The Angry Exile: Popcorn VI

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 VI

Some interesting quotes from some more MPs who don't get it and a rare one who does.

Ed Miliband, Energy and Climate Change Secretary: "[It] is a challenge and a wake-up call to politicians about the systems that we have in place... I take my responsibility as an MP that we didn’t reform it earlier."

Liam Fox, Shadow Defence Secretary: “The trouble is that politicians have tended to say ’we were only acting within the rules’ but the public think the rules themselves are wrong and go way beyond the legitimate needs of people who have to be in London to represent their constituents in Parliament.”

Andy Burnham, Culture Secretary who had an eight month battle with the fees office after making a claim for more than £16,500 to buy and renovate a new flat saying he might be in for a divorce if it were not paid: “We are talking about claims that were made, in my view, under a flawed system. Our big collective failing - and I completely acknowledge my part in this - is not throwing it out much more quickly than this.

“The great tragedy of it is that because of this flawed system it has given the impression that lots of people in the Commons are personally flawed. I do not believe that to be the case.”

Look you twats, the system may well be flawed but that in itself isn't the fucking problem. The problem is that MPs seem institutionally incapable of resisting the temptation to line their fucking pockets with every penny they can squeeze out of it. To put it another way, if the UK stored its gold reserves in the House of Commons would you lot have to be told that it's not yours to fucking walk off with or would you have helped yourselves to the lot? The system can be as flawed as you like, and I suspect many MPs do in fact like it to be flawed, but no matter how bad it is it wouldn't actually matter if MPs were being fucking honest. Why can't these cunts, and all the others using the same pathetic excuse, grasp this simple point? At least some of them seem to have understood.

Kate Hoey, former Labour minister, referring to Tourism Minister Barbara Follett’s reported £25,000 expenditure on security: “I just cannot understand that one at all. I would need to have someone really convince me that an MP can claim that amount of money for personal security, when I know that in my constituency I have women who walk home late at night who would love to have somebody paying for them to have personal security."

Well done Ms Hoey. I don't have to agree with her politics to have some respect for being that rare creature, an MP who shows signs of sticking to principles. I'm not really surprised that she's one of the very few so far to have slammed her colleagues instead of excusing them because of the system. I very much hope that this isn't going to be spoiled by any bombshells in her own expenses but according to this she's consistently one of the least costly MPs for expenses, which suggests she probably isn't a piss taker.

UPDATE: Meanwhile it's Imodium Plus all round for the Tories as The Telegraph prepares to show what they've been up to, and according to Guido the tax man is starting to take an interest.

UPDATE 2: The Devil has seen another apparently honest MP.

UPDATE 3: True to their word about the Tories, The Telegraph has looked at Alan Duncan's and John Gummer's spending. Not quite the multiple second homes scene popular on the other side of the House (though who knows what's still to come) but not really any different in principle, especially when the same fucking excuse of being within the rules is used. Guido is firing the first shots at three more.