The Angry Exile: Half a million public sector jobs to be kept.

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 21 October 2010

Half a million public sector jobs to be kept.

Woohoo, that's grasping the nettle alright. Balls of steel, that David Camer... oh.

So then, can we entertain the hope that we're talking non-jobs here, bearing in mind that only half a million would leave plenty of non-jobs left? Of course not.

■ A total of 17,000 personnel will be cut from the three services. Some face compulsory redundancy, and sources said even bigger cuts in manpower could not be ruled out after Britain left Afghanistan in 2015.

■ The navy's Harrier jets will be scrapped immediately, meaning Britain will have no fully operational aircraft carrier until 2020. A senior navy officer said there was a ''serious risk'' that it ''could cost us lives''.

■ Three RAF bases will close and the planned Nimrod MR4 spy plane (The Age's words, not mine - AE) will be cancelled, despite £3.6 billion being spent.

■ The army will lose a brigade, and 10,000 soldiers will return from Germany in five years.

That's to go along with having two aircraft carriers with no fucking planes and the possible rebranding of the Royal Navy and Fleet Air Arm as Top Gun Taxis for their entry in the Washington and Paris editions of the fucking Yellow Pages. Despite some early promise with some of the quangos (though not remotely close to enough) it's all gone a bit, well, a bit New Labour to be brutally honest. I have little doubt that across other areas similar things will be happening, and that midwives and cops are vastly more at risk of the cuts than administrators and coordinators. Don't believe me? Just check The Graun for jobs. Here's a good one.

Two New Labour bullshit buzzword terms in a single job title, and thirty grand a year. Fuck me dead, it's like Gordon's gang didn't actually lose, isn't it? And look at the job description:

This is an excellent opportunity for an Antisocial Behaviour Co-ordinator to play a key role in developing and implementing our approach to Antisocial Behaviour (ASB) reduction in Stevenage.

You will work with a range of agencies to influence best practice in Antisocial Behaviour (ASB) reduction. You should be able to demonstrate excellent communication and negotiation skills, and have a background in partnership working. This role gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your skills in analysing data and information to inform programmes of work. You will have good project management skills and be able to use these to influence improvements. Your responsibilities will also involve developing a performance management framework and reporting performance to partners.

You should have a thorough understanding of crime reduction and Antisocial Behaviour (ASB) legislation, and of the tools and powers available to local authorities.

What it doesn't explain is why the council feel the need to do this kind of stuff. If antisocial behaviour, or what's being labelled as antisocial behaviour, is legal then there's not only no need to do anything about it but you trample all over ancient liberties if you even try. On the other hand if it's illegal acts we're talking about then it's not council function anyway. That's what the fucking police are for.

We offer a comprehensive benefits package.

Of course you fucking do, you epic cunts!

So six months after getting rid of the most catastrophically incompetent and financially profligate PM in living memory the Unhinged Kingdom still seems as far away as ever from becoming more or less un-fucked. Are we all back in piano-wires-from-lamp-posts mode yet?

PS - the BBC don't seem to be struggling too much either. Nine permanent positions paying £25 grand or more in The Graun's job spot, which I suppose is helped by the unique way the BBC is funded.