The Angry Exile: Good news and bad news.

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

Wednesday 20 May 2009

Good news and bad news.

The good:

Gordon Brown said that Westminster would no longer operate like a gentlemen’s club, making its own rules, and said that the moves would change centuries of history for Parliament.

The bad:

The Prime Minister announced that the financial affairs of MPs would be taken over by independent regulators.

Whoopee fucking doo, another regulator. Because government in general and Gordon Clown in particular have got such a great track record in setting up successful and effective regulatory bodies, right? Er.....

The way I see it this is at best, and I emphasize 'at best', a sideways move for oversight of Parliamentary expenses. At worst it'll be a body as toothless as the Fees Office it replaces and stuffed to the gunwales with cronies and placemen who'll sanction the same kind of dodgy claims that we've been hearing of lately, and who'll no doubt expect a quid pro quo, or perhaps just a lot of quid, for giving it the nod. Either way the bastards still won't be accountable to their real employers except that one day every four or five years when there's an election, and even then there's the problem of wankers in safe seats being able to do pretty much what the fuck they like. If they really wanted to bring true accountability to Parliament and MPs they could just insist on completely transparent accounts, i.e. the full details of each and every expense claim submitted, approved or not, should be published immediately, and a US style recall procedure brought in so that if enough constituents feel their MP is taking the piss they can force a by-election. In addition to financial accountability recalls would also provide professional accountability - if an MP is some worthless party appointee who knows fuck all about the area and people they're supposedly representing but can be relied on to troop into the right lobby when the Whips whistle, or is a useless workshy twat who never bothers to vote at all unless they happened to be in Westminster for a shag anyway, then there'd be a potential means to get rid of them if the constituents weren't happy with that sort of performance. Somehow I doubt that many serving MPs would go for that, though since the government keep telling us that we've nothing to fear from all their authoritarian laws if we've nothing to hide you have to wonder what they have to hide if they are afraid of being genuinely accountable. Open primaries would be a great help too since a safe seat for a particular party wouldn't necessarily be a safe seat for an individual candidate for that party.

UPDATE: I suppose the other bit of good news is obviously that the feckless twat in the Speaker's chair is on the way out, but far from being replaced by a modernizer who'll lead the way in reforming this system that's been corrupting all these innocent MPs it seems the new Speaker will just be following a plan laid out in advance by vested interests who've already proven themselves untrustworthy. Did I already say whoopee fucking doo?

UPDATE 2: Another thought has just occurred to me. This abolition of the Fees Office and creation of an independent regulator wouldn't be carried out in a similar way to the abolition of MAFF and the creation of DEFRA would it?

UPDATE 3: Oh for fuck's sake.