The Angry Exile: Welfare cheats have nothing on our MPs.

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, 10 April 2009

Welfare cheats have nothing on our MPs.

Post title blatantly stolen from The Telegraph where Gill Hornby likens Westminster to a sink estate full of dodgy scroungers. No apologies for quoting at length:

Benefits cheat Sylvia Rogers claimed £28,000 from the state which, by shrewd investment and careful husbandry she turned into a very comfortable £60,000. She showed up in court this week, provocatively wearing novelty socks with "Show Me the Money" on them, and received a six-month suspended sentence. She should also be fast-tracked on to a women-only shortlist for a safe seat. With such an eye for financial detail, Mrs Rogers, from Wythenshawe, Manchester, would be at home in the Palace of Westminster.
The more we hear, the more it appears that the House of Commons is scarcely different from any other sink estate where everyone's on the make. Before we had digested the news of Jacqui Smith's bath plug (88p) and two – two! – washing machines (£568.95), we had to swallow the details of Shaun Woodward's claims. Mr Woodward is the richest member of the Commons, because he's married to one of the richest women in the country. He has property in London, Oxfordshire, New York and the West Indies, so he's pretty well sorted when it comes to places to lay his head. He also, as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, enjoys the splendours of Hillsborough Castle, which costs £5 million a year to run, and has a hefty entertaining allowance. So, you might be thinking, Shaun Woodward – there's an MP who won't bother claiming every last quid of his £23,083 second home allowance. And inevitably, you would be wrong.

Actually I'd have expected little else. I can't bear the bastard.

Of course, the difference between Mrs Rogers of Wythenshawe and Jacqui Smith, or Tony McNulty – who, you will remember, claimed £60,000 to live with his parents when his own house was nearby – is that the politicians are not actually committing benefit fraud. Ludicrous though the rules are, all these MPs have been acting within them.

Agreed, but it would also have been worth mentioning that the bastards have just made the rules looser still.

Go read the rest, and then have a nice lie down before your blood pressure gets too high.

UPDATE: Just in case here's a reminder of what the thieving cunts are up to.