The Cost of Labour By Patrick Henry

No fool, Britannia, never ever slaves since times They fought for The Truck Acts, The Workers' Vote, the Right for Unions. Loyal as Coronation mugs, some think Magna Carta put Civil Rights our way: That job-form for barons who started higher up the tree. They imagine that The Civil War freed the poor in its victory, Which went to the landed and the hard dealers in trade: The Lords still up there, who sewed back on The King's Head. We the poor white trash also are still here, On Income Support now, so doing no casual labour, Which is filled by Third World dupes whipped in by their gangmaster; Reminding of Nazis transporting death-camp factory slaves, Or the Jap Burma railroad Dad's generation paid for in their lives. The strawberries I picked for a pittance in Norfolk went to Wimbledon, To cost quids a punnet for rich fans of their Centre Court Queen. In all the brick-heaving, spud-bashing, fish-gutting, mill-grinding on the road, I never touched drowned depths Morecambe Bay cocklers would dread.

Down the land Poet Houseman lyricised in The Shropshire Lad, The New Europeans, remnants of The Warsaw Pact now scrapped, Camp on Welsh borders to harvest our veg and fruit: Café blackboard menus chalked up in fine Cyrillic script. The Polish plumber in the optician's reading the small print Says "that's my cousin, the name up there you've spelt". China sweat shops stitch up our shirts, cars and banks. It looks like curtains. Our cold-call hot-line phones get manned by Indians. That leaves us as the cowboys seen in movies, ourselves, Good for fighting, hard drinking, flash sex and little else. Cutting a dash on the top international scene, Work safety and fair wage are not high on the minds of Blair men, Who sell off public assets and bring these prole-slaves in. So is this what New Labour could really mean?

Copyright ©2006  Patrick Henry

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