Poem on British government austerity

This music video from Britain says about itself:

Attila The Stockbroker – Airstrip One (Official Video, 1984)

29 September 2013

Attila the Stockbroker (born John Baine, 21 October 1957, Southwick, Sussex, England) is a punk poet, and a folk punk musician and songwriter. He performs solo and as the leader of the band Barnstormer. He describes himself as a “sharp tongued, high energy social surrealist poet and songwriter.” He has performed over 2,700 concerts, published six books of poems, and released 30+ recordings (CDs, LPs and singles).

The title Airstrip One is from George Orwell‘s dystopian novel 1984. The lyrics are here.

By poet Attila the Stockbroker from Britain:

A Dickens of a budget for rich and poor

Saturday 19th March 2016

On the road with Attila the Stockbroker

Osborne says: “Sod you, Oliver –
You can’t have any more.
I’ve got sweeteners for the rich
And a sweet tax for the poor.
Workhouses in the pipeline:
Academies for now.”
The BBC smiles nicely:
Murdoch’s sychophants kowtow.

I’ve just finished re-reading Dickens’s Hard Times, which brilliantly satirises the Victorian bosses’ brutal philosophy of utilitarianism, which reduces human beings to mere economic cogs on subsistence wages, educated just enough to keep employers’ profits rolling in, with the disabled, sick and unemployed left to fend for themselves.

Make no mistake about it — this government’s ultimate dream would be for those days to return.

If you think this is hyperbole, consider the recent vote to reduce sickness