AFL-CIO Leadership Surges to the Left. Trump Enraged

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
HEO/GED
5-16-25

Finally, the AFL-CIO (organised labor's national body in the US)  is taking a militant position in the face of the most right wing, anti-union Administration in decades. The Wisconsin AFL-CIO issued the statement below after the “House Committee on Energy and Commerce passed steep cuts to Medicaid….”

According to some media outlets, President Trump jumped on the first plane back to Washington, which happened to be a Boeing jet given him by the democratic regime in Quatar. Thank the lord for our allies.

“The entire state of Wisconsin has turned communist”, said Trump said as he boarded the plane, reminding the AFL-CIO leadership nationally that trade unions were “built by hard working Americans in order to help US capitalists compete abroad but also in order to encourage healthy, all American competition at home. “ What Trump doesn’t realize is that it’s worse than he thought. The Wisconsin AFL-CIO announcement is a result of the national AFL-CIO leading the charge check here. Brothers and sisters, we’re on the verge of a revolutionary situation

As a warning to organized labor as a whole, Trump threatened to deport the entire leadership of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO if they didn’t cease these Bolshevik type policies. Encouraging workers to waste valuable productive time calling their representatives in Congress to undermine competitiveness and profits in order to provide people with state style health care is unpatriotic and anti-Semitic. It’s a well-known fact that many doctors in our extremely efficient private health care system are Jewish.

Allegedly People Magazine reported that former president Joe Biden was so shocked he woke up early this morning and immediately called Megan Thee Stallion, Beyonce, George Clooney and Robert De Nero urging them to call a press conference and rally their troops. 

Brothers and sisters, this is a huge development and could spread to other unions and areas of the country. Hope is not lost.

Here is the stunning statement from a major union body, Wisconsin AFL-CIO falling in to line via, what Trump is said to have called,  the national AFL-CIO politburo:

Statement

Republican leaders in Congress are trying to make the 2017 tax giveaway to billionaires and giant corporations permanent by cutting $1.5 trillion from vital programs like Medicaid.

On Wednesday, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce passed steep cuts to Medicaid as part of the budget reconciliation process. The impact of these cuts would be disastrous for working families. Frontline health care workers would lose their jobs, millions of workers would lose health care coverage, and state budgets would be thrown into chaos.

Medicaid is the single largest source of health care coverage in the United States and a major source of funding for hospitals, community health centers, and nursing homes. Medicaid covers 20% of hospital spending and more than 60% of people in nursing homes. From prenatal care for babies to long-term services for seniors and people with disabilities, Medicaid touches every stage of life.

The proposed cuts to Medicaid would take health care away from millions of people, including kids, seniors, and our most vulnerable Americans. It would raise health care and insurance costs for everyone else. And massive cuts to Medicaid would cause hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and home-health agencies to close or downsize, resulting in an estimated 477,000 health care jobs to be lost in 2026 alone.

It’s time to speak up and urge Congress to stand with working families by rejecting any cuts to Medicaid.

Call your representative at 231-400-0602 to tell them, “no cuts to Medicaid,” or click here and fill out the form to be connected. 

In Solidarity,

Stephanie Bloomingdale, President

I Am an American Leftist: A Poem From Kevin Higgins

 

 

I Am an American Leftist

 

Since I got to Congress I say: #MedicareForAll

with the seagull stare of someone – gender unspecified –

supple enough to have relations with Governor Gavin Newsom

while wearing an Even My Dog Hates Gavin Newsom t-shirt

 

In my youth I used to quip: ballistic missiles

should be funded by charity auctions

attended by retired golf professionals

and eminent colorectal surgeons.

 

I used to, generally speaking, be against nuclear annihilation

until Donald Trump said something about Russia.

Now, it’s what the blue side wants. And who am I to go playing

Rosa Luxembourg when there’s proper politics to be done.

 

I believe in the one true NATO and the FBI.

I’m all about the big initials.

Instead of taking the soft option of abolishing it,

I now want to put the ‘I’ back into the CIA

 

These days, each time I vote “present”

on the defence budget, I Spotify

the theme tune from Flash Gordon

and marvel at my maturity.

 

KEVIN HIGGINS

 

The Book of War. A Poem by Kevin Higgins

I posted a poem written by Irish poet and satirist Kevin Higgins to my Facebook page  and to this blog's Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/FactsForWorkingPeople

The poem was read in Russian by Russian poet Polina Cosgrave. Here is the poem in English.

