Cross Purposes

Polling stations are closed, ballot boxes

Collected, votes totalled, winners declared.

Capitalism has again been spared

Serious challenge as suffrage locks us

Once more into the status quo. The cross

Has been the mark of illiterates,

Also the spot where buried treasure waits

To be revealed. Votes are precious because

Potentially they could well change the way

The world is now to what it could become,

Fashioned for the benefit of all, not just some.

That’ll be a red-letter election day,

When all the old parties of left and right

Are voted down as the workers unite.

D. A.

Following the mayoral and local elections,

capitalism remains in power!

Crossing the Floor

Divided, it seems, by just two sword lengths

Are green benched Capulets and Montagues,

Who, in vitriolic rivalry stew

As vexed ambition flexes its strength.

Whether feeling neglected, rejected

Or some bitter sense of injured pride,

One crosses the floor to the other side,

Where greater rewards might be expected.

This act of principle or betrayal

Is mitigated by the growing sense

That it makes little or no difference,

As every Commons cause is doomed to fail.

No matter what the rivals do or say,

Capital profits, and must have its way.

D. A.

Human Relations

All the hot air in parliament inflates

Small boats wallowing over the Channel

Into problems, fetching those who might steal

Low paid jobs from Saint George and his mates,

Foreign fathers and mothers recklessly

Risking drowning their children to evade

Regulations. So, a stand must be made

To staunch this dire influx, especially

If there are votes to be quite cheaply won

By cultivating old prejudices,

Any visceral view that dismisses

Common humanity, once reason’s gone.

Should heated rhetoric be deflated,

Revelation! We are all related.

D. A.

Clerical Errors

Clerical men, lest God be offended

By a young woman’s misplaced scarf, allowed

Her beating to death. Repeatedly vowed

Righteous destruction will not be blunted,

But visited on the chosen people

Of the very same God, who in their turn

Have striven hard to dispossess and burn

Their Abrahamic neighbours. They cripple

Their people’s thinking with holy fallacies,

Flags and lines drawn on maps. While, without qualms,

Nominal Christendom supplies the arms,

With political consciences at ease.

By and for benefit of humankind,

A very different world must be divined.

D. A.

On Benefits

The magistrates of Speenhamland decreed

No one should be too poor to eat, instead

A working wage too deficient for bread

Must be subsidised to meet that need.

Since then, two centuries and more have passed,

Yet pay and prices still remain mismatched,

Requiring governments to have hatched

All manner of benefits, such a vast

Complex web of doles, those magistrates

At the Pelican Inn would look askance

To see how little has been the advance

Of society, how progress abates

For however long workers delay

Rejecting reforms and seizing the day.

D. A.

Mistake is Mistaken

The clichéd own goal, that’s a real mistake,

As is trusting a sunny day without

A rain coat, and glibly suspending doubt

While listening to a politician’s take

On almost any issue. Alongside

Lottery tickets being the route to wealth,

That inebriation’s concealed by stealth

Arriving home late at night. Try to hide,

Though, with apologies and thin regrets,

The deliberate launching of missiles

At an aid convoy, must defy the wiles

Of those who’re in command and sent the jets.

A claim to mere error is to forsake

Any real meaning of the word, mistake.

D. A.

On ‘The Westminster Hour’ (Radio 4, 31st March 2024) it was reported that extensive polling indicated the forthcoming general election could well be a Labour landslide. The Conservative Party might well be reduced to fewer than 100 MPs.

Dramatic changes of government are nothing new. 1979 saw the emergence of the Thatcher regime and all the misery that entailed. The Conservatives clung onto power, via the Major government until 1997. The emergence of New Labour was hailed as, ‘…things can only get better’.

The economic problems of 2007/8 saw the Blair/Brown governments blamed for what was another instalment of capitalisms periodic crises. 2010 brought the general election and the Tory led coalition and austerity.

That phase of administration, with its various changes of Conservative leadership seems likely to end at some point this year. Labour will again assume office promising all manner of improvements. Yet, capitalism will once more continue its profit greedy way unhindered, while services are curtailed, food banks seems to open more branches than actual banks.

The common theme since before and after 1979 is that the needs of capitalism will prevail at the expense of the electorate for as long as their Xs are placed in favour of candidates representing parties who will not, and cannot, make capitalism benefit the wider community.

Even if candidates are genuine in wishing to make their constituents better off they cannot do so. That would require a shift in wealth capitalism can’t not tolerate.

Only when the electorate collectively decide to use their votes as part of the wider process of abolishing capitalism and establishing socialism can things change.

Otherwise it will be more of the same whichever of the parties hold the majority of seats.

D. A.

The provision of school transport for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) is proving to be an increasingly expensive problem for local authorities. Legally, councils must provide free transport for SEND children unable to walk to school.

At a time when councils generally are struggling financially, with some already, and others well on the way to becoming, bankrupt, the cost of SEND transport continues to rise. In 2018/19 the spending in England was £728. 2023-24 has seen a 95% rise to £1.4bn.

This reflects rapidly rising prices due to inflation along with a 40% increase in demand. The average cost per child in England is up by a third from £6,280 to £8,299. To ease the pressure on budgets, councils are having to consider reducing non-statutory service provision.

The socialist maxim, ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need’ is denied while capitalism persists. The needs of SEND children are undeniable, but as ever it is cost, and its implications, not actual need that is the determinant factor.

Government policy to reduce its own expenditure is to pass laws making local authorities liable, and then reduce funding as has been the case throughout austerity.

SEND children are not charity cases but growing individuals with their own abilities and specific needs. But, everyone has abilities and needs that will be subjected to rationing as long as money remains the determining factor.

Consider the socialist maxim, and what is required to realise a society in which it can be brought about. Then everyone’s needs can be met.

D. A.

By Royal (Dis)Appointment

The palace has issued a press release:

There is nothing to concern the nation,

Indeed the general public oblation

Has no need to hesitate, wane or cease.

Hand shaking will continue, walkabouts

Likewise, behind firmly fixed barriers

Of course. Because, no matter what occurs,

Our subjects must not begin to have doubts.

Any uncertainty about the state

Has to be ameliorated,

If fallibility’s demonstrated,

People might want to control their own fate.

Should there be any dissatisfaction,

A royal headline’s a great distraction.

D. A.