British poet Attila the Stockbroker’s 2015 in review

This poetry video says about itself:

The Corbyn Supporters From Hell – Attila The Stockbroker, 15th Oct 2015 at The Blue Boar Hotel, Maldon, Essex, UK.

Thursday 24th December 2015

2015 has been a momentous year for me, personally, poetically and politically.

On September 12, I was just driving out of my adopted 1980s home town of Harlow, having done a storming gig there the night before celebrating the recent publication of my autobiography. The news came through that Jeremy Corbyn had been elected leader of the Labour Party by a landslide. I had to stop the car as I listened to his victory speech. Tears of happiness filled my eyes and I punched the air. But I forgot I was still in the car and I punched the roof.

That is true, funny and it hurt but I didn’t care. It was the culmination of a very happy few weeks for me. I’d recently been given the all-clear after an operation for suspected bladder cancer, was about to become a step-grandad for the first time, and the Seagulls had just soared to the top of the Championship.

Corbyn’s amazing, inspirational victory was the absolute icing on the cake. In fact, it was two layers of icing with a great big bar of chocolate on top of those, a chocolate seagull with a red star made of strawberries on its head perched on that and the whole thing topped off with a load of clotted cream and six pints of Dark Star Six Hop Ale. Magic.

Twelve years before, in my song Guy Fawkes’ Table, written as the Labour government voted to join Bush in his illegal invasion of Iraq, I had despairingly written off new Labour — “Aneurin Bevan, your party is dead” — and declared that: “We need a new radical party, but not the Judean People’s Front/Not another small sect but a movement, with the power to change and confront.”

This music video says about itself:

Punk poet Attila the Stockbroker‘s ‘homage’ to New Labour – Guy Fawkes’ Table – live onstage at Belper Queen’s Head, Derbyshire, England, on Thursday, 21st May 2010 with backing vocals from David Rovics.

The article continues:

Against all the odds, sneers, put-downs and scare stories from the national media, many of whose so-called journalists’ tongues are a deep shade of brown from constantly ensuring that the rectal cavities of the likes of Rupert Murdoch are as clean as a Singaporean airport lounge, we got it.

And our “new radical party” is the one it always should have been — the Labour Party.

I did 37 gigs between September and December on my autobiography tour, all over England and Wales, and the vibrant new hope I have encountered everywhere has been a joy to behold.

As we know, local Constituency Labour Parties have had a huge influx of members — including yours truly — and a huge grassroots movement is growing. Even in constituencies like my local one, where literally a dead duck could get elected wearing a Tory rosette, the recruits are flooding in.

Of course, the power of the opposition is daunting, not least because some of it is from within the Labour Party itself. But the sneers and jibes of the Tory press are testament to how frightened the tiny, unrepresentative elite which controls it are that their power could one day be taken away and legislation passed to bring true media democracy to this country.

That day certainly can’t come fast enough for me.

I certainly fully intend to spend 2016 as I have 2015, travelling the country and further afield as Comrade Corbyn’s unofficial — indeed unsolicited — social surrealist Minister of Propaganda. With a few reservations, not to be mentioned here — you can’t agree with someone about EVERYTHING, that’s being sycophantic. I’ll be spreading ideas, drinking beer and having fun. Fun’s important, you know! Beery Clashmas and a Hoppy New Year to you all.