Loafer Party Conference By Patrick Henry

The Loafer Party Conference meets at Muckcluster Railway Station: No more dodgems or donkey-rides at some seaside soft option. Rail buffet sandwiches curl sadly, or else in contempt the way Prescott's lips snarl like a pit-bull; The Guardian of his Party, Prowling roofs nightly, scaring office-girls and cub-reporters. Old Loafer grieved loss of jobs, mines, mills and cloth-capped workers. New loafer needs no work: there's Parliament, ads-marketing, The Media. Don't call that work, more a way of life made easier.

Old Loafer, the Party of workers, who did sod all of that but strike, Sip tea, strike, sup beer, strike, stop the wheels, strike, strike. The old songs gone: The Red Flag, Rugged Cross, We Shall Overcome; This new group swings, Tone on vocal, Mandy on the fiddle, Prezza thumps the drum, Blind Davy Blunkett of The Dark School manipulates the keys. New Loafer is the centre ground needed now there is no class. You can't think Jack Straw, John Reid, Tessa Jowell could have any class? Take Lord Slagford, Lady Muck, Lord Tonypandy, Lord Peterloo, All started at the pits and change little the higher up they go. My college tutor said there's no workers, we're all Middle-Class now. I said my learning came from men of mines, trenches, dockyards, hunger-marching roads; No-one spoke truer words. I got marked D-minus, down in the Lower Thirds. Blair's Commandments from The Mountain, are Clauses of New Loafer Man. Clause 1. By the Word of God you'll have no leader but me until I say. Clause 2. No craven image of me be made but by my PR lobby. Clause 3. Honour your father and mother, and they who pay     To be lords all their days by a bung into The Party. Clause 4. Factors of wealth-production belong to The Nation,     Who are now private firms, paid by taxing everyone. Clause 5. You shall not kill, except Terror suspects guilty of running. Clause 6. Education-learning to be run by Waterstones,     Exams set on Ruth Rendell, Bill Bryson books, and JK Rowlings. Clause 7. You shall not steal, except lands of infidels owning oil we're needing. Clause 8. Bear no false witness, except to pin H-bombs on Moslems, and stitch up     Commies at the BBC. Standing no more, Old Loafer Wolfgang departs from the hallway.

Copyright ©2006  Patrick Henry

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