The Angry Exile: Okay, Dave, now what? UPDATED

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

Friday 11 February 2011

Okay, Dave, now what? UPDATED

So now that Parliament has had a vote on the issue of prisoners voting and decided by 234 to 22 that prisoners can stuff off, what does Cameramong do now? Earlier today in the Teletubbygraph Benedict Brogan thought he was going to be in an awkward position.

If as we expect the motion is passed, Mr Cameron will be duty bound then to make sure it is enforced. That’s where it gets tricky: we have so far had no indication of what the Government might do: withdraw the UK from the jurisdiction of the court? Hand responsibility for abiding by the convention to the Supreme Court? Test the link between membership for the EU and the ECHR? Mr Cameron is encouraging revolt, but he has to have a plan for what happens when MPs follow his lead. What he can’t do, as some suggest, is kick it into the long grass.

Well he certainly shouldn't, but I wonder if it might actually be an option. I was watching a BBC video clip over at Chez Puddlecote in which Andrew Neil, who had the chore of interviewing this arsehole, suggested that the European Court ruling was simply that the UK had to review this situation.* If so then can Cameramong reply to the Court that the British parliament has reviewed it by a majority of more than ten to one and leave it to be argued over for another few years? That would be longish grass, possibly long enough for iDave's purposes. The alternative is confrontation and possibly a move to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the European Court (as argued for here). If he has the stomach for withdrawal I think a lot of people in Britain who are fed up both with the EU, the European Commission and the European Court will think better of him for getting the country out from under at least one of them. Big if, though.

On the issue itself I've always felt the simplest answer is to agree that they have the right to go and vote but point out that while serving prison sentences their right to liberty is temporarily suspended, so getting to the polling station in time is going to be a bit of a challenge. If this was combined with an overhaul of the abuse-prone postal and proxy vote system so that the latter was restricted to people actually out of the country and the former dropped altogether then the only prisoners actually able to vote would be a relative handful of low risk types who'd been let out on day release or something.

The right to vote shouldn't necessarily come with the right to be able to use it if your own actions have deprived you of your liberty.

UPDATE - very good question asked by Max Farquar.

All the MPs in the HoC had a free vote today, a chance to show their disdain for something that they almost all found totally unacceptable. Rightly so. That's how it should be. So .... when are we going to be offered the same opportunity to be able to show our overwhelming disdain for all things EU. When are we going to have our free vote Dave. An EU Referendum. You know ... the one with the cast iron guarantee.

See my point?

I do indeed, Max. That's a question worth asking again and again, louder and louder, until someone comes up with an answer.

* If he can call someone a Paki then I can call him an arsehole.