The Angry Exile: Slap on the wrist.

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, 9 January 2010

Slap on the wrist.

I realise that any conceivable fine for a charge of Driving Without Due Care and Attention is hardly going to hit someone like Harritwit Harmong where it hurts, and it would be hard to justify why she should be hit harder just because of who she is and the loathsome government we associate her with. But £350? Seem a bit low to anyone else? I was under the impression they could go up to £5 grand, and while that would seem pretty steep for a collision that didn't actually hurt anyone I'd have thought they'd impose a fine that makes the point that someone who is a lawyer and has been at various times Solicitor-General, Leader of the House of Commons and Cabinet Minister should perhaps be leading by example. I'd also have thought that a court would take into consideration the accused's relevant history - if someone's just been found guilty of robbing a post office it's relevant to consider if this is the first time or if he's been doing it for twenty years. So shouldn't the court hearing Harmong's case have mentioned that the £400 she was fined and the one week ban she got for doing 99mph on a motorway back in 2003 apparently didn't sink in? Or perhaps mention that the £60 Fixed Penalty she got for speeding in 2007 was paid several months late because she was busy with the Labour Deputy Leadership contest and forgot to pay. Want to bet that anyone else offering a pathetic excuse of being busy with career matters would get away with it? Any takers? No? Funny that.

As I said, being who she is certainly shouldn't attract a higher fine or more points, though her history with motoring offences might. I'd go even further and say that since no-one was hurt by her offences in 2003 and 2007 - speeding being in itself a victimless crime - she shouldn't have been fined for those anyway. But of course anyone else sure as hell would have been, and the flip side of that is that being who she is shouldn't earn her even just a slightly easier ride. Now all this is just speculating and possibly the court did think about those previous cases and did the legal equivalent of saying 'Meh, 350 quid sounds about right.' The papers have examples of apparently lenient sentences handed down week in, week out. The charge of using the phone was apparently dropped and little discussion seems to have been made as to whether yelling "I'm Harriet Harman, you know where to find me" constitutes stopping after an accident and exchanging details. There could be sound reasons for all of that, couldn't there? But the bottom line is that in her shoes I'd be pretty fucking pleased with getting away with only 3 points and £350, wouldn't you?

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