Kevin Higgins

The Book of War

by Kevin Higgins

The book of war is busy scribbling
another chapter of itself
hardly a syllable of which is true
you are in it
given your own continued existence
at this point in the story
though being microscopic
you’re not exactly named
everyone has an opinion
each chicken its own cluck
one vows to abstain from Shostakovich
another refuses from now on to teach Dostoevsky
not to be outdone, a third clucks
that this morning it tried to send
a parcel of AK47s by registered post
others want to shoot down planes
because that’s how peace is made
and the pilots, we’re reassured,
are only vermin
though obviously the clever sort
if they can fly planes
the Fédération Internationale Féline
has banned Russian cats
from its competitions,
though it’s unclear if any
cats took part in the invasion,
because this is how peace is made
Radio Four’s Women’s Hour is instructing its listeners
in how to make Molotov cocktails
of which everyone is suddenly in favour.

Kevin Higgins’ most recent book is Song of Songs 2.0: New and Selected Poems. 21st-century Poetry is edited by Andy Croft, email info@smokestack-books.co.uk

Ecstatic A New Book of Poetry Politics and Satire From Kevin Higgins

 

Richard Mellor

 

While in Galway Ireland in June 2022, Roger Martinez and I and our good friend Saoirse, attended the launching of our friend, Irish poet and satirist, Kevin Higgins' latest book of poems titled Ecstatic. The venue was Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop in Galway.

 

In the video Kevin reads a poem he wrote as he experienced waiting in line on a queue at the Ryan Air help desk in Shannon Airport. The particular poem is titled For Michael O'Leary who was at the time the CFO of Ryan Air and is known as a ruthless and arrogant businessman, one of Ireland's wealthiest. He also breeds horses and cattle.

The book can be ordered from Salmon Poetry

Dorsey, Musk and the Freedom Loving Billionaires

Jack Dorsey Twitter Founder

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired
GED/HEO

4-19-22

 

Maybe Francis Fukuyama was right, capitalism as represented by the US, is the apex of human civilization. Surely, Proof of this can be found in the awe inspiring art work and literature of the era. Sina Estavi, a somewhat criminally suspect Malaysian businessman paid $2.9 million for a tweet, not just any tweet, but the first tweet from the yoga loving billionaire that founded twitter, Jack Dorsey.

On purchasing the tweet, Estavi said that “This is not just a tweet! I think years later people will realize the true value of this tweet, like the Mona Lisa painting.”

 

The contents of Dorsey’s tweet reveal the genius behind the man’s character and working people throughout the world are discussing it. The tweet read, “Just setting up my twttr”. I was in Safeway yesterday and it was the only thing the checkers were talking about, they could hardly draw the baked beans over the scanner which is a real problem because they have lost the ability to count and even add simple numbers due to the new technology of the past 25 years, that saves labor time, maintains profits and destroys brain cells.

The Tweet that Changed the World

 

It was the same at Costco last week as customers were heard voicing concern when Estavi’s efforts to re-sell the tweet fell short of the $2.9 million, as the highest bid was $14,000. The tweet was converted to a nonfungible token last year which allowed Dorsey to sell it. This has sent shockwaves among mycologists and the Mycological Society of America has threatened to sue and a paving crew fixing the street I happened to walk by urged them to do so. This is truly a great moment in history, workers discussing this issue on the job and on the streets and communities. It shows the advantage of the free market over a planned rational economic system that produces for social need. What a silly idea that turned out to be.

 

Dorsey, like Musk who is trying to buy Twitter, has connections in the US government and took a trip to Iraq with Jared Cohen, a businessman and former advisor to Condoleezza Rice. Julian Assange, the journalist who published US war crimes in Iraq, called Jared Cohen, Googles “Director of Regime Change” in his book, When Google Met Wikileaks. In that book, Assange wrote of Eric Schmidt and Google’s bosses:

By all appearances, Googles bosses genuinely believe in the civilizing power of enlightened multinational corporations, and they see this mission as continuous with the shaping of the world according to the better judgement of the ‘benevolent superpower’. They will tell you that open mindedness is a virtue, but all perspectives that challenge the exceptionalist drive at the heart of American foreign policy will remain invisible to them. This is impenetrably banality of “don’t be evil”. They believe they are doing good and that is the problem. P 35

 

“Don’t Be Evil” was Google’s unofficial motto that was abandoned in 2018.

