PolemicAlex

Gove

(On the retirement of Michael Gove; who has, since 2010, been Secretary of State for Education.. then Justice… then Environment… then Housing and Local Communities, and who played a key role in selling brexit to British voters. More cosplay outfits than Barbie’s Ken, and a head like a Pez dispenser.)

Gove - click here for spoken word audio

Off goes Gove

That slythy tove

With a self congratulatory smirk

And eulogising his “chance to serve”

Meanwhile in crumbling schools

Students grapple with fronted adverbials

Ed Sec Gove had no time for building renovation

Too busy imposing a pastiche Victorian curriculum

For in fourteen years of government

He’s headed nearly every department

And now, while he retires to rest

They’re left cleaning up all his mess

There’s little hope of justice sought

Justice Sec Gove closed all the courts

Plus privatised probation fails

And no space in overcrowded gaols

Our environment’s in disrepair

DEFRA Sec Gove did not much care

He was issuing new coal licenses

While our rivers flow with filth and faeces

Tenants still fear unfair eviction

Entirely lacking legal protection

Housing Sec Gove failed to legislate for

What he repeatedly promised to outlaw

For a while, too (I’m not making this up)

As the “Minister for Levelling Up”

He pretended to care about regional inequality

Just not enough to address it substantively

Posterity will remember him

Primarily for just one thing

He was fanatical about Brexit

The bonfire of the experts

So off he goes

That slimy Gove

An elder statesman

For a ruined nation

If it were down to me

We’d put retiring tories to sea

Incarcerate them on Bibby Stockholm

And prosecute them for national vandalism

Shit Vote

(or Constipation As Metaphor)

Waiting to vote, six long, slow weeks loom

Like an awkward trip to the bathroom

Uncomfortable, for a bit

Straining, while you pass the shit

But you know how good will be the day

Once the Tory turd is flushed away

The Department of Vexation

If, while claiming Carers Benefit

You overstep the cliff-edge earnings limit

The slightest error in your employment

Can lead to a large demand for repayment

When asked to comment on why

Government responds, in a cut’n’paste reply:

“Claimants have a responsibility

To consistently

Inform DWP of any changes

In their circumstances”

The implication is

That this is

A reasonable expectation

And so carers get no dispensation

For mistakenly understating their earning

If the error was small and long in the making

And DWP had the facts the whole time

But only belatedly uncovered the ‘crime’

The carer must repay the whole total accumulated

Those who can’t do so will likely be prosecuted

Yet when it was proposed that there be

Rules about the second jobs of MPs

The tories said no to limits or penalties

In justifying their failure to set any

Government was unequivocal

To do so would be: “impractical”

As one tory MP explained:

It would “result in vexatious complaints”;

Be “almost impossible” to enforce;

And amount to “policing personal life”

Impossible!

Unreasonable!

Impractical!

Won’t work at all!

… for politicians’ side-line careers

But for the part time jobs of carers …

A legal responsibility!

Vigilance required consistently!

And when DWP spots your error - belatedly!

Prepare to be pursued vexatiously!

God Save Us

Monarchy

It seems to me

Says two bad things about our society

That birth dictates status and opportunity

And that we aren’t a true democracy

And in that vein

Here’s my refrain

A reimagined anthem

Shared likely in vain

But heartfelt all the same

God save us from the king

Monarchy’s an absurd thing

Abolish the king!

A crowned toff placed over us

Oh how inglorious

Make true citizens of us

Abolish the king

Nationhood should not comprise

Hatred of enemies

It is insane

To gloat over crushing them

Or call them childish names

For inside we are all the same

Abolish the king

Nor should we pretend

Our crown’s the whole world’s friend

Destined to rule

Empire was military

Dominating violently

Injustice plain to see

Abolish the king

At home we cannot be

All valued equally

If there’s a king

What does it say of us

That right from birth we place

Some above the rest of us

Abolish the king

It must cost quite a bit

All that gold bejewelled kit

Worn by the king

With duchies to feed him, and

Vast tracts of all our land

Property owning democracy be damned

Abolish the king

Royalty is public property

As far as the media see

Fodder for clicks

Their personal lives to be

Front page splash daily

And devoured pruriently

Abolish the king

He’s all pomp but no real function

Emasculated beyond redemption

Can’t do a thing

Crown in parliament is sovereign

The people are subject not citizen

No rights enshrined by written constitution

Abolish the king

Yet he retains residual power

To influence every law

Corruption built in

He can simply withhold consent

Unless it’s made clear he’s exempt

From taxes or legal restraint

Abolish the king

Our anthem, nations scourge

Such dreadful dirge

Awful to sing

A paean to feudalism

Empire and nationalism

Inequality and elitism

Abolish the king

Are You Thinking?

Are you thinking what we’re thinking?

Let’s discuss - I have an inkling

The answer will be no

But there’s no thought crime

So think it in your own time

It’s what you say that counts

Let’s start with this:

Is it racist, to insist

On “wanting to hate all black women”?

Black, and female, that’s your list

Racist, surely, and misogynist

No ambiguity, no equivocation

If you say you’re sorry, will that do?

Even if you’re only sorry for being “rude”

Ignoring - or denying - the point

Likewise, are transphobic jokes

OK with folks

Unless the wrong person hears?

And is it politicians’ job

To scaremonger about the mob?

Inflaming, instead of calming

It is OK, on camera, to be quiescent

While the person stood adjacent

Declares a nazi a hero?

Or to call little boats swarms?

Distorting truth, and stretching norms

Saying the previously unsayable

If you declare “I’m not a racist”

Does that mean you pass the test?

Even if you speak and act like one?

When red wall populists claim to

Merely articulate the prejudices ordinary folks cling to

Who’s being insulted?

It doesn’t say much for their view on ethnicity or sexuality

But there’s the added practicality

Of impugning entire communities as bigots

My hunch is

The north is

Full of nice people too

Who don’t need condescending manipulation

Endeavouring to implicate them

In a largely fabricated culture war

Because hate is not a valid feature

Of fear of the future

Or resentment about the present

Islamophobic

Transphobic

Misogynist

Antisemitic

Homophobic

And racist

These are

No more

Than big words for small minds

Is it ok, to turn your face away

Ignoring this part of what they say

Because it suits your pocket?

Or to give them your tacit support

By voting for the hating sort?

I think not

Triplets

This is the name

For two the same

And one somewhat different

The sound just sings

Because it’s how three things

Should be

It would be twee

If all three

Rhymed (perfectly x)

Nor is it a rhyming sandwich

Enclosing the difference, which

Would be consequently diminished

Instead, the rhyming pair

Sound not long hanging in the air

Are but the prelude

The first two ones

May be silver and bronze

But they are not gold

No matter how profoundly they speak

Each cannot be more than a peak

On the slopes of a greater mountain

Or like two tall vines

Creeping tropical climes

But shaded by the forest canopy tree

For as every tourist’s camera knows

You don’t focus on the buffalos

If you can see a lion

Two apples by a pair

Two dull, one fair

To draw the eye

You want ice and tonic with your gin

Of course you’d want all three therein

But only one’s the punchline

But enough of this obtuse elliptive

For in truth it’s getting quite prescriptive

Triplets by rote

It’s not even that onerous

Assuming you can find two words

That barely even rhyme

And so it continues

Rhymes pulled from menus

Until the end