Category: poetry

A Lift to the Food Bank From Iain Duncan Smith

I got a lift to the food bank from Iain Duncan Smith
Driving a vintage British sports car
A Morgan Plus Four powered by a German engine
Goes from nought to Brexit in under sixty seconds
“I say” he said to me “Fine day for a spin”
“Isn’t the food bank just a wonderful thing”
“And now there’s even more of them than ever”

He had the radio tuned to LBC
A phone-in about prices
And the cost-of-living crisis
He said “We’ll have to suck it up, I’m afraid”
“It’s not our fault there’s a war in Ukraine”
“And I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a price worth paying.”
As we passed the war memorial
And poppies on the road signs
I tried to say that his opinion probably wasn’t mine
But with the top down he missed what I was saying

I got a lift to the foodbank from Iain Duncan Smith
Driving a vintage British sports car
With a manual gearbox (sovereignty over transmission)
And an active exhaust in full hot air position
So how come he happened to be going my way?
Well, that’s where you’ll find all his constituents these days

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Liz and the Button

Liz is ready to press the button
And usher in global annihilation
It’s an important duty, says she
I see it as an expectation

Liz is ready to press the button
It’s on her list of things to do
It’s a way to fix the climate crisis
And sort your gas bill woes out too

Liz is ready to press the button
Fearlessly without hesitation
A step up from a selfie in a tank
Here’s me with the tools of obliteration

Liz is ready to press the button
And Vlad’s alert level just went up
Is mutually assured destruction
What they meant by levelling up?

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Tommy, Who Told Lies and Ended Up Back in Jail

(With apologies to Hillaire Belloc)

Tommy told such dreadful lies
It made one gasp and stretch one’s eyes

His followers, racist and uncouth
With scant regard for actual truth
Attempted to believe young Tommy
Wanted to keep sending money

And would have done so, had not he
Lied about her Majesty’s
Pleasure when he went to court
Showing off the pack he brought

‘My prison bag’, Tommy proclaimed
But later, as it was explained
At worst, he’d only get a fine
And had invented prison time

The grift exposed, to say the least
But Tommy had not said his piece
‘My lawyer, and I need the best’
‘Needs paying, and I can’t’, he stressed

His fans from near and far dug deep
Knowing counsel won’t come cheap
But were inevitably dismayed
To find that Tom had Legal Aid

One day soon, his time will come
And Tommy this time square undone
When more funds he seeks to acquire
But fascist chums cry ‘Little Liar!’

And he’s sentenced to a lengthy stint
Locked up once more, and also skint

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Audrey vs. Sir Kier

Witchfinder Sir Kier coming round here
Coming round here with his column in The Sun
With his political flies undone
Coming round here to prosecute a witch hunt
Coming round here he’s got some front

Witchfinder Sir Kier coming round here
Coming round here frayed at the edges
Coming round here breaking his pledges
Coming round here with his Tory stripes
Coming round here not supporting the strikes

Witchfinder Sir Kier coming round here
Coming round here distanced from ideas
Abandoning our health to Tory donors and peers
Coming round here misunderstanding our community
Coming round here spreading disunity

Witchfinder Sir Kier coming round here
And if you criticise him you’ll be out on your ear

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Sunak vs. Truss: The TV Debates

She’s cosplaying poor
He’s a mansplaining bully
There are points to be scored
If her memory’s woolly
Of nice days in Roundhay
She wants you to choose
Between her cheapo Claire’s earrings
And his posh Prada shoes
I’m the son of a chemist
Rich Rishi declares
I helped serve curry
And with Mum’s tax affairs
But he’s interrupting
Like privilege does
The audience deducting
For his hedge fund boss buzz
While both of ‘em forget
That they’re part of the problem
What they promise to fix
Was just broken by ‘em
They disagree on tax hikes
But both agree to break strikes
Mick Lynch was right
About how far they’re right
It’s the choice of a kicking
From her boots or his shoes
Come September
Who will Waitrose Woman choose?

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Liz Truss and the Race For PM

From Yorkshire tea farms to British cheese
And broken treaties to spats with the Chinese
And mixing up the Black and the Baltic seas
She has the support of 86 MPs

From a Mrs T haircut and a picture in a tank
To ducking debates where she might draw a blank
She wants to squeeze families and bang the dumb
She’s the Anyone But Rishi for your conservative chum

From the bloke off Have I Got News For You
To the woman off I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue
The shortcoming of ‘em running is as shocking as it’s stunning
Brace yourselves Britain, the cheese woman is coming

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Bye, Bye, Farewell, Fuck Off

Nurses using foodbanks
Security tags on Lurpacks
His legacy ain’t witty repartee
That fella off the TV
Blow me ain’t he funny
It’s poverty
And lies
And blind eyes
And meetings with spies
The drive to privatise
The drive to Barnard Castle too
The first clue
To another rule for you
And racist too
Deportations to Rwanda
Priti Patel and her
Dog whistle, but the agenda’s his
The question master for a boozy lockdown quiz
The lies are his
The sex pests his
The rule makers breaking rules are his
Corrupt is what it is
Government on behalf of bosses, bankers and billionaires
The people about whom he cares
So wish him bye, bye and farewell
And he can fuck off from there as well
And when he walks, let him keep walking
Don’t ever tune in when he’s talking
Don’t read his books or his columns
Because you were never his problem
He’d let you starve for political gain
And we don’t want to see him round here again

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Spaffer and the Pincher

Pincher by name, pincher by nature
Spaffer backed the groper until it hit the paper
Known to be handsy, where’s the hand you can’t see
Spaffer and the groper, wouldn’t you fancy
That they’re two of a kind, of the same mind
An exercise of power with the grasp of a behind
No surprise, therefore, to hear more lies
Complaints about the pincher that Spaffer denies
Ever hearing, but once he’s lied in a knot
Yet again, he’s simply going to say that he forgot

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Mare Nostrum, Lebensraum, Got Brexit Done

Mare Nostrum, Lebensraum, Got Brexit Done
Steve Bray’s amplifier nicked on Day One

Mare Nostrum, Lebensraum, Got Brexit Done
Danny Kruger, Prue Leith’s misogynist son
Signposts women’s rights nil, Supreme Court one

Mare Nostrum, Lebensraum, Got Brexit Done
1937 moment reaching for a gun
Uniform lapel pins for everyone
In the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Express and The Sun

Mare Nostrum, Lebensraum, Got Brexit Done
Migrants not refugees is how it’s spun
The Court of Human Rights being prepped to be shunned
As if God was yet another son of Eton
The meek shall inherit their own situation

Mare Nostrum, Lebensraum, Got Brexit Done
Organised labour is enemy number one

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I Demand to See the Manager

Someone please bring me the manager of the working class
Some of them have stopped doing exactly what I asked
And they’re forming picket lines that other people won’t pass
So, someone please bring me the manager of the working class

Someone please bring me the manager of the working class
Richard Madeley on the telly said it was someone called Marx
But when I ask who’s in charge they just look at me askance
So, someone please bring me the manager of the working class

Someone please bring me the manager of the working class
Their ability to organise has left one quite aghast
Now they say the time for pay restraint has long since passed
So, someone please bring me the manager of the working class

Someone please bring me the manager of the working class
I’m finding their authority quite difficult to grasp
It’s not that Starmer fellow is it, by any chance?
Won’t someone please bring me the manager of the working class

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