The Angry Exile: Straight from the mouth of a lefty comic.

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, 9 October 2009

Straight from the mouth of a lefty comic.

Like many comedians, some of whom are genuinely funny, Frank Skinner is a bit of a lefty and likes the idea of big state telling people what to do and how to live, which is why I've ripped into him once before. But I'll give him credit for his honesty here.

What’s happened to the Conservative Party? It used to be a dirty little temptress. I’ve voted Labour my whole life but, I hate to admit this, the Tories have always had a would-but-shouldn’t allure.

They appealed to my Mr Hyde. Even when I was a slightly lefty student, I’d watch their conferences on TV, with talk of things like a “short, sharp shock” for young offenders and, while my better self argued that poverty, inner-city housing and mass unemployment caused crime and thus needed to be dealt with at root, my Mr Hyde would be thinking: “OK, I’m voting Labour but I must admit, if the Tories win, the knowledge that a vicious street thug will be crying himself to sleep in an icy cold cell does represent something of a silver lining.”

The Conservatives had an animalistic gut appeal. The good me knew that trade unions were admirable institutions that protected the people from exploitation by management but my Mr Hyde was sick of power cuts and bus strikes, and could turn a blind eye to a bit of union bashing and redundancies if it made life more comfortable.

Then, when I started earning, it was their juicy tax cuts that enticed me. Conservatism was, I felt, institutionalised selfishness. Yes, the good me wanted to walk back from the pub without getting glassed, a bit more money in his pocket and the trains to be running, but he didn’t want these things at the expense of higher ideals.

Fair enough. At least Skinner admits that he's happy to have benefitted from a government he didn't vote for, and in the same way it's only fair to say that not everything about Labour has been irredeemably bad. Mostly, but not everything. However, not only does the amount of bad shit more than make up for it but the sheer badness of some of the shit is unforgivable. For example, Frank Skinner says:

My Mr Hyde would have accepted a police state as long as he felt safer, richer and less inconvenienced.

Well, Frank, you fucking got the police state you secretly wanted, just not from the Tory party with which you've had this interesting love-hate relationship. Of course, you aren't safer, richer or less inconvenienced as a result, but I think that's part of the police state thing rather than because it's Labour rather than Tory flavoured. Who cares what colour the fucking rosette is when you're face down with your eyes closed waiting for the kick in the crotch that's surely coming. You're a twat, Frank, but not a complete one.

... I used to be tempted by the Tories’ dark delights but not any more. In fact, that’s probably more down to them changing than me.

The Conservatives no longer offer any dark delights. They seem to care about equality, the unemployed and saving the planet.

...

In truth, there are no Tory blues or Labour reds any more — just one big, slightly ungraspable purple party. I know there are always the Liberal Democrats, but watching their conference — listening to them talking about what they would do if they came to power — reminded me of sitting with workmates in the factory canteen, discussing what we’d do if we won the football pools.

The party conference season has, I must admit, shown the Conservatives to be the party of change. They’ve changed into the Labour Party, which, 15 years earlier, changed into a sort of Conservative Party Lite.

Hallefuckinglujah! Not only is a well known lefty TV personality saying that there's next to fuck all between them it's been printed in a national daily. Skinner is right - there's basically one centrist party with two wings these days.

Before that, any Shadow Home Secretary would have known instinctively which party would be lining up a former Army chief as a potential minister. He wouldn’t have needed to be briefed.

David Cameron’s Tories aren’t even promising Mr Hyde they will drop the 50p tax. When people decide who to vote for in the next election, they can’t do it on policies. It’s not the old choice of nationalisation v private enterprise or grammar schools versus comprehensives or even fox hunting v not fox hunting — it’s purple v purple.

There’s not much mileage in Gordon Brown saying: “I’m warning the British people, if the Tories get into power, things will be ever so slightly different from the way they are now.” That’s not really beware of the bogeyman, is it?

The really bad news for Mr Brown is that, in the absence of policies, the election will be decided on personality: Brown v Cameron, charmless v harmless.

In other words the good news is that Gordon Clown is fucked. The bad news is that once there's been an election and the fucking fucked fucker fucks off things under the new government will feel only ever so slightly different. Gordon may be fucked but unless people wake up and start voting for change and genuinely new policies rather than similarity and merely new faces Britain looks fucked too.