As is the case here in the US whenever a political candidate, even a populist one, speaks out against the excesses of the 1% for more social spending and pro-worker policies, the mass media savages them. This has been happening with Corbyn in Britian. The right wing rag, the Daily Telegraph wrote: "A Corbyn-led Labour Party would be a disaster for the pro-capitalist cause." That alone is a positive for Corbyn. Irish poet, Kevin Higgins , whose poems we often feature on this blog has sent us a poem. It's a satirical re-reworking of the word's of Bruce Springsteen's "The Ghost of Tom Joad".
The Ghost of Miniscule John Mann
after Bruce Springsteen
"The leadership election should be halted. It
is becoming a farce
with long-standing members ... in danger of getting trumped
by
people who have opposed the Labour Party and want to break
it up.
Some of it is the Militant Tendency types coming back in."
John Mann,
Labour MP for Bassetlaw
Men going through
lists and scratching lines
through names they
know
six months from now
will be consigned
by committees of
inquiry whose
conclusions were
reached
long before they ever
met
during big loud
speeches
by the late Neil
Kinnock. Meetings
held in mortuaries,
during which
there was always five
minutes
silence in memory of
the Right Honourable
Robert Kilroy-Silk.
Stephen Byers MP
nailing
to the front of his
skull a sign
that screamed ‘For
Hire’,
smoking cigars rolled
vigorously
between Rupert
Murdoch’s thighs.
Welcome to Turquoise
Labour.
Traditional values in
a modern set-up.
If you give so much
as five pence
to the lower orders,
make sure
management
consultants
in darkest
Leatherhead
never find out.
The internet’s alive
tonight.
Where it’s headed,
only he knows.
I’m sitting here
waiting in the bathroom light
on the ghost of John
Mann.
He pulls a rule book
from his NOLS*
conference bag, lights
up a Benson &
Hedges and sets a picture
of Arthur Scargill on
fire.
Waiting for when the
last shall
live on credit until
it runs out, the first
be allowed grow
fatter than the bastard child
of Boris Johnson and
a blue whale.
Now John said, “Mom, wherever
there’s a cop beating the wrong guy, I’m there
lending a big, bulbous hand.
Wherever someone’s closing a door
on an immigrant family so fast
the youngest child gets her paw caught in it.
Wherever someone’s stalking
up and down Ilford High Street
with a placard that shrieks
“Down with Leninist Militants
who wrecked our party!”.
Whenever there’s someone not scared
to say it’s time for good men and women to
poo or remove their posteriors from the pot.
Look in their eyes, Mom,
and you’ll see me.”
Well the internet’s
alive tonight
and everybody’s
kidding themselves
about where this
goes.
I’m sitting here in
the bathroom light,
with just one
remaining flimsy piece
of the cheapest bog
roll going
having my head chewed
off by
the ghost of
miniscule John Mann
here in the bathroom
light.
KEVIN HIGGINS
*National Organisation of Labour
Students. Read up on its history during the period 1975-85 and then gently
gouge your eyes out.
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