The stanza above refers, of course, to the sudden large majority in the House of Commons for Mr Johnson’s preference for a General Election dated December 14th, 2019.
I, for one, failed to understand this sudden end to the parliamentary containment of the Toad, this letting go of the impasse, this apparent agreement to engage in the disagreement of an election. It brought the demagogues and shadowy enforcers back into play.
Was it a real decision, requiring energy, or just a failure to make a decision, requiring only weakness, or inertia ? Where had the Second Referendum gone ? Where was the challenge to Johnson’s multiple deceits, felonies, abuses of power ? Who was getting what out of this ? For whose good ?
Or was it just exhaustion, a surrender to chaos and destruction ? I feared the latter – I hoped I was wrong. I asked the parrot. He hadn’t a clue. Too busy. He was awash in the flood.
And writing this stanza, I was thinking, among other things, of the very recent implosion of the “People’s Vote” campaign. Well done, everybody. Much easier to fight each other than take right action.
And, inevitably, I was thinking of some famous lines from Yeats’ “Second Coming” : “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity.”