The Angry Exile: And the gravy train rumbles on.

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

Thursday, 7 January 2010

And the gravy train rumbles on.

First fucking class all the way. Did they think we'd forget so quickly? Did they think everyone would still be pissed from New Year and not notice this?

MPs could receive a big pay rise to compensate them for the loss of their generous expenses, it emerged last night.

They haven't lost their generous expenses at all, you fucking innumerate mong, that's just what they're just telling everybody to try and get some sympathy. As far as I know, and I won't believe otherwise until I see it for myself, if an MP submits a claim for reasonable expenses incurred solely as a result of their work as an MP they'll be reimbursed. And do you know what? Nobody has got a fucking problem with that. What people objected to was the use of expenses to feather their own nests in a way that would have got anyone in the private sector doing something similar either fired or told not to be so fucking silly. Jesus Christ, some years ago - before I started working for me - I personally was grilled about expenses for printer ink (I suggested PDFs so we could stop fucking about with printing it at all, but someone didn't want to spring for enough copies of Acrobat)parking in London (it's London therefore it was fucking expensive, but if I was to be able to get back in the car and on the way somewhere else at fifteen minutes notice I sort of had to). What I was never asked about was the wine I had with my dinner when I'd worked away from home, or the CDs I bought to listen to on the commute, or the mobile phone calls to Mrs Exile to tell what time I'd be home. And the reason these expense items were never questioned was because they never fucking happened. Knowing that if I couldn't justify an expense claim I wouldn't get the money back I stuck to claiming for what the job forced me to spend on it. Why is this simple concept so difficult for many Parliamentarians to grasp, especially considering how fucking talented they are at grasping any money that hasn't been stapled somewhere out of reach?

The head of the watchdog charged with ending the expenses scandal has suggested that some allowances could be scrapped in favour of a higher basic salary.
This could see pay for a backbench MP go up from almost £65,000 a year to more than £80,000.
Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, head of the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, said one of his jobs was to ensure that MPs were properly remunerated.

Oh for fuck's sake. I've blogged this before (see here and here) and I'm certainly not the only one. Firstly, if they're underpaid and honestly believe they'd get more in the private sector, and I concede that some might, then there's an obvious answer. Fuck off to the private sector if you think someone there will have you. The bottom line is that there are 646 seats in the Commons, each of which is contested by candidates from at least half a dozen parties who in turn selected their candidate from a list of maybe a dozen or more people. That's ignoring the independents who are effectively a party of one and the larger numbers of main party hangers on who aren't on any lists not because they don't want to be an MP but because they haven't yet climbed high enough up their party's internal political greasy pole. Bottom line, there are conservatively fifteen thousand people, possibly much more, who want to be one of the 646 MPs. If it's underpaid they'd be having trouble finding that many people who want to do it, and since they're not either the money is good enough or there are other attractions. Either way there's no need to put the salary up.

Secondly, let's just remind ourselves how we got to this point. Dishonesty. Greed. Venality. Is this behaviour that deserves rewarding with a pay rise? Is it fuck! You don't deal thieves and robbers by giving them money in the hope they won't bother to steal in future, so what in the name of all that's vaguely sane makes someone think that corrupt, nest feathering politicians should get more pay? What they should get is kicked out on their arses, preferably into a cell.

H/T Ambush Predator.