The Angry Exile: MPs to show expenses. Or not. Maybe. Who knows really?

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Friday 23 January 2009

MPs to show expenses. Or not. Maybe. Who knows really?

First the High Court says that MPs have to publish their expenses in detail so the public can be sure they're not taking the piss. Then the government decides they're really not to keen on the idea of transparency, and having spent so long avoiding any efforts at open government there was now way they were going to start now. So a little legal jiggling and the problem would go away, and it ought to go through because the wicked Tories are just bound to have their snouts in the trough as well, right? But just to be on the safe side a three line whip of Labour MPs will make damn sure of it and they release the news among a load of more interesting headlines. Next, oops! A load of people got wound up, a Facebook group was started protesting it, a LibDem MP tabled an early day motion criticizing it, blogs were blogged and the media meeded. And in spite of the three line whip making it a dead cert Gordon Clown, showing his usual appetite for a battle, backed down. But now it seems that not much has changed after all:

MPs will still not have to volunteer full details of their expenses despite yesterday's U-turn by Gordon Brown, under reforms being voted on by the Commons today.
Proposals from Leader of the House Harriet Harman would merely mean spending being routinely published under 26 broad categories, according to campaigners.
A spokesman for Ms Harman confirmed they would not lead to receipt-by-receipt information on spending being routinely published.

So no real gain in transparency. No real guarantee that seeing, say, "Office Equipment - £5000" doesn't include a big fucking plasma screen for the idle narcissistic bastards to watch interviews of themselves on. Beneath contempt.

The Commons has already spent more than £1million dealing with 1.2million receipts. Insiders said their publication was still expected to take place by July.
Miss Harman said: ‘We didn’t think it was right there should be 1.2million receipts, every single receipt for every ream of paper that’s bought, should be scanned and then published because it would be a blizzard of information at great expense.’

Presumably I didn't need to bother keeping all the receipts for my last UK tax return? I could have just said that I'd already spent 500 quid dealing with nearly 600 receipts, and on that basis they should fuck off? It all seems so simple now. Oh, it doesn't apply to ordinary people? Just those extra special people being employed by ordinary people to represent them in Parliament? Oh bugger. Well, fair enough I suppose. It's not like any of them look dodgy.

Fucking hypocrites.