The Angry Exile: So who pays?

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, 20 January 2011

So who pays?

If you get a motoring fine you argue the toss or simply pay up, right? But if the offence was committed by someone else, as might happen if you became the registered owner just after it happened but before the records were altered, you'd just send back a note with copies of appropriate paperwork explaining that it was nothing to do with you. You would have shown that the offence was yours and that you're not liable, correct? So why can't it work when a feckless and incompetent government is replaced by... well, to be honest by one that is probably feckless and incompetent as well?

The reason I ask is because the Cobbleition government are looking at fines of a billion or so because of fuck ups done while they were in opposition.

An official Whitehall spending watchdog set out the scale of Britain’s “financial corrections” required by the European Commission in Brussels.
The National Audit Office identified £398 million of fines already paid and another £601 million set aside for future payments.
The fines “represent huge past costs and potential future costs to the taxpayer of implementing EU schemes in the UK,” the NAO said in an unusually blunt assessment.
Amayas Morse, the auditor-general, also warned that of “significant” problems with the way the Treasury had accounted for the payments, which relate to 2008/09 and earlier.

The sound of the Massive Forehead smacking it's Downing Street desk was heard as far as Whitehall, and across the Channel the eurocrats began to tremble as they realised that they'd finally pushed too far.

Oh, wait, no. He's not said diddly shit about it. Instead we have this:

The Treasury said that the money for the fines had already been factored into departmental accounts, meaning no extra money will have to found for any future payments.

In other words, 'We're still going to pay the fines.'

Justine Greening, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, told MPs the Coalition was committed to “transparency” and sound financial management of EU spending in future.

But left unsaid: 'We're still going to pay the fines.'

A Coalition source said the last Government was at fault over the fines.

The fines which they're still going to pay.

The sources said: “This is a shocking indictment of Labour and another example of the mess they left behind, which this Government and British taxpayers are having to clean up.”

It's also a shocking indication of the nanoscopic scale of the Cobblition's collective balls because one way or another, whether it's tax they've already received or debt to be paid in future or the EU withholding money that's supposed to go back to the UK out of money the British government has already paid it, they're still going to pay the fines.

Or rather you are.

Let down by the government, if not held down by the government, and given a savage and lubeless rogering by the EU. And the Cobbleition were going to bring change?