London Rules
Definition
The Service’s working ethic, stated as a rule: cover your own back. C03 has Jackson Lamb invoke rule one when Catherine Standish brings him tea; C06 has Claude Whelan explain what playing London Rules means — build your walls high, and force the other side to deal with you on your own terms; C08 has Lamb tell Emma Flyte that a joe gets no such protection, because the rules are for suits. Diana Taverner gives the version she works by when she says that anyone who wants to play London Rules should have written their wills first.
Because it is a way of behaving rather than a written code, every character is measured by how they use it: Whelan hides behind it, Taverner trades inside it, Lamb breaks it on behalf of people who cannot, and the cell — executing a British blueprint against Britain — is playing London Rules better than the Service is.
Book 5 — London Rules
- C03 — Lamb states rule one, and immediately doubles over coughing; the joke is that the ethic is killing the man who invented his version of it.
- C06 — Whelan’s formulation: high walls, your own terms. It is also the speech he uses to justify warning Gimball off.
- C12 — Taverner’s version, said of the cell: they wanted to play London Rules, so they should have known to write their wills first.
- C14 — Lamb tells Molly Doran that Catherine Standish is a joe, which is why he took her from the Park; Molly’s reply — that being used is what makes her one — is the book’s bluntest statement of what the ethic costs. Lamb then plays London Rules, and hands Taverner First Desk.
Tells
Everyone quotes it slightly differently, and the differences are the characters: Whelan’s version is procedure, Taverner’s is threat, Lamb’s is a warning that costs him a coughing fit.
Related
The Watering Hole Paper · Jackson Lamb · Claude Whelan · Diana Taverner