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Fourteen Years<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Fourteen years have torn the nation\u2019s soul, Austerity, Brexit, Windrush, Grenfell, Social murder of 300,000 souls Duncan-Smith, Miller, Coffey, Stride: roll Foodbanks, homeless spikes, poor doors: portals The fourteen-year trauma in rhetorical scroll: \u00a0<\/p>\n The Spanish Plume (\u00a1No Pasar\u00e1n!) \u00a1No Pasar\u00e1n! Post-Southport (The Butcher\u2019s Aprons Race riots \u00a1No Pasar\u00e1n!<\/em> \u00a0<\/p>\n [Note: Spanish Plume<\/em>: a plume of warm air that we experienced in August 2024 \u00a0<\/p>\n He Never Promised Us a Rose Garden<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n It started there fourteen years ago Fourteen Years Fourteen years have torn the nation\u2019s soul,Ripped it apart & warped it with hate,History will recount the Tory toll. Austerity, Brexit, Windrush, Grenfell,Atos, Partygate, Do…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":372,"featured_media":17472,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1660],"tags":[2856,3249,3227,1721,1977,3240,3246,3228,3232,3251,3241,3236,3253,3226,3243,3237,3255,3242,3233,3235,3146,3256,3239,3229,3238,3254,3244,3230,3245,3248,2853,3234,3250,3225,3247,3231,2841],"class_list":["post-17473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-2","tag-gammon","tag-agincourt","tag-atos","tag-austerity","tag-brexit","tag-brutannia","tag-butchers-apron","tag-do-not-resuscitate","tag-duncan-smith","tag-edl","tag-fit-for-work","tag-foodbanks","tag-greggs","tag-grenfell","tag-hate-marches","tag-homeless-spikes","tag-labour-in-name-only-lino","tag-make-work-pay","tag-maria-miller","tag-mel-stride","tag-nigel-farage","tag-no-pasaran","tag-osborne","tag-partygate","tag-poor-doors","tag-rose-garden","tag-sicknote-culture","tag-social-murder","tag-spanish-plume","tag-st-george-cross","tag-stop-the-boats","tag-therese-coffey","tag-tommy-robinson","tag-tory","tag-union-jack","tag-welfare-state","tag-windrush"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/372"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Ripped it apart & warped it with hate,
History will recount the Tory toll.<\/p>\n
Atos, Partygate, Do Not Resuscitate\u2014
Fourteen years have torn the nation\u2019s soul.<\/p>\n
Defenestrated from the welfare state\u2014
History will recount the Tory toll:<\/p>\n
Of dishonour scratched on a suicide slate\u2014
Fourteen years have torn the nation\u2019s soul.<\/p>\n
To Osborne\u2019s Brutannia, May\u2019s hostile template,
History will recount the Tory toll.<\/p>\n
FIT FOR WORK. MAKE WORK PAY. STOP THE BOATS. HATE
MARCHES. SICKNOTE CULTURE<\/span>\u2014score the nation\u2019s soul.
History will recount the Tory toll.<\/p>\n
<\/strong><\/span>On the far right anti-immigrant riots of 30 July-5 August 2024<\/em><\/p>\n
\u00a1No Pasar\u00e1n!<\/em>
To those who want their country back
All over again
Who want to stop the boats
The immigrant Armadas<\/p>\n
Colophon
\u00a1No Pasar\u00e1n!
\u00a1No Pasar\u00e1n!<\/em>
White riots & arsons of hostels
Giving refuge to refugees
The pearl-before-swine white
& gammon red
Of the St George Cross
The florid grimace
The shaven head<\/p>\n
That prop up a principleless prime minister
Patriotic optics
Of this empty suit
Who puts \u201ccountry\u201d before \u201cparty\u201d
In his Government of \u201cService\u201d
At the travestied altar
Of failed austerity)<\/p>\n
What was it Enoch Powell once said\u2026?
Now frog-faced Farage
Nazi-cut Tommy Robinson
(Stephen Yaxley-Lennon)
With his Agincourt haircut
& his EDL Lads
Of Dale & Fell
Come to tramp our standards down<\/p>\n
To these tinpot fascists
& Greggs-sated racists
Temperatures creeping up
As the Spanish Plume turns England\u2019s rump
Boiling crimson
To a gammon shank,
A piglet on a spit.<\/p>\n
<\/span>\u00a1No Pasar\u00e1n!<\/em>: They Shall Not Pass!<\/em> Anti-fascist slogan of the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39)]<\/span><\/p>\n
The rosettes were blue & yellow then,
Now the rose is red\u2014though fast-fading
To compromising pink, almost purpling\u2014
But the rhetoric is as thorny as before,
Pricked with hackneyed tropes once deployed
To precipitate austerity;
Now, the government, under the banner
Of Labour (but Labour In Name Only:
LINO), even lack the imagination
To use their own idiolect to announce
A recursion of cuts, trot out exactly
The same prickly phrases:
\u201cDifficult decisions\u201d, \u201ctough choices\u201d,
\u201cAll in it together” (haven’t we all heard
That one before? & taken the punchline
Straight on the chin),\u00a0& what we all
Desperately hope (though hope is not something
He promised) is actually meant<\/em>\u00a0this time\u2014
That: \u201cThe biggest burdens\u201d will fall
On \u201cthe broadest shoulders\u201d\u2014will<\/em> they,
This <\/em>time?\u00a0Or is this code once again
For not-very-covert evisceration
Of the tattered remnants of the welfare state?
Too terrible to contemplate\u2014
October bodes ominous: another butcher\u2019s
Budget, Reeves taking a fiscal cleaver
To everything…\u00a0The latest Starmerite
Betrayal as he straps himself into his
Blue-&-white-striped apron…\u00a0\u201cCountry
Before party\u201d… everything, seemingly,
Before party, until he forgets which party
He\u2019s supposed to be leading…
But would it be betrayal? He might
Have sloganeered on a ticket of \u201cChange\u201d
But he otherwise made few promises,
Offered caution & stability,
I.e. more traditional\u00a0<\/em>Conservatism,
Less chaotic (emptily patriotic,
Cue ubiquitous Union Jacks that flank him
Wherever his flushed poker face surfaces),
But he never promised us a rose garden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"