In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Category: Elections

  • Might Labour be the Force to Renew UK Politics ?

    Posted:

    Our democratic politics isn’t working and, in my view, its dysfunction is one of the major causes of our present national crisis. In so many ways, our political structures and democratic processes – not just here in the UK, but manifestly in other countries too – are under attack and also in question. We have…

  • Anthem for a Lying Toad

    Posted:

    The UK’s Brexit government have been showing us their true mettle in recent weeks. Following their disastrous response to the Covid-19 virus, they are itching to move on to enterprises more to their liking, but equally vulnerable to their incompetence. It has been said that “The Sleep of Reason Brings Forth Monsters” (it’s the title…

  • A White Shirt Writ Large in the Rose Garden

    Posted:

    Dear MP’s Office Manager, Thank you for your earlier response and yes, please, I would like to hear the Cabinet Office’s response to your news, that by the 26th May you had already received 1500 emails concerning Mr Cummings. I need to report that the responses I’ve heard so far have just left me brimming…

  • Songs from our Seclusion (congratulations, Keir Starmer)

    Posted:

    What can poetry offer our enforced Corvid-19 seclusion, this locked-in time of question, tension, upset and loss, this desert time ? In some eras and cultures, poetry has played and still plays a major role in the community’s life. In others, barely any. And only partly does that depend on how good the poets are.…

  • Britain’s Return to Health

    Posted:

      I want to talk about the British Labour Party which – despite everything – still occupies the ground I look to for the beginning of this nation’s regeneration and return to health. But “ground” is one thing ; the withered and stunted vegetation I see presently over-running and littering that ground, is another. To…

  • High Noon is Nearly Upon Us. Where’s the Sheriff ?

    Posted:

    Around the world, the hoodlums and outlaws are running amok, in their suits of armour made of lies. By contrast, the sheriffs seem downcast, overwhelmed and on the run. I feel downcast and overwhelmed, too. Might it mean that I’m a sheriff, in disguise ? But there is no star in my cupboard. The picture…

  • Toad and the Bong

    Posted:

    Some of the more ardent Tory Brexiters seem very exercised that, after all, Big Ben will not be breaking into song when the UK vacates the EU and seeks alternative residence in their delinquent yet decrepit Brexit wonderland. And the lying Mr Toad, our bouncy new Prime Minister, is coming up with ingenious plans to…

  • Parrot’s in his Tower – and That’s All, Folks

    Posted:

    This stanza was written on the day after Mr Johnson’s election victory on December 12th, 2019. It will be the last stanza of “Parrot Addenda,” rounding off this series of 164 stanzas. It does not mean the Brexit story is over, of course. There’s plenty more to come. It just means that the situation is…