In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Category: Trump

  • The Gaze Blank and Pitiless

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    WB Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming” was written almost exactly a century ago, but if it’s possible for a poem to become truer still with age, then surely this one does. And yet…Yeats wrote his poem in 1919, in the aftermath of the First World War and the beginning of the Irish War of Independence…

  • I See Everywhere the False

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    I thought this was true in 2014, when it was written. I did not know then that the truth can become truer.… continue reading

  • Might Labour be the Force to Renew UK Politics ?

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    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…

  • The Widow

    Posted:

      Here is another poem of loss and it’s called “The Widow” (the title links to it). I wrote it some years ago, in sorrow for the grief of the person concerned, but also in awe at how she voiced her bereavement, the words she reached for, and the way she flung them out, time…

  • The Lying Toad is Back, the Tousled Look, the Winning Smirk, Our Leader…

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    The prose piece that follows begins with the mismatch in the UK, between the present Prime Minister’s relative popularity on the one hand, and his long established disregard for the Nolan Principles of ethical conduct on the other. The piece provides a reminder that our Prime Minister has previously been sacked twice for lying  and…

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

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    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…

  • The Toad Negotiates with the Underworld

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    This week Mr Trump (“the American Minotaur”) was in the UK for a meeting of NATO leaders. Then he got the hump because people were laughing at him and he left early. Not long ago, Mr Johnson (“The Toad”) did a Putin with a bull. See picture above. Perhaps he was rehearsing for his upcoming…

  • The Parrot Joins the Circus

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    Prime Minister Johnson and his gang had lost a succession of important votes the day before this stanza was written. Several prominent and moderate  Tories who had voted against the government and against the possibility of a “No Deal” Brexit, had simply been sacked. Ken Clarke was one of those and had much to say…