The Angry Exile: James Purnell

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

Saturday, 6 June 2009

James Purnell - brave or clever?

First an apology. I'm not sure I've mentioned it before but I met Purnell years ago and unknowingly passed up a golden opportunity to push a cunt down a flight of stairs. I didn't know and I'm very, very sorry. It doesn't seem likely that I'll have an opportunity to make up for that so I'll have to learn to live with it, and perhaps karma will sort it out and he'll be found buried under a pile of taxpayer funded books and fridge magnets.

But now I'm wondering about the guy. I think he was probably right in his resignation letter that Gordon Clown is a liability to the Labour Party - I'd have added that he's already proved a fucking liability to the whole fucking country - but was his "Gordon, go" message and his professed love of party genuine or did the ambitious little shit muncher want to ingratiate himself with fellow Blairites. If so it was risky and, as the Daily Mash said,would have been uncharacteristically ballsy for a spineless Labour politician, but there was also the usual denial of any interest in the leadership that's traditional among politicians who covet their party's leadership. I reckon he'd seen the writing on the wall and wanted to be the trigger, or at least part of it, for Broon's removal and a probable election in the near future. His seat isn't as marginal as many but it's not exactly a safe majority either, and possibly he thinks 8,000 or so votes is more defendable with Broon gone from 10 Drowning Street than with the deranged monocular twat still piling furniture against the door as the polling stations open, and if so I think he's almost certainly correct. With Broon still PM come the election only Labour's most loyal window lickers can possibly thing they're heading for anything other than virtual obliteration, and in those circumstances 8,000 doesn't seem very much at all. Would he want to go and work in the real world? Doubtful. Purnell has apparently always been a politician at heart. Just look at the guy's work history: a Blair bag carrier while still a student, IPPR researcher, BBC, special advisor at No. 10 till 2001, MP for a ~~rotten borough~~ safe seat since then. He's now thirty-fucking-nine and he's made nothing and done nothing in the private sector, or so it seems. Strike you as someone who'd choose a corporate life after politics? Nope, this is a career politician here, and I can't believe that he's not playing political chess games with his own career very much in mind. I imagine he'd rather chew his own cock off than give up being an MP. A principled stand? Perhaps an element of that, but if we could look inside his head (hmm, interesting thought after an afternoon's work with power tools) I'd bet we'd find another self obsessed prick maneuvering desperately to cling onto his political career.

Apart from not being as mad as bag of monkeys he's not so different from Gordon Clown.

UPDATE: If Guido and Old Holborn are right then it looks more and more like Purnell's resignation was indeed a career move rather than anything principled. We can still hope that the cunt loses his seat, but of course if he's successful (and if it happens at all, obviously) he'll no doubt be parachuted into a new, much safer seat. Loathsome little mutton chopped cunt.