 

Elon Musk, who should thank the lord he was born a white man in South Africa, (his claim that he holds the record for most overtime worked in a lifetime that enabled him to accumulate $200 billion is not true)  also believes open mindedness is a virtue apparently. If he gets a hold of Twitter, what he calls the “de Facto town square”, he wants to ensure free speech is paramount, “it’s very important for there to be an inclusive area for free speech “. Not everyone has earned the right to free speech under Musk’s definition, Tesla workers, both on the job and off are excluded especially if they mention the word "union” at work. In these cases, Musk joins his class allies Bezos at Amazon and Schultz at Starbucks punishing those who exercise free speech as do other workplaces owned by US oligarchs or anywhere else they can get away with it.

 

Writing one’s thoughts does help clear things up a bit at times. This has helped me come to a decision on Fukuyama, I think he was off his rocker.

Kevin Higgins on the Russia/Ukraine War: White Lines, A Poem

White *
(for Suad Aldarra)**

Now they are bombing white people!
with bombs not officially signed off on
by the people who sign off on such things.

Television and internet are laden
with white people fleeing their houses
many of which are no longer technically houses
into any country that’ll have them
which is pretty much any country they want.

The leader of the white people
flashes around the world,
or at least your smart phone,
dressed as a hero.

Elderly white women everywhere
pray he’ll marry their daughters;
a few, even, that he’ll take one
of their bachelor sons as his wife.

White people everywhere race
to register their sorrow for those
whose white bones and even whiter faces
make them ill suited to having
bombs dropped on them.

Those of us who live in half a shed
will happily share our half a shed with
the white people; their children, if needs be,
can rest their heads on our mousetraps

and we’ll all be heroes,
which is well and good
but when will the world get back to
just bombing brown people?

Kevin Higgins

 

* FFWP has published many of Kevin Higgins' poems and satirical writings and it's safe to say he is our favorite Irish poet and satirist. This was published at the Irish site, Broadsheet.ie 

** Suad Aldarra is an Irish/Syrian storyteller and author of the book I don't Want to Talk About Home       You can read about her here.

Meanwhile…

The warm welcome given to Ukrainian refugees by the Government proves that the State has been capable of providing a more compassionate support system for asylum seekers, a leading migrant rights activist has said.

 

Lucky Khambule, co-founder of the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland, said the decision to immediately support Ukrainians fleeing the war while migrants from Middle Eastern and African countries wait years for decisions on their asylum claims reveals a “glaring inequality” in the immigration system.

 

Mr Khambule said: “We’ve had the Syrian refugee crisis, the Afghan refugee crisis, there’s Yemen, there’s Ethiopia, there’s Libya – all these are conflict zones but we’ve never seen an effort from the Government like this.

“The world is praising Ireland for taking this stance but they need look into the backyard at what is happening to others.”

Kevin Higgins: The Book Of War

Reprinted from the Broadsheet Ireland

The train station at Lviv, Ukraine yesterday

The Book of War

The book of war is busy scribbling
another chapter of itself
hardly a syllable of which is true
you are in it
given your own continued existence
at this point in the story
though being microscopic
you’re not exactly named
everyone has an opinion
each chicken its own cluck
one vows to abstain from Shostakovich
another refuses from now on to teach Dostoevsky
not to be outdone, a third clucks
that this morning it tried to send
a parcel of AK47s by registered post
others want to shoot down planes
because that’s how peace is made
and the pilots, we’re reassured,
are only vermin
though obviously the clever sort
if they can fly planes
the Fédération Internationale Féline
has banned Russian cats
from its competitions,
though it’s unclear if any
cats took part in the invasion,
because this is how peace is made
Radio Four’s Women’s Hour is instructing its listeners
in how to make Molotov cocktails
of which everyone is suddenly in favour.

Kevin Higgins

 

Help Workers. Buy My Art

Penis meet Tomato 2021

I have had a revelation. I can be an artist.

