Ding dong bell
Britain’s gone to hell
Who sent it there?
MPs who care
More about Big Ben
Than its maintenance men.
Who’ll get her out?
“Brexit!” they shout.
What a silly ploy was that,
Projecting on an artefact,
An omen’s show and tell,
Wherein the silence, all the stronger knells.
Instincts
so narrow
so terminal
so reliant on
the base, shortsighted weight
of hubris and paranoia
to get your country back:
they create a vision but,
do not call it patriotism.
A two world wars and one World Cup brigade
And an old boys who cry wolf network
Play crazy campaign leapfrog
And troops of twerking groupies meme
And the confused are busy getting lost
And trapped between, the horrified are keening
At the vaults that share a cheapness with its cost
He hardly imagined
Doing this job
But those that craved,
By the shortness of their slug-bitten roots,
The glamour of understudy to the leading Tory part,
Were so utterly deficient in the practise of social and economic justice –
So tainted by the lessons learned,
That he reluctantly emerged to stake his belief
In a wiser, fairer narrative and take his turn.
And there were cheers of relief and hope,
For the first time in years…
Cameras on…
Oh, for crying out loud, Jeremy
It’s too depressing to watch.
What Juli at Juxtaposed wants to know is
Where’s his bite?
Where is his wit?
Take that pompous little shit down, Jeremy.
Face-palm
It should be easy
But it’s like watching a doddery
Dithering old dear get tricked
by a bunch of bitchy school girls.
It’s depressing to see him miss opportunities
And take others so clumsily.
One step forward; two steps back.
It’s distressing to see him being beaten
By thugs in bow-ties and cufflinks;
Being tripped by the loose lips and tight grip
Of his own wing.
Of course they’re ‘out to get him’
He threatens the establishment
And they find it easy.
Time’s a-wasting
The longer the Con, the greater the mess
The more likely is real damage irreversible
Echo chamber on…
Sycophants cannot countenance criticism
His enemies steal pawns and create false flags of opportunity
The fickle, framing, parroting Press and oscillating planet TV
Extend and compress
And I confess to fleeting polysympathy
He is too sincere
Too principled
Too nuanced
For his dim detractors
He is a misunderstood hero
He is the answer
He is faultless
To his projecting groupies
He is not eloquent
He is not dynamic
He is not sophisticated
Not charismatic
Enough to instil support in the impatient
Not strong enough
Not hardened enough for such a vicious game
But it’s not about personality
It helps enormously
But it’s early days
When, then?
No offence, JC
But I can’t afford to wait
As much as it is about you
In the end it’s much bigger
Not losing is not the same as winning
Standing still is not a ‘movement’
Clinging on or slow burn
The country can’t afford to wait
Not for social justice
And not one like mind is there,
Being both palatable and more polished
And ready to replace him
And if not him, then who?
Oh, yes: plenty there, enough
To push their luck
But they have the polish of shaped wood
And still serve only splinters
They are covered in the foul glory of appeasement;
Filled with a vacuous vitriol, dancing tarantella
on the grave of self-awareness
Machinery
Indignant
And objecting
Because they think they are the true light and the way of the Party
Phfft…
I don’t care for their objections
They miss the point:
That most of them are not fit to shine his bicycle clips
That their world view is the kind that
Abstains when it should stand up
Frames when it should smash ceilings
Chases headlights and takes headlines as instruction
Carps and schemes and hinders and calls this listening and learning
I don’t have time for their indignant identity crisis
I don’t have time to fathom the collage of rhetoric and vision
I don’t have time for the perpetual dark night of their Party soul
The black hole into which all and any credibility holds hands
And forward rolls.
Once upon a time
In the British Isles
The People lost the plot
A lot
For a Blighty while:
They dove into their navels
They high-fived their polished pride
Took advantage
Took for granted
Labels old enough to die.
