Lines written upon the occasion of the appointment of William Hague, Tory MP for Richmond,Yorkshire,to the office of Secretary of State for Wales.
William who?
Little boy blue?
It can't be true.
Yes it is.
His name is Hague
which rhymes with vague
or Tory plague.
Aged thirty four?
He's just a boy
given a toy
called Wales.
THE SCOTT INQUIRY
It began as a fluff,
a quiet fart in Whitehall,
reformulated flatulence,
and,like the acrid stink of poison gas
that killed innocent Kurds
at Halabja,it was ignored.
But the government
was incontinent
when it came to profit,
so,the bowels moved
amended the rules
and blew a raspberry at Parliament.
A few sniffed it,
sensed a stink,
asked questions and were misled.
By now, the rectum
was fully operational
and produced a turd,
but few smelt it,
amongst the rising tide
of sewage of Tory government
Where there's muck,
there's brass,so they brazened
out the awkward questions.
There was no change in the rules.
Deodorised phrases hid the ordure,
sophistocated sophistry.
Unfortunately, no-one told
Customs and Excise
about the growing dung heap,
so when they discovered it
and prosecuted Matrix Churchill
it was time to flush it down the pan.
Sterilising the shit,
Public Interest Immunity Certificates,
were used to ban
the sweet smell of truth,
justice, honesty and ethics
to hide the fateful faeces.
The full force of government
had created this lump of shit,
warm, stinking and significant,
diaorrhea to be reckoned with,
a true achievement of the arrogance
of fetid Tory rule.
But,when the trial exposed
their leaky plumbing,
the shit hit the fan.
When the pong hit the nostrils of the Press,
the line changed and it became
a turd to be explained.
So as it became obvious
that the stinking shit existed,
an inquiry was commissioned.
An apparently independent judge was
asked to investigate the smell,
to report on the foul mess
Justice Scott examined the stables
that produced the shit
and the attempt to hide it.
As he probed the dung heap,
putrid and magnificent,
the political response was predictable.
It doesn't exist,
the Tory minister told Scott,
it was just a slight movement of the bowels.
Cabinet ministers,like little boys,
pretended that it wasn't theirs.
What smell,they inquired?
Soiled,septic words
spilled from their lips,
to hide the cess-pit of government.
Civil servants argued that half a picture
was an unquantifiable truth,
that the vowel movements should remain private.
But,when Scott reported
that an enormous pile of foul shit
had been found at the centre of government
that it was a monument to Tory mis-rule
and impossible to ignore,
toilet cabinet ministers tip-toed through the muck
In triumphant tones,
of realism over idealism
of turds over democracy,
Ian Lang blamed Robin Cook.
Its not our fart,he claimed, yours,
Its yours, so apologise.
We're not responsible, he argued.
It was the inadvertent result of incompetence,
so that's alright then.
It was the result
of honest duplicity,
a mere breakdown in the sanitary system.
It wasn't shit,they claimed,
but excrement created
in the public interest.
It wasnt a turd,they cried,
but honest manure,
a fertiliser for business.
So, they voted on it
and buried the foul heap
of corruption in British democracy.
But,the stink remains,
of the rotting flesh,
of dead children at Halabja.