The Angry Exile: Woolas syndrome has reached Australia.

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

Wednesday 24 November 2010

Woolas syndrome has reached Australia.

And the Labor Party has become an acute case.

THE Coalition has given Labor until midday today to drop a negative television advertisement about leader Ted Baillieu or face defamation action.

Launched at the weekend on commercial television, the ad updates a 2006 election theme suggesting that Mr Baillieu gained financially from [former Liberal Premier of Victoria] Jeff Kennett's school sales program in the early 1990s while he was president of the Victorian Liberals.

At the time Mr Baillieu was a director of the real estate firm Baillieu Knight Frank that managed some of the school sales.

The ad row comes after The Age revealed on Saturday that staff members in Premier John Brumby's private office are running an underground campaign smearing political opponents.

The new TV ad includes an extra, contentious element - the sale of a northern suburban hospital in 1999, the final year of the Kennett government.

After reminding viewers of the school sales by Baillieu Knight Frank, the narrator says: ''What none of us knew when the Liberals sold the Preston and Northcote Community Hospital, you guessed it, the same company again got the contract to sell it.'' It closes with printed words: ''Ted Baillieu. Ummmm.''

But by the time of the hospital sale, Knight Frank had dropped ''Baillieu'' from its name. Mr Baillieu was neither a company director nor Liberal president. He was elected to Parliament for the first time later that year.

He remained indirectly linked to Knight Frank through a shareholder and alternate director of holding company DBF Holdings, which in turn was a shareholder of Knight Frank.

Since taking office, Labor has itself used Knight Frank to sell properties including schools, police stations and courthouses.

Last night, Mr Baillieu's office wrote to the ALP threatening that failure to withdraw the ad by midday today would result in defamation proceedings in the Supreme Court.

Who knows? Maybe the ALP are nearer to the truth than Phil Woolas was, though it seems open to some doubt. But even if I believed every word it doesn't make Labor worth voting for. This is very close to David Cameramong's election performance, which from here seemed mainly to be based around the central policy of not being Gordon Brown and continuing to not be him. In Victoria the Liberals are doing a little better and occasionally coming up with reasons (mostly piss weak reasons as far as the Exile household is concerned) why you should vote for them, as opposed to reason why you should vote against Labor and the current Premier, John Brumby, but it's still mostly negative campaigning from both.

At least the bloody Greens were prepared to stand on the doorstep and tell me what they're for rather than try to explain why I should believe they're merely less nasty and/or incompetent than the rest. I have little doubt that this kind of shit stirring is very effective at getting Labor's and the Liberals's own votes out but I'm far from convinced the swing voters, the ones who really decide the election, are impressed by it. Supposedly half of all advertising expenditure is a waste of money, and the difficulty lies in working out which half. I can help Labor and the Liberals with this: whatever you spent putting your crap leaflets in my mailbox was in the wasted half.

Roll on Saturday for the third election of the year.