Month: August 2020

A Man With a Fascist Flag

The anti-mask brigade
Were far too easily swayed
By conspiracy theorists
And it’s not real it’s
Just Government lies
And surprise, surprise
A man with a fascist flag

The anti-mask brigade
In Trafalgar Square today
Chanting the virus is a hoax
And laughing at David Icke’s jokes
Were joined by QAnon memes
And alt-right, far right themes
And a man with a fascist flag

The flag that we tore down at Cable Street
That we fought from ’39 to ’45 to defeat
From the International Brigades
We’ll fight to the present day
When we see a man with a fascist flag

The anti-mask brigade
See their freedom ebbing away
Freedom to catch the virus
Freedom to pass it to us
Freedom to believe a lie
Freedom to turn a blind eye
To the man with the fascist flag

The flag that we tore down at Cable Street
That we fought from ’39 to ’45 to defeat
From the International Brigades
We’ll fight to the present day
When we see a man with a fascist flag

The anti-mask brigade
Took Trafalgar Square today
Sanity over madness they spew
While the converse appears true
Joined by anti-Semitic conspiracies
And bad information about the disease
And a man with a fascist flag

The flag that we tore down at Cable Street
That we fought from ’39 to ’45 to defeat
From the International Brigades
We’ll fight to the present day
When we see a man with a fascist flag

 

by Categories: COVID-19, Lyrics, SteveTags: , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Last Night of the Proms

“Patriotic songs matter” said the petition.
It’s this morning’s All Lives Matter edition.
Even if you don’t know all the words
And are der-der-der-ing by the second verse
Your life will be somehow diminished
If the Beeb change the way that The Proms are finished.

“They’re simply rousing British songs”
Not a catalogue of colonialism’s wrongs
Which are many, and the foundation
Of much of the wealth of this nation.
But we don’t want to talk about that
While we’re waving our plastic union jack.

by Categories: poetry, SteveTags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

What’s the connection
Between the new head of the National Institute of Health Protection
(Set up in the middle of fighting the infection)
And the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care?
Is there something of which we should be aware?

Well, he’s MP for Newmarket and his campaign was endowed
With lots of money from the horseracing crowd,
While she’s on the board of the Jockey Club
And, ay, there’s the rub,
The Cheltenham Festival
Which you might recall
Went ahead when cancellation was the call
And infected a load of people.

And as head of app-less Test and Trace
(Which isn’t in world-beating first place)
Gave ten billion quid of public dough
To Serco, whose CEO
Is Rupert Soames
From one of the country’s most famous homes
And whose brother Nick, I quote
“Is a main investor in the Tote”.

While Randox, who sponsor Aintree,
Are another company
Awarded considerable public money
With very little scrutiny.
A hundred and thirty-three million pounds, in fact,
Is the value of their contract
For testing kits that didn’t work,
And worse
They pay an eight grand a month fee
For consultancy
To another Tory MP.

At Talk Talk she won the wooden spoon,
Which is coming to Dido’s Test and Trace soon
And she’s head of NHS Improvement as well
As this new role, can you hear the death knell?
Because her husband is on the board of 1828
Who called for PHE to meet its fate
And are advocates for a change in Britain
To an insurance-based healthcare system.

So who’s looking after your health today?
Because this lot shoot horses, don’t they?

by Categories: COVID-19, poetry, SteveTags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Ayanda Capital

Welcome to the Ayanda family
Focussed on investment strategy
We specialise in trading currency
You see

Welcome to the Ayanda family
We specialise in offshore property
And private equity
But we’ve never bought any PPE

How can that be?

Welcome to Ayanda Capital
We’ve no PPE experience at all
But there’s 250 million quid on the table
Some haul

Welcome to Ayanda Capital
Kings of remaining profitable
There’s public money there for us to trawl
And a government advisor that we can give a call

The stakes ain’t small

Here’s Andrew Mills, he’s a member of our board
What he knows about facemasks ain’t been explored
But if there’s money to be made then rest assured
He’s on board

Here’s Andrew Mills our deal deviser
ProsperMills’ influence exerciser
And business advisor
To Liz Truss, Secretary of State, for International Trade

That’s how the deal was made

Now if you think that this ain’t corrupt
Then protest singers might as well give up
And turns out the masks ain’t even good enough
And that’s fucked up

The victims of COVID still regularly cop it
While folks like Ayanda are making a profit
Matt Hancock ain’t gonna do anything to stop it
So if you want to protect the NHS as well

Don’t lose your sense of smell

by Categories: COVID-19, Lyrics, Protest Family, SteveTags: , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

They Is

They is.
They is, the talking point.
They is, the grammatical counterpoint.
They is finding a voice for themself
In a language of such wealth
Of turn of phrase, of evocation
Of the tapestry of an evolving nation.
So it’s sad when some would influence
Opinion of the form’s mellifluence
While they is struggling to identify
The difference between living and getting by
Because surely everybody knows
That language lives, adapts and grows.
It’s less transphobic, admittedly
Than mere linguistic pendantry
But if for you they is a step too far
Then they is still comfortable with they are.

by Categories: poetry, SteveTags: , , , , Leave a comment

Local Lockdowns, Part One

Go back to your northern powerhouse homes
Unless you are going to the pub, which you should visit alone,
Or work, which you must not shirk.
No visiting family or friends
Unless, we guess, you work with them
But we say again:
No socialising in houses or gardens
No if’s or but’s or beg your pardon’s,
But if you’re one of the shielding folk
Your rights to help have been revoked
And you should come out, your race is run,
Just try not to come into contact with anyone.
Because Hancock, a politician
At home with confusion and contradiction
Accuses you of a lack of compliance
With his social distancing guidance
And has identified some high-risk zones
So go back to your northern powerhouse homes.

by Categories: COVID-19, poetry, SteveTags: , , , , , , Leave a comment