They laid tables with ballistics
Played interpreting statistics
Graded experts unrealistic
Dignified the narcissistic
Swaying lore to cast the Law aside;
No-platformed or projected
Poaching power to decide
Because agenda mattered more
So bore false witness in an effort
To control the spring of tides.
Some laid traps
And some bade hacks
To frame the facts
While others cried
Conspiracy and wolf
Because they both applied
As lies drew pacts
In packs to hide
Until the pros were cons
And cons were pros
And any pumped-up so-and-so
Was weaponised in service
To misguide.
The rowdy rabbles scrabbled
Best to justify hyperbole
With prefix like
‘’The truth is..’
But it set nobody free because
They waged their wars on history’s shores
And clutched at straws
To fill their stores with futures really
Only naked emperors can see.
Clear perspective took a nose-dive
In the voice of tribalese
Based on promotion of emotion
And selective memory.
And soon the Kingdom, so united
In its muddled fear and snide
Did fail to notice it was all at sea
As literally met irony
In harmony, allied
To drag the People down and drown them
In the murky deep vainglory of the ride.
Hey, Cons,
You are obviously having some trouble understanding the people you govern; that ‘one nation” that you claim to represent. Now, I know, you don’t really give a shit about me, being as I didn’t and wouldn’t vote for you but you like to pretend that you do so I’m going to pretend that this little post will make any difference beyond its cathartic value.
The anger and frustration you are witnessing and feigning hurt feelings over, is due to the consistent gaps, in most matters, between your arrogant, clichéd, repetitive rhetoric and what you actually do and don’t do.
The tax fiasco you preside over is of your making. You are the law makers. You have had six years to draw a clear line between what is legal and what isn’t. You want to imagine that we conflate legitimate government schemes with tax evasion but it is you who keep citing aggressive avoidance as though it were not still evasion and you who use this obfuscation as an excuse to procrastinate and hinder, in order to protect a grotesque power structure. That is the wrong that David Cameron does. Just because you desperately need for us to be stupid does not mean that we are nor that you should treat us so.
This is NOT about ‘envy’; it is not about dead cat tax returns. It’s not about what you inherited or how wealthy you are. Reasonable people don’t care nearly as much as you seem to want them to. What they care about is the power that people have and how they use it, so stop insulting us with your narrow, simplistic, patronising ideas about why the People are so angry. You’re not even close.
The anger is about you trampling all over our natural and righteous desire for social justice. It’s the result of six years of enduring your relentlessly wilful socio-economic ignorance, your divisive modus operandi, your high-horse moralising and your piss-taking lip service. This anger hasn’t just happened over the last few days: it has been there and growing since the first year of your lot’s term as a coalition.
It’s about your neoliberal ideology that depends, entirely, on taking liberties at the expense of others. It’s about your unending support for gluttonous crony industry. It’s about how you think that you, alone, own OUR country because you think you are the only ones entitled, capable and worthy. You really are not. Your group mind is Britain’s nemesis.
We do not have a problem with “wealth creators” – we are your wealth creators, for gods’ sakes. And we are not the “enemies of aspiration”. We are the victims of your I’m alright Jack selfishness and gluttony. We aspire, given half a chance. We want secure, comfortable homes, livable incomes, full bellies, pensions; disposable income for, you know: savings and pleasure; we want better for our children; we want a dignified old age… Basic stuff, really and you don’t even try to get that right. No: you’re too busy aspiring to further your own good fortunes and lording it over us with your unethical and unsustainable let them eat austerity nonsense.
Anyone experiencing – even just observing – the record of your governance, cannot fail to see how you have undermined, reduced and impoverished the People and the country. You are the “low achievers”. Look at the state of our NHS, Education, public sector morale, the welfare scapegoats, the referenda, to name but a few. You sell us out and sell us short. Everywhere I look, you have created an almighty mess. You are wasting our chances and our time. Who on earth would envy you?
There are shifts in public consciousness that are, at last, reaching a critical mass. Connections are finally being made between the state we are in and your petty, demigod governance. We don’t need your nasty party’s “compassion“, we don’t deserve your contempt and we don’t need a government that doesn’t believe in its own citizens. What we need is a government with actual integrity.