Richard Mellor

GED/HEO

 

I have wanted for a long time to express myself in art but didn't have the confidence; I was destined to be a ditch digger. I remember when I met the woman who was to become my first American wife and why I am here in the US. She took me to the National Gallery in London’s Trafalgar Square. Maybe I took her to impress her; I can’t remember. At the time she was the girlfriend of a US American guy I had met while hitchhiking around Europe; a good man I am still in touch with 54 years on. She, like he did, wanted to travel in Europe. I met him on the beach in San Tropez in 1967

 

Anyway, we went to the National Gallery. I remember going inside and there was a sign that said there was a Leonardo Da Vinci cartoon on show in a special room. This sounded interesting I said to myself, “I’d like to see a good cartoon”. I was a big Tom and Jerry fan.

 

I walked in to this room that was dimly lit in order to preserve this cartoon. Why a cartoon needed preserving I wasn’t sure. I had in mind something like Tom and Jerry or Mickey Mouse or something like that. You see, my friend has a university education and knew what it was, but I wasn’t too cued in to art. I ended up marrying her and we too are still good friends. I learned a lot from her.

 

It turned out this cartoon was a drawing of sorts. I stood there a bit perplexed. People were staring at it in awe, looking at it for quite sometime. So I looked at this old drawing from some Italian dude from a long time ago, I was aware of who he was but never paid any attention to his drawings. I did know he painted the Mona Lisa. She was supposed to be the most beautiful woman ever but I think Christine Keeler and at that time Hayley Mills beat her out. I spent a lot of time thinking about Christine Keeler at that time. But who am I to judge, an uneducated laboring boy from the UK. I looked at it for 10 minutes and walked out. It looked OK.

 

Anyway, I have come a long way since then. I read about Picasso paintings that my mum used to think were silly and Dali paintings of melting clocks not to mention other such artistic works fetching millions of dollars.

 

Penis meets tomato after a beer

So I have decided it is time I use the skills I have acquired over many years as a blue collar worker to express myself in a way that can add to the great art that human beings have produced over the centuries.Is it possible it is proletarian socialist realism?

 

I have included here two photographs that took a great deal of thought and work to produce; I had to arrange the pieces, get the light right, the composition is exquisite. The titles beneath the images, express the deepest emotions and thoughts of the average US working man.

 

I am hoping that these works of art will sell, I am convinced Angelina Jolie will be interested in purchasing them. I will donate any monies I receive to my union’s strike fund and to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to hetero sexual Englishmen.

Trumka Head of The AFL-CIO Issues Militant Response to Capital Siege

Freedom supporters chatting with police after storming the US Capitol

I am passionately pro organized labor but militant radical statements like this below form the head of the 14 million member trade union movement are just irresponsible. This could cause a riot. I read that the US Congress amid all this furor has just passed Medicare for all after reading this terrifying threat to the rule of capital. Richard Mellor

Statement from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on the breach of the U.S. Capitol building:

"We are witnessing one of the greatest assaults on our democracy since the Civil War. Today’s attempted coup has been years in the making as Donald Trump consistently spews venom, conspiracies, hate and lies to his supporters. They are carrying out his wishes, and far too many Republican lawmakers have enabled and even encouraged this violent threat to our republic. Emboldened by an Electoral College system that creates an avenue for insurrection instead of simply certifying the candidate with the most votes, this is an effort to violate the constitutional rights of every law-abiding American and the labor movement will not stand for it. Not today. Not ever."

The Election Promise: A Poem from From Kevin Higgins

Tuesday, 26 November 2019 16:14

Promise
by Kevin Higgins

For all the comedians who used to be edgy during the 1990s, commenting on the British general election.

If you piss on the frail
red-petalled flower
just now nudging its way back up
from presumed extinction,
with your cynicism and your sneers;

the day of your funeral
I’ll pay a team of loudspeakers,
town criers, and dogs to howl
at the few mourners about
how useless you were
when it really mattered,
until it’s the one trait of yours
anyone remembers;

then call the Union of Worms, Death Beetles,
and Incinerator Operators out
on an official strike that will apply
only to you, so your sour carcass can sit
forever lodged in the world’s gut
as a warning to future others.

Kevin Higgins writes: Promise was provoked by too many hours of listening to the pseudo-satire of comedians who used to be 'edgy' during the 1990s and who now sit comfortably on BBC comedy panel shows. So comfortably that their rear-ends have merged with the seat, and in some cases both they, and their rear ends, have in effect become as much part of the establishment as the Archbishop of Canterbury, and his rear-end.

