I could barely watch as the white-haired Chair spoke for
the mob then voted against the motion he’d proposed –
the local equivalent perhaps of an MP winging it
about the cost of increasing coppers on the beat
or taking a bow after defending war in the name of peace.
Such bunglers, whose grasp of History and Economics
extends no further than the last time they bought
a pint, and who are as likely to govern well as find
an olive on Mars, get re-elected without fail. I know
life isn’t a football phone-in where justice and sympathy
are doled out as a matter of course, but it’s a sad day
when we can’t discern a grubby chancer
and some town makes a toy monkey Mayor –
a state of affairs not helped by recalling
I did nothing to refute the deluded dross that leaving
the EU would save the NHS and northern jobs
as well as give the Government a kicking –
and though such inaction amounts to pretty small beer
after a lifetime of slobbing out in shabby pubs,
I swear that next time I’ll join a staged rally,
clenching my placard like the brazen flag-bearer
on the prow of a Soviet statue. Or maybe I’ll skip
the protest thing and stand for election myself,
promising free chocolate and porn for all,
because clearly civilisation hasn’t come very far
if the provision of energy and flood defences
is dumbed down to a few scripted speeches
and sound-bites with which nobody can disagree,
while everyone just gawps at the TV – not screaming
but nodding like extras in a low-budget remake
of Night of the Living Dead – proof if needed
that we accept whatever passes for truth nowadays,
and deserve the politicians we get.