This is our country, too. And we are millions.
Now go away.
He was panicked and embarrassed:
his us and them policies
had caught up with his privileged stock
and he found the process painful;
unfathomable.
His shares bled,
drip by drop;
immeasurably fixed
to quake the patron’s Rock,
transparent of his tricks.
And, still,
there, from the debris of the aftershocks,
came arrogant shticks with interlocking bricks,
to repair his crumbling, patriarchal edifice.
Dinosaurs did not fall off
When Earth stopped being flat
As Papa built a modern model
Taking care of that
With pockets full of fogeys and
A briefcase packed with bogeymen
He scaffolded an abstract shelf
From which to make pretend
He ironed out the irksome bits
Where people creased his politics
And starched the floppy profiteers
‘Til stiff for TINA’s private bits
He dressed himself progressive
And he groomed himself designed
To make his platitudes and actions
Seem ahead of evidence and time
He said we’re doing all we can
To mitigate the state that drifts
Into potential evolution
With some minds that do not shift
His groupthink roamed the thinning crust
Insisting this and that on trust
As creatures due extinction do
Deny their own entropic thrust
What works is not what works, he said
What doesn’t work is under threat
What works is not what works, he said
My order lives though it be dead
Everybody out!
There’s a reckoning to come
Punch out; time’s ticking
Britons to the quick
There’s a kicking to be done
And con men to rout
We shall overcome
Grab your pitchforks, everyone
Tide is turning fast
One collective push
And the tower tumbles down
And the crown is passed
Time and tide are now
All together we are in
No doubt we can win
Democratic clout
Bring social justice in with
Everybody out!
Why do the Tories have to insist, so profusely, that they are “compassionate”? They’ve recently started slipping it in and tacking it on again, at every opportunity. It’s as though they suddenly think we might need reminding. Or they are doing that positive affirmation thing in order to convince themselves. As though conservatism and compassion were not natural bedfellows…
OED: “Compassionate: Sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.Middle English: via Old French from ecclesiastical Latin compassio(n-), from compati ‘suffer with’.
Passion from Old English:
The word passion comes via Old French from Latin pati ‘to suffer’. The Passion refers to the suffering of Jesus Christ. The sexual sense dates from the late 16th century. Passionate in late Middle English included the senses ‘easily moved to passion’ and ‘enraged’. Passive (Late Middle English) comes from the same root, from the sense of ‘being acted upon’, and compassion (Middle English) is literally ‘suffering with’ someone, while compatible (Late Middle English) comes from the Latin for ‘fit to suffer with’.”
Fancy a political ‘One Nation‘ party actually having to qualify ‘Conservative’ with ‘Compassionate’ just to reassure and soften its image! How ridiculous is that! And how sad. They’ll be telling us it’s a ‘British value‘ next.
And how insultingly patronising is the term “Compassionate Conservatism”? What is it saying? “Oh, we feel really sorry for you”? – “There, there, Daddy will take of you”? – “We feel your pain and anger and we understand”? – “We suffer with you”? – “We’re all in it together”?
By the way: “The root of suffer, is Latin sufferre, from sub- ‘from below, under’ and ferre ‘to bear’. As well as ‘to undergo or endure’, it can mean ‘to tolerate’, and this is the sense you are using when you say that someone does not suffer fools gladly. The expression is biblical, from the second Epistle to the Corinthians: ‘For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise.’” – OED
“We suffer you” – that’s the one, isn’t it? They believe We, the People, are the fools that they, being better than us, can afford to – are fit to – accommodate. We are tolerated. Just about.
Of course, there are individual Conservatives who demonstrate sincere compassion; empathy, even but, as a collective; as a political party, they certainly do not. The Cons aren’t compassionate towards us beyond the expedient lip service of self-preservation. And, as for suffering with us: well, that’s almost funny.
juxtaposed 