The Angry Exile: One party, three wings.

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

Sunday 14 February 2010

One party, three wings.

In Britain these days there is only a theoretical choice between main parties. Plenty of people have observed that the battle for the centre ground has reached the point where in many policy areas, e.g. Europe and the referendum that everyone promised but which never happened and now never will, there really isn't a lot of difference, and an MP on the edge - not necessarily an extreme edge - of his party's views could conceivably cross the floor to join another party without actually having to change his opinions. There really might as well be one party with two main wings on the left and right respectively, and a smaller one that is slightly left of centre, but only slightly.

Unfortunatelt and to my ever lasting annoyance there are plenty of people who will vote along party lines even even the candidate was a fungus ridden lump of wood with the right colour rosette nailed on. But it's a relief to see that generation whatever-letter-we're-on-now is bucking the trend, and not by simply being contrarian and voting for whoever would most annoy their parents (urrrm, guilty on one count, your honours). They want to be political, but not with those politicians.

Disillusioned class of 2010 have no idea which party to support.

Can't think why, unless it's because the centrist similarity and the behaviour of politicians from all three main parties makes it like choosing between three almost identical flavours of ~~cake~~ shit sandwich?

Unburdened by ideology and bored by Iraq, they sit in coffee bars to fret about tuition fees and their chances of finding a job.

...

More than 70 students shared their political views this week during interviews in libraries, student union buildings and lecture rooms at four universities: Durham, Bradford, Leicester and Bristol. With a few exceptions, they were interested in political issues but cynical about politicians and had little patience for arguments along traditional party lines. The majority intended to vote but almost half had no idea which party they would support.

I really hope that it occurs to them that if no main party appeals then voting for a minority party makes as much sense. One vote so rarely makes a difference that it's as much a waste to give it to someone who's likely to win by twenty thousand as it is to someone who'll only get a few dozen - the former needs one more vote like Mr Creosote needs a wafer thin mint (unfortunately even the really fat ones are unlikely to explode) and for the latter it's still not remotely near enough. For a while afterwards it might feel nice to have backed the winner but that'll soon fade when he's joined the rest of the bastards queueing up behind you while you're gripping your ankles and trying to breathe past the ball gag. Seriously, you may as well just vote for whoever's policies are closest to what you actually think. If that means you vote Tory, Labour, LibDem or even BNP then fair enough. I might think you're a twat but I'll have to concede that you'll be an honest twat. Doesn't change the fact that what you're doing is voting Centrist.

Among [the students] were an Asian girl worried about levels of immigration, a self-proclaimed Marxist who may vote Tory and another student who said he would vote Conservative because he believed passionately in social justice and equality.

Ignoring the obvious strawman about the Asian girl concerned about immigrants (she could be fourth generation and talking about Eastern Europeans for all we know) the fact that the Tories hare now tempting for a Marxist and someone else who likes them for the position on social justice and equality means one of two things: either both of them haven't a clue what the fucking words mean or the Tory party has moved far enough to the left in it's desire to steal as many of Labour's clothes as NuLab stole from them that the blogosphere taunt of Blue Labour is looking more accurate by the day.

What might change all this is money. Not who out of Dave and Gordon can offer the most money back to the people they're going to forcibly take it from, but where the Labour party is going to get the money to stay in business.

The Labour Party is struggling to make ends meet. It is planning a general election with a skeletal staff. Its spring conference has been cancelled. The National Policy Forum, which, in theory at least, was supposed to sign off the election manifesto, is too expensive to stage. The Labour Party is heading into the next election contest with debts of £11.5 million, an overwhelming reliance on the trade unions for funding and the very real prospect that the coming campaign will tip it into bankruptcy. What does this mean?

There'll be dancing in the streets of Cheltenham if they do go tits up?

First, it means that the rich and powerful have deserted the party. Notwithstanding its recent flirtation with a class critique of the Opposition and higher taxes on the well-off, this is not really a comment on the Labour Party’s policies. It is a verdict on its prospects. Most donors are weather vanes rather than ideologues; they look for winners to back. Fundraising is a form of political future and the desertion of its donors is a telling indictment of the Labour party. Those monied men and women who flocked to new Labour in the mid-1990s have disappeared.

Yeah, we know. There was another this week. Seems not to have liked the high tax situation that someone thought was such a fucking good idea.

Second, the party’s parlous financial state tells us how badly Labour has managed its own machine. The great promise of new Labour, attractive enough to win three elections, was that it offered a party freed from reliance on the trade unions. It was to be a party of the nation, not just a pressure group for a sectional interest. For a long while, the promise was kept.

No wonder. They fucked up the country so why should we be surprised that they were shit at managing their own finances.

And now, if you're an undergraduate wondering how to decide who to vote for, here comes the important bit.

The irony, at the end of the new Labour period, is that the party has wound up more reliant on trade union finance than ever before.

The piper's paymaster calls the tune, and the main paymasters are about to be the unions again. It might not be a choice of New Labour or Blue Labour with LibDems to place. We could see something more like Old Labour, which would create a bit of daylight between them and Blue Labour despite DING's step to the left (in the event of a jump to the right let's do the Timewarp again - there's bound to be pelvic thrusts still going on in Westminster). They'll all still be fucking awful, which is why my vote will go to the Libertarian Party (if they have a candidate standing - I've pretty much decided that the only other option is to spoil the ballot paper), but at least they'll be awful for different reasons.