This is being written a few days after Gary Lineker refused to back down. He won’t read these words, but I feel the need to declare here to whoever might be visiting my deep admiration and gratitude for the position Lineker has taken and held, both on a disgraceful and abhorrent government policy (and the motives for, and the framing… continue reading
Category Labour
Truth cf. ‘Impartiality’
This poem is another written recently and pretty fast, though some aspects of it have been fermenting for quite a while, I suspect.
But the immediate catalyst was Prime Minister’s Question Time last Wednesday (November 30th). Starmer talked about Winchester College (public school) and the exemption from VAT enjoyed by these long-established playing fields (and citadels) of wealth and privilege.… continue reading
Message to Keir Starmer
Dear Keir Starmer,
I’m a Labour member and a strong supporter and admirer of your leadership. I am sending this email message – and will upload a copy on my blog – fully aware that there is no prospect that you will read it. But, maybe, one of your team will.
I can see, of course, that a Brexit Deal would… continue reading
Words for an Earthquake
The United Kingdom has left the EU. We have vacated our seat at the high table and it is laid now for just 27 places. We’ve “got it done.”
Or “gone and done it.”
In recognition of the significance of this momentous step we’ve taken, whatever it may mean, I am uploading here a selection of 53 stand-alone short rhyming… continue reading
Might Labour be the Force to Renew UK Politics ?
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 to renew them, not just… continue reading
Songs from our Seclusion (congratulations, Keir Starmer)
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. In the UK, how many… continue reading