Kevin Higgins is a Galway-based poet, essayist and reviewer, and satirist-in-residence at the alternative literature site The Bogman's Cannon, www.bogmanscannon.com.

The Continuing Confessions of A Daytime Talk Show Host

Source: Kenn Orphan

The Continuing Confessions of A Daytime Talk Show Host

My catalogue of pals stretches beyond Bush,

Trump, and the Emperor Bokassa’s personal crocodile.

For I am everywhere, and always have been:

helped Claus Von Bulow rewrite his Tinder profile

the day they switched his wife off;

had the Cleveland Torso Murderer judge

my show’s inaugural belly dancing competition

which, it being 1938,

was only available on radio, but, hey,

I’m always up for a challenge;

celebrated John Gotti’s twenty fifth

successive acquittal by gifting him

a diamond crusted

knuckle-duster, and paying

Annie Leibovitz

to photograph him wearing it;

and, yes, tried to hire

the Zodiac Killer as my show’s

resident astrologer

but Letterman got there first.

.

People misunderstand.

It’s my job to talk

to the guy who tied

Sacco and Venzetti to the chair,

like two sad salamis,

so I can ask him which

has been his favourite

fry up so far.

The fact I shared a table

and chicken skewers

with Vlad the Impaler

at a mutual friend’s wedding

and found him

a delightful conversationalist

is no criticism on my part

of those he had boiled

in his giant copper cauldron,

or hammered giant

wooden spikes

through.

I’ll be friends with anybody

as long as they’re somebody.

KEVIN HIGGINS

Kevin Higgins: On the birth of Prince What's-His-Name

Monday, 06 May 2019 18:08

On the birth of Prince What's-His-Name

Written by Kevin Higgins

On The Birth Of Prince What’s-His-Name
before Carol Ann Duffy
by Kevin Higgins

Receive this boy-child, world,
to pursue him about the pages
of the tabloids and glossies that were
his granny’s premature end.
Under the sign of the Express,
and Nicholas Witchell of the BBC, we conspire
for him a life of turning up to declare
things that would’ve opened or closed anyway
open or closed. We beseech the gathered
spirits of Fanny Craddock,
Lord Denning, and Sir Patrick Moore
that he exhibit no more
fascist sympathies than absolutely necessary,
and no more casual hatred of the Irish
than the late Princess Margaret.
Oh ghosts of Edmund Burke
and Lady Jane Birdwood we beg
you allow the mob disturb not one follicle
on this particular head; and ensure he’s never led
down to the basement by Bolsheviks,
even in the unlikely event of a Labour government
that actually keeps its promises.
We ask God, as Michael Heseltine and
Julia Hartley Brewer understand him,
to arrange for this child a life
of tennis, polo
and knowing as little as possible.

Kevin Higgins

Kevin Higgins is a Galway-based poet, essayist and reviewer, and satirist-in-residence at the alternative literature site The Bogman's Cannon, www.bogmanscannon.com.

The Mueller Report. A Heroic Ode for The American Resistance

Heroic Ode for The American Resistance

for CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times & all those

who hoped the Mueller report would be the thing

Rather than fight the man-child from Orange

on the metres deep concrete of his actual crimes,

you did battle with your size twelve dress shoes 

gallantly planted in quicksand – just now grown suddenly

ravenous – or failing that in the largest serving 

of Jell-O and ice cream since Christopher Columbus 

showed up to tell America he’d discovered it.

Given the chance you’d have stood pluckily before the jury

and – neglecting to mention the shortcomings 

in his approach to childcare –accused

Josef Fritzel of bad carpentry; courageously focussed

on Elizabeth the First’s bald patch and not her public 

disembowelling of her critics; fearlessly 

taken issue with Peter Sutcliffe’s driving

and not what he did to those women

with his menu of hammers and screwdrivers;

dared take to a radio talk show to criticise the late Adolf Hitler

for his side parting and inability to gather a crowd,

and told the plebs it’s time Franz von Papen rode to their rescue.

You who heroically blew the bags of Dollars mom and dad invested

putting big ideas into your little skull by trying to convict this wolf

temporarily taken human form of eating the one sheep he didn’t.

© Kevin Higgins

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Report Is Reportedly More Than 300 Pages Long

Kevin Higgins 

Kevin is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway, Ireland. He teaches poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre, Creative Writing at Galway Technical Institute, and is Creative Writing Director for the National University of Ireland - Galway Summer School. He is poetry critic of The Galway Advertiser. He has published five collections of poetry. His next poetry collection, Sex and Death at Merlin Park Hospital, will be published by Salmon Poetry in June 2019.

Galway poet falls foul of Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet

Kevin Higgins

Satirical poem by Kevin Higgins accused of 'feeding divisions the Right are trying to exploit' in British Labour

BY KERNAN ANDREWS  Galway Advertiser, Thu, Mar 07, 2019

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and British Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell. Concerns were apparently raised in the shadow cabinet about Kevin Higgins' poem 'Listening Excercise'

Galway poet Kevin Higgins is no stranger to satirising Blairites, and others on the right wing of the British Labour Party, but he recently found himself in the unusual position of upsetting members of Jeremy Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet.

A poem by Mr Higgins, 'Listening Exercise - after John McDonnell', which lampooned recent statements by the British Shadow Chancellor, was due to be published in the socialist newspaper, the Morning Star, only to be pulled after it came to the attention of members of Mr Corbyn's inner circle.

Mr Higgins is the author of five acclaimed collections of poetry, a noted satirist, and a reviewer for the Galway Advertiser. He is also a long time member of the British Labour Party, having lived and worked in England in the 1980s and 1990s. While previous satires of the party's more centrist members have sparked controversy, this latest issue is more unusual given Mr Higgins ardent support for Jeremy Corbyn.

British Labour has been mired in controversy over persistent allegations of anti-Semitism, and dissatisfaction over Mr Corbyn's leadership on Britain's exit from the EU. Indeed his belated support to hold a People's Vote in the event of a No Deal Brexit came only after seven of his MPs, including Chucka Umunna and Luciana Berger [pictured above], quit the party to form The Independent Group.

The defections caused Corbyn ally and Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell [pictured below], to undertake what he called a "listening exercise" with Remain leaning MPs and members with concerns regarding anti-Semitism. However, many others saw this as pandering to forces that are hostile to Mr Corbyn; who are opposed to Labour being in any way a socialist party; and who will use any pretext in order to remove him as party leader.

In response to this, and to Mr McDonnell's repeated use of the phrase, "listening exercise", Mr Higgins wrote the following poem:

'Listening Exercise - after John McDonnell'

When you paint hatred on my garden wall

and front door, I will read your words

with great interest.

When you try to burn my house down

I will listen to what the flames are saying.

Every lie you tell against me

I’ll help you spread

by earnestly, and in detail, answering your questions

about it over and over again.

When you burst through my living room door

with a chainsaw intended for me,

I’ll pour you a nice cup of tea

and say: let’s talk about this.

When the tumours come for me

I’ll know their opinion must be taken

absolutely on board.

And when the beetles and bacilli

begin to consume me,

I’ll realise I’ve long seen

their point of view.

Kevin Higgins

The poem has been published on Broadsheet.ie and on Culturematters.org.uk It was also accepted for publication in the leading British socialist paper, Morning Star, which Mr Higgins has written numerous satires for. It initially appeared on the Morning Star website and was due for inclusion in last Saturday's print edition, but then was pulled from the website and failed to appear in the paper - apparently at the request of Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet.

In an email to Mr Higgins, Morning Star editor Ben Chacko said he had to pull the poem "because things are on a knife-edge in the Shadow Cabinet" and "friends there advise exacerbating divisions would make things worse". He added that "the sensitivities right now mean publishing it in the Morning Star would, in our view, feed the divisions that the Right are trying to exploit" and that "targeting" Mr McDonnell "is not the right approach for us". However, Mr Chacko said he would still continue to publish poems by Mr Higgins in the paper.

Mr Higgins, who thrives on this kind of drama, reacted to the situation with characteristic good humour. "It is great to know my poems are being read by member's of Jeremy Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet," he told the Galway Advertiser. "This poem was intended as friendly advice for Mr McDonnell, albeit that it is satirically delivered, as is my way. I understand the pressures people are under at the moment, and am in no way angry at the editors of the Morning Star for the action they felt they had to take here. I plan to continue published poems in the Morning Star, as I have since 2015."