Political satire: A farewell to Corbyn's foes.

For readers outside of Britain Nick Cohen is a British journalist and social critic who supported the Iraq War and is an ardent defender of US foreign policy. David Aaronivich is a British journalist and writer, also a supporter of the Iraq War. Kevin's poem is motivated in part by these author's relentless attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, the newly elected leader of the Labor Party. Cohen is a columnist for the right wing paper, The Spectator. Cohen's recent piece titled, "Left For Dead" talks of the destruction of the party with Corbyn's election and why he left. Both authors supported Liz Kendall, Corbyn's right wing opponent in the election. Cohen recently wrote of Corbyn, "Jeremy Corbyn encapsulated everything that was deceitful about his campaign to be leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition...."

 

No doubt this is Mr. Higgins' farewell to the two of them.

The Unquiet Death of Decency (In Memoriam Nick Cohen & David Aaronivitch), By Kevin Higgins

Posted on September 27, 2015 by Bogman's Cannon

The usual apprenticeship:
a youth divided betwixt
bad folksongs
horribly performed,
and being against
nuking Kazakhstan,
for which you’ve spent
thirty years trying to grow
a compensatory dickey-bow.

For old time’s sake you
express your disgust
at how the government’s
phasing out the poor –
every day a few less –

by thrice a week feeding
yourself a whole
roast piglet, and reminding
acquaintances, who are
anyone’s for a fat glass of sherry,

that a decent leftist
is a one-time social secretary of
Hampstead Youth Communist League
mugged by the Collected Works
of Edmund Burke,
while inhaling butyl nitrate
in a squat near
Hackney Wick.

Your column in The Stinker
a weekly gust
of foul smelling wind
up all the right noses;
if only they’d wake up and sniff
the threat. One of these days!

You kneel
by your bed and pray
to a statue
of Jihad John carved
in a bar of black carbolic;

that he may send
a representative soon
to extinguish Prince Philip,
or blow up Wembley Stadium,

so you can get
back to the serious business
of saying the wildest possible yes
to bombing wherever’s next.

KEVIN HIGGINS is The Bogman’s Cannon Satirist-In-Residence