Outside a crowd is shouting about what it really means to be black.
Inside Rees-Mogg’s campaigning to get his voting traditions back.
(It’s a matter of priorities
And MPs with propensities
For higher risk of the disease
Are not one of his).
And how many of the inside crowd
No longer say the words out loud,
The traders and the bankers
Who were “All Lives Matter” wankers.
Who’s to be shamed
Into actual change?
When the most police stops for COVID-19
To slow spread in the community
Are of people who are BAME
While Dominic Cummings gets off scot-free.
A union jack in a profile picture
Guarantees a negative response.
Who cares if the UK’s sicker?
Or the spread is quicker?
The inequality slicker?
And thicker?
If that’s what the Tommylicker thinks he wants.
They might say
That we’ve come a long way
To make society better,
To ease the virus pressure.
(While ignoring the disease unfortunately
Affects black people disproportionately).
But the people and the science both know
That we’ve still got some way to go.
Category: poetry
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam
Van-Tam’s a football fan
It’s Boston United for the government’s man.
That’s why he helped them to decide
To allow you games of three-a-side.
He hopes it’ll help you to keep fit
If you don’t tear the pants out if it.
On Not Following the Science
It took the Cummings fiasco
For the government to let go
Of the scientific say so
With a bribe so shallow
For a back to work heigh-ho
And an off to school you go.
It’s still early you know,
The numbers could grow
But there’s no economic flow
As they tire of furlough
It’s about the dough
This public health blow,
Not keeping the R low
It’s about what we owe.
They claim progress although
The numbers don’t show
That we’re within a stone’s throw
Of Wuhan or Guangzhou,
We’re more Moscow than Tokyo
Or Montevideo;
While the White House sideshow
Lets Trump have a go
At the WHO.
So, when they say that they know
What you know they don’t know
And with words that sound hollow
Tell you to follow
And tell you to go
Reserve your right to say no.
A Daily Mail Poll
Did Cummings act responsibly
Legally, or with integrity?
70% of respondents disagree.
And 63% of answers back
Said that Johnson should’ve given him the sack,
While 66% of readers think it’s time
For Dominic Cummings to resign.
66% said he’s telling lies,
82% said he should apologise
And 78% surmise
That he didn’t drive to Barnard Castle to test his eyes.
Now, 70% of people polled agree
That it’s one rule for them and one for me.
Who expected condemnation on this scale
From the readership of the Daily Mail?
Herd Immunity Cummings (Gets Caught Breaking the Rules)
Herd Immunity Cummings
Running all the way from Downing Street to Durham
Herd Immunity Coughing Cummings
With his wife and son, heading up the M1
Herd Immunity Cummings
Driving up the motorway thinks he’s got the virus
Like Mrs Herd Immunity Cummings
They both know they are breaking the guidance
Herd Immunity Cummings
King of the slogan, holds enormous sway
Herd Immunity Get Brexit Done Cummings
Got grassed up to Kuenssberg at the end of May
Herd Immunity Cummings
This time might just’ve got himself bitten
Perhaps Herd Immunity If He Lost His Job Cummings
Could Take Back Control and Pick For Britain.
World-Beating
Our world-beating tests are world-beating late
And for our world-beating app there’s a world-beating wait.
At our world-beating briefing our world-beating experts say
That they world-beating didn’t need the app anyway.
Our world-beating Hancock says our world-beating track ‘n’ traces
Would work world-beating best with fewer world-beating cases
And our world-beating level’s nearly at a world-beating three
While we’ve given up talking about our world-beating PPE.
Meanwhile, world-beating Wednesday’s the new world-beating weekend
And all our world-beating punters have gone to world-beating Southend.
Where Is Mr Johnson?
Another evening with Dominic
Or Alok Sharma or Rob Jenrick.
It’s a while since he was booking off sick
So, where is Mr Johnson?
Another press conference, he’s unseen.
Are they trying to keep the PM clean?
These days we see more of the Queen.
So, where is Mr Johnson?
Not a big enough headline for the headline act?
Not willing to talk on the plan he backed?
Or the fact we still don’t trace or track?
Where is Mr Johnson?
Why don’t the press ask this as well
As questions about the care bombshell?
Have they lost their sense of smell?
Where is Mr Johnson?
“Leading” Britain’s Conversation
Nigel Farage said just now on LBC
He’d send his kids to school, happily.
But it’s an easy boast to make
When one of them is 28,
One’s 20 and one’s 31.
What’s the betting that the other one
Is not affected by this rule
Because she attends a private school?
Daily Mail: “Let Our Teachers Be Heroes”
The Daily Mail’s not very nice.
Their front page calls for sacrifice
As the author of this piece implies
That they require a teacher dies.
(Like Sarah Baxter in the Times
Whose journalistic crimes
Set her apart from other writers
When she accused the firefighters
At Grenfell of not acting bravely
But being obsessed with health and safety.
Her reasoning, as supplied
Was that not a single one had died).
As for the Mail’s call to glory,
Economics drives this story
And not the benefits to children
Or the risks to those who teach them,
Many of whom, despite all this,
Have been at work throughout the crisis
As there’s no ruling that forbids
The schooling of key workers’ kids.
The lesson is, as ever, clear:
Teachers, hold your union dear
And be around to tell the tale
Of how you beat the Daily Mail.
A New Slogan
Here’s a new slogan
Worse than the last one
From the Cummings Hit Factory
Here’s a miss
Stay alert, by staying at home
But if you can’t work from home
You should stay alert by going to work
But who will look after the kids?
On staying alert by going to work
There’s little advice
Trust your boss to be nice
And not one that takes the piss
On staying alert while travelling to work
Stay alert by not taking the bus to get there
Stay alert by not taking the train to get there
Stay alert by walking or cycling there
Or taking your car and polluting the air
It’s a wonderful strategy, this
A new slogan which without regrets
No longer protects the NHS
Things must be alright, I guess
Or they’re really quite remiss
A new slogan, for England alone
The Scots still get to stay at home
The Welsh and Irish too
Westminster it seems, dismissed
A new slogan, launched with a virus-o-meter
A kind of R-value barometer
Whose needle is quivering permanently
Reflecting government uncertainty
Something’s clearly amiss
So, here’s a new slogan
Worse than the last one
From the Cummings Hit Factory
Here’s a miss
Steve White & The Protest Family 