The Angry Exile: Popcorn V

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

Monday 11 May 2009

Popcorn V

Another lot of popcorn sprayed across the room, this time through laughing hard enough to give myself an injury at the latest 'solution' to the issue of MP expenses.

A new auditing body, independent of the House of Commons staff who currently check MPs' claims, will be announced on Monday by the House of Commons Commission.
The House authorities hope the new body will help reassure voters about MPs' use of their expenses.
However, the rules governing what MPs can and cannot claim will not be changed, meaning the new audit body may not make a significant difference to what is claimed.
The auditing plan was announced by Sir Stuart Bell, a Labour MP who sits on the Commission.

Would that be the same Sir Stuart Bell who only a couple of days ago was busy bleating about how unfair and underhanded it was that the expenses have been made public?

"If this was received by unauthorised means, it is disgraceful that a national newspaper should stoop so low as to buy information which will be in the public domain in July. It undermines the very basis of our democracy and is against all the rules of fair play."

I'm looking forward to hearing what you claimed for, sunshine (I notice his wife does a bit of traveling for starters).

"We are going to some length to meet the public's anxiety and give them reassurance," Sir Stuart said. The new unit will "reassure the public that we do take fully into account their concerns".

You're fucking dreaming. I very much doubt the new unit will do anything of the kind while the same people are setting the rules and think it's okay to claim for all they can rather than all they need in order to cover actual costs.

The audit body will be staffed by "skilled people from outside parliament," Sir Stuart said. Once the unit is established, he hoped it will be "hived off" to the private sector.
The decision to involve outside experts in handling MPs expenses constitutes a major reversal in policy from the Commons authorities.

Well that's not a bad idea, though since the troughing cunts opposed it until oooooh about now we all know bloody well that it's a panic reaction rushed out in an attempt to placate an increasingly angry public. And of course in can only work within the rules, and remember...

...the rules governing what MPs can and cannot claim will not be changed, meaning the new audit body may not make a significant difference to what is claimed.

It'll probably be some improvement over this bunch - looking forward to reading what they've been up to as well - but other than that what's it going to achieve? If we're going to think of Westminster as the Augean stables, as many people have already suggested, then shutting the stable door after the expenses horses have shat everywhere and fucked off is really not enough. And in fact this proposal isn't even shutting the stable door so much as measuring it up for a bead curtain - there really seems nothing substantial to stop the horses from wandering back in and shitting even more. Assuming diversion of the Thames is out of the question, tempting though it may be, the best solution is to get rid of as many horses as possible, starting with the shittiest and most dysenteric nags and going on to spare only those that miraculously turn out to be clean.

Still, I suppose that this new expenses unit is a start of some kind, so is it good news?

The new unit is expected to cost around £600,000 a year to run.

Ah, perhaps not ll good news. Forgive the cynicism but this can't possibly have been accurately costed if it's been put together over the last couple of days, and the Government's track record of accurately costing projects that have been considered over vastly longer periods of time is fucking laughable. This smacks very much of pulling a number out of someone's arse and I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up costing as much or more than it actually saves. It's happened before after all.

Like so much else in Government and politics in general this whole idea is back to front. First get rid of the venal little shites who've been abusing the system, then tighten the rules and model them on the norms for the private sector to prevent future abuse, then put in a simple system of public oversight such as an overview of monthly expenses published on each MP's website with detailed soft copies available for download if anyone, constituent or otherwise, feels like doing their own audit.