that you can’t work in politics without getting your hands dirty. It becomes a problem if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty. You should always prevent getting dirty hands. But there are situations in which you can’t prevent that. Sometimes you have to get dirty hands to prevent something worse. This was such a case. My most important concern was the educational reforms pushed through by Jörgens and Rudersbach, and how those reforms in fact harmed the quality of our education. I already saw in advance that those reforms would kill our educational system, but I couldn’t prevent them.”
“Why didn’t you break the government earlier then?”
“It wasn’t possible to form a different coalition which would be stable enough at those times. It was only now that we could push a change through. I needed to get a majority with Kögler, both in the Staatstag and in the Staatsrat, and we regained that only recently.”
“Well, it’s still a quite small majority. You will need to be careful.”
“Majorities have been smaller in the past. The main destabilising factor would be the Staatsrat. One provincial election could make us loose our majority there. We will have to wait and see. In any case, should I have to enter a coalition with the Sociodemocrats again, then at least I have to deal with people who are more reasonable than Jörgens.”
“Indeed. That man is stranger than my father told me. It was the first time since the constitutional reforms in the 19th century that a King discharged a Government member unvoluntarily. Jörgens had a Motion of Distrust against him, but didn’t want to resign. But why?”
“He had an agenda and wanted to push that through. Mind you, the man belonged to the leftwing part of the Sociodemocrats. He didn’t want to govern with me but was forced to do so by the election results. Like it was for me.”
“How revengeful could he be?”
“I don’t know. I have to discuss that with Minister Neubauer. He knows him better than I do. He studied in Ingelheim in the same period as Jörgens did.”
After his weekly meeting with the King, Chancellor von Seydewitz went back to the chancellery while thinking about what the King had said about possibly revengeful feelings of former Chancellor Jörgens. He knew that Jörgens was very convinced of his own ideas, but how far would he go to realise them? And how insulted would he feel after the recent events?
“Glad that you could come, Philipp,” the Chancellor said to Neubauer as he showed him into what had very recently become his study. After the Cabinet Von Seydewitz I had been appointed, Von Seydewitz and his wife had moved to Schloß Bellevue, the official residence of the Eiffellandian Chancellors. When both men had seated, Neubauer asked why Von Seydewitz had asked him to visit him.
“Jörgens,” Von Seydewitz said. “What kind of person is he? Would he be capable of developing plans for revenge?”
“I don’t know. Who asked you that?”
“The King. Mind you, Jörgens even wanted to ignore the motion of distrust against himself. The King is concerned. And of course Jörgens knows some state secrets.”
“The recent events will have hurt him enormously. But I don’t know if he would be able to become angry enough to betray any state secrets. And if, then only to a country like Carentania. Do you want me to have him surveyed by the Staatsschutz?”
“Suppose we don’t do so, and then it suddenly turns out that Jörgens ran to the Carentanians with some information? Or worse, he thinks that he runs to the Carentanians but in fact runs to the Sarmatians? Then I have to face an angry King. Better safe than sorry in this case. So if you could do so, please do.”
12 April 2010
“Well, you’ve achieved it, Chancellor,” King Albrecht said to Von Seydewitz. “But I still have the bad feeling that I helped you with a dirty plot.”
“It is too easy to say that you can’t work in politics without getting your hands dirty, Your Majesty,” Von Seydewitz said. “Believe me if I say that I hated to do this, because if there’s one thing I hate, then it is a dirty plot. Most people carrying out dirty plots only think of themselves. I don’t want to see myself as someone who only thinks of himself. Unfortunately, I have to confirm that you can’t work in politics without getting your hands dirty. It becomes a problem if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty. You should always prevent getting dirty hands. But there are situations in which you can’t prevent that. Sometimes you have to get dirty hands to prevent something worse. This was such a case. My most important concern was the educational reforms pushed through by Jörgens and Rudersbach, and how those reforms in fact harmed the quality of our education. I already saw in advance that those reforms would kill our educational system, but I couldn’t prevent them.”
“Why didn’t you break the government earlier then?”
“It wasn’t possible to form a different coalition which would be stable enough at those times. It was only now that we could push a change through. I needed to get a majority with Kögler, both in the Staatstag and in the Staatsrat, and we regained that only recently.”
“Well, it’s still a quite small majority. You will need to be careful.”
“Majorities have been smaller in the past. The main destabilising factor would be the Staatsrat. One provincial election could make us loose our majority there. We will have to wait and see. In any case, should I have to enter a coalition with the Sociodemocrats again, then at least I have to deal with people who are more reasonable than Jörgens.”
“Indeed. That man is stranger than my father told me. It was the first time since the constitutional reforms in the 19th century that a King discharged a Government member unvoluntarily. Jörgens had a Motion of Distrust against him, but didn’t want to resign. But why?”
“He had an agenda and wanted to push that through. Mind you, the man belonged to the leftwing part of the Sociodemocrats. He didn’t want to govern with me but was forced to do so by the election results. Like it was for me.”
“How revengeful could he be?”
“I don’t know. I have to discuss that with Minister Neubauer. He knows him better than I do. He studied in Ingelheim in the same period as Jörgens did.”
After his weekly meeting with the King, Chancellor von Seydewitz went back to the chancellery while thinking about what the King had said about possibly revengeful feelings of former Chancellor Jörgens. He knew that Jörgens was very convinced of his own ideas, but how far would he go to realise them? And how insulted would he feel after the recent events?
“Glad that you could come, Philipp,” the Chancellor said to Neubauer as he showed him into what had very recently become his study. After the Cabinet Von Seydewitz I had been appointed, Von Seydewitz and his wife had moved to Schloß Bellevue, the official residence of the Eiffellandian Chancellors. When both men had seated, Neubauer asked why Von Seydewitz had asked him to visit him.
“Jörgens,” Von Seydewitz said. “What kind of person is he? Would he be capable of developing plans for revenge?”
“I don’t know. Who asked you that?”
“The King. Mind you, Jörgens even wanted to ignore the motion of distrust against himself. The King is concerned. And of course Jörgens knows some state secrets.”
“The recent events will have hurt him enormously. But I don’t know if he would be able to become angry enough to betray any state secrets. And if, then only to a country like Carentania. Do you want me to have him surveyed by the Staatsschutz?”
“Suppose we don’t do so, and then it suddenly turns out that Jörgens ran to the Carentanians with some information? Or worse, he thinks that he runs to the Carentanians but in fact runs to the Sarmatians? Then I have to face an angry King. Better safe than sorry in this case. So if you could do so, please do.”