The Angry Exile: Low fidelity Speaker.

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, 11 April 2010

Low fidelity Speaker.

Usually I don't have a lot of time for Simon Heffer. I could be mistaken but he's always struck me as being one of those people who are only conditionally for liberty, particularly when it comes to an individual's own body and what they might want to put in it. From reading Heffer's articles it seems that enjoying booze, fags and rich food is fine but other recreational drugs and genitals that look like your own are not, and for me that makes him little better than any other paternalist wanker who claims to know what's best for everybody. However, on the character of many politicians I tend to sing from the same hymn sheets, and in the case of this piece on the Speaker (more a tweeter than a woofer) John Bercow I think he's spot on.

The disgusting spectacle of this saponaceous little creep shaking hands with various expenses fiddlers as they left the House of Commons on Thursday, of his boasting that (since being rumbled for a bit of taxpayer-funded extravagance himself) he has in fact been very cheap to run, and of his gall in using the Leader of the Opposition (who, I would wager, cannot stand the sight of him) to endorse him on his website, is of a piece with the atrocious behaviour that led him to occupy the Chair in the first place. The Speakership should be an act of public service: but for Little Bercow it is simply an act of ambition.

His own party cannot stand him. The Labour party, outrageously choosing to score a political point in the aftermath of the expenses scandal, rather than to salvage the reputation of the House of Commons, thought it was frightfully funny to elect him to his post. He has neither the experience nor the gravitas to do the job properly. As he sat in his Mothercare-supplied robes, presiding over the most corrupt House of Commons for centuries, looking like a man waiting for a spot on a toadstool by an ornamental pond to become vacant, one could conclude that he and they deserved each other. But we, the electorate, have done nothing to deserve him.

Since he is notionally a Conservative, that party has no candidate against him. Nor do the Lib Dems or Labour, and they would look foolish if they did: after all, they wanted him to be Speaker in the first place. There are (so far) various independents, and a bonehead from the BNP. But there are two serious candidates: Nigel Farage, the charismatic former leader of Ukip, and John Stevens, a former MEP standing on a "democracy" ticket. I have nothing against Mr Stevens, but his politics are too bland for me. I am in no doubt that the people of Buckingham, not least to perform the public service of removing the smear of Bercow from British politics, should vote for Mr Farage.

Quite. The idea of giving the little shit a fucking free ride back to the trough on May 6th just because the Speaker is traditionally unopposed is as repellant as it would have been if it was still Gorbals Mick. More to the point, Bercow wasn't appointed to halt the gravy train but to keep it on the fucking rails, and for that alone he should go. If that's spelled out clearly enough to the Buckingham voters I'd hope that Nigel Farage could win as a result.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: I've never understood this Bercow hatred. A lot of abuse is thrown in his direction, but never anything factual to back it up.

The essential anti-Bercow thesis is: Bercow is a closet socialist, elected solely to upset the Conservatives, who was elected to maintain the Commons status quo.

Yet you look at his voting record, and you find one indistinguishable from those of his Conservatove colleagues. If he is a rebel, he is no
more so than David Cameron.

Second, on his election. He won the first round on a secret ballot. We don't know who did or did not vote for him. At the second stage, where the Commons confirmed the secret ballot, he was unopposed. A single dissenting voice at this stage would have forced a vote. Yet when asked, aye or noe, whether Bercow was to be made speaker, not a single voice was raised against him.

Third, his manifesto for election as Speaker was among the most radical in terms of reform. And since election, he has delivered. He has been far quicker to tell ministers to shut up at the dispatch box and he has speeded up question time allowing more backbenchers to hold the government to account. He has openly endorsed proposals to weaken the executive and strengthen Parliament. He demanded stricter controls on expenses than those imposed by IPSA. And he is trying to stop MPs heckling each other at PMQs.

Finally, there is the double standards. In the year of
MPs expenses, Bercow is attacked for not wasting a six figure sum on ceremonial robes. In a year when the people looked with increasing horror at the antics of MPs in the Chamber, he is condemned for trying to make them act more professionally in the chamber (e.g. No heckling). His critics need to make up their mind: the status quo or reform.; 11 April 2010 at 21:16
Angry Exile said...: Okay, Anon, number one I'm not too concerned with whether his voting record makes him as much a modern Conservative as David Cameron because my contempt for Cameron is almost as deep as it is for Gordon Brown. Someone who rarely rebels against his party doesn't sound much like the kind of independent mind needed for Speaker if you ask me.

Number two, that the Commons lobby fodder neither objected or put up anyone else in the second round, doesn't persuade me that he's a great speaker. It just tells me he got the support of several hundred people who I generally hold in contempt for tamely doing what their parties tell them, or more likely he's got the support of the parties. I can hardly contain the joy.

Third, if Bercow's reforms count as radical then I think you're way too easy to please. I'd call it tinkering myself. Plenty of talk about tighter rules and tougher limits but the fundamental point is that expenses for Parliamentarians should be the same as they are for anyone else - reimbursement of necessary expenditure incurred as part of the job. It's that fucking simple, but if that's what Bercow is aiming for he's being awfully subtle about it. Instead he seems to be making populist but essentially irrelevant moves like banning employment spouses and family members (might please the tabloids but stupid if they're actually the best candidate for the position).

Fourth, I'll grant you that he's better at maintaining order than Gorbals Mick but from such a low starting point that was almost inevitable. Don't confuse an improvement with actually being satisfactory.

Finally, I'm really not too fussed about the whole robes bullshit and fair play to him for not getting them, but are you really trying to tell me that the price was Bercow's main concern? This is a guy who maxed out his second home claim, who did the 'flipping' trick to to avoid CGT on two properties, put a fucking tax accountant's bill on expenses, and spunked away £45K on redecorating a grace and bloody favour flat almost as soon as he was made Speaker. Again, that his predecessor may have been even more profligate isn't an excuse. The cost saving on dressing up like a tit is something we should be pleased about but I find it hard to believe that it wasn't incidental to a simple desire on Bercow's part not to look silly.; 12 April 2010 at 07:16