I am just back from Bournemouth with more than enough to say about the week - boiling over with opinions on renationalising the railways, tuition fees, mansion tax, "splits" in the party et al. But I have just had a visit from my niece - who had found a poem, written by my Dad in 1992. As some of you know, I lost my Dad in January, so we are all still missing him terribly, "Elegy on Tory Britain 1992" not only left me tearful remembering him and his deep compassion, but also angry, being reminded of just how bad things were and just how much we have forgotten. Herewith an edited version - putting aside how well it does or doesn't scan - I hope it will have the same impact on you - a timely reminder of just how we must all redouble our efforts to prevent another disasterous Tory Government.
Elegy on Tory Britain – 1992
What have you done to our country
You morons with favours of blue?
How can we believe what you tell us
When it all proves to be untrue?
You came in off the backs of the jobless
Labour’s not working you said
Now you’ve trebled the number of idle
And doubled the price of bread
We’ll cut all your taxes
And let loose a spending spree
(but you omitted to tell us
That you’d double VAT)
You’ve stripped all the country’s assets
To fatten your obese friends
Now we’ll all pay excessive tariffs
To swell their dividends
Yes “Privatisation’s the answer!”
To make our country wealthy
Put thousands more in the dole queue
And make party funds far more healthy!
While unemployment grows and grows
We’ll soon stop that from mounting
We won’t create more jobs – not us
We’ll just change the way of counting
What have you done for industry
With your pompous arrogance?
You’ve created industrial wastelands
By your crass incompetence
And what about our resources
The oil, the coal and the gas?
You’ve squandered all the revenues
And closed the pits alas
What about Black Wednesday?
We have Lamont to thank
For gambling our hard earned money
Then blaming the Bundesbank
What have you done for the homeless
The debtors and re-possessed?
Destroyed their self reliance
And their dreams of happiness
We’ll bring law and order you told us
Then doubled the figures for crime
The shame in these statistics
Is that you're not all doing time!
What about education?
We’ll soon put that to right
After 13 years of trying
Kids still can’t read or write
We’ve increased the standard of living
You arrogantly bleat
For the jobless the homeless the bankrupt
And those sleeping in the street
The family is important
You said with swelling pride
Except for the cabinet ministers
Who found a bit on the side
And what of our country’s NHS?
It’s safe in our hands you claimed
As long as you’re fit as a fiddle
Not sick or ill or maimed
We’ll close the wards, reduce the beds
And cut the waiting list
We just won’t put you on it
You never will be missed……..
You let loose mammon’s vandals
To save the money mad
With hideous blocks of concrete
To destroy the towns we had
What have you done to the countryside
In this green and pleasant land?
The ancient woods and meadows
With your philistinic band
You let loose the monstrous juggernaut
Nuclear waste and chemical sprays
Poisoned the land and air we breath
And defiled our pastoral ways
Profits before people
Has been your clarion call
To hell with the proletariat
The devil take them all
But time will bring your comeuppance
As you plot and plan and wheedle
You’ll all be too gross and overfed
To get through the eye of a needle
Yes your bones will rot in Hades,
For what you have done to our nation
No doubt the sins of the profligate
Will lead to eternal damnation
Denis Jack - 1992
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