Category: General
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The Comfort of the Cage
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This was written on a day (Tuesday October 8th) when the UK news gave cause for yet further despond, alarm and shame, but as Dr Doombeetle says, it will all be someone else’s fault, as always. And Jez ? Those female MP’s facing de-selection ? Good one Jon. Good one Jez. That dreadful conference and…
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The Parrot Cries Out
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The Tories were holding their annual conference. The “Get Brexit Done” slogan was everywhere and government sponsored adverts supporting Brexit were apparently going up in primary schools. The toad was leaping about to toadie applause, the beetle was sidling about to toadie terror. The rain was lashing down. The climate crisis was being fought over………
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The Parrot on My Shoulder
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Things were happening very fast when this was written, many of them carrying a sense of threat and chaos and ill-intent on the part of the perpetrators. It was hard work just to absorb what was going on, harder still to think creatively, or reflectively. This stanza is partly concerned just with that thought. But…
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The Parrot Meets Doombeetle Down a Drain
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These two stanzas were suggested in the first place by an actual incident. Mr Johnson’s main advisor Dominic Cummings was making himself surprisingly available for stray encounters around Westminster. See here, for instance : https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=752395791889320 The reference to Cox in the second stanza is to Geoffrey Cox, the Tory Party’s Attorney General. He performed theatrically…
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Mr Toad Falls Foul of the Law (Again)
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On September 24th, the UK Supreme Court ruled against our Prime Minister’s prorogation of Parliament, finding unanimously that the prorogation was unlawful and that Johnson had misled the Queens on his reasons for implementing it. Effectively, Johnson was being named a plain liar by the highest court in the country and Parliament’s position in the…
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The Parrot in the Ring of Chaos
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This stanza was written just one day after the event it describes – the Labour Conference vote on campaigning for Remain. That event seemed significant for at least a few hours. But the following day’s judgement by the Supreme Court was so much more significant and – still finishing this stanza – I felt that…
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The Parrot is Witness to an Attempted Stabbing
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“The Stabbing” in the title above is of course a reference to Jon Lansman’s (mostly unsuccessful) attempt to render the Labour Party’s Deputy Leader Tom Watson null and void. Jon Lansman founded the “Momentum” organisation. He is on the Labour Party Executive Committee and a Corbyn supporter. He made his move without warning and as…
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Mr Toad Makes a Furtive Connection
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The reference here, of course, is to the announced intention of Mr Johnsons’s government to increase the number of the country’s jails, already very high and yet short staffed, so that even more people can be imprisoned and people jailed for certain crimes can serve their full sentences. This despite finding after finding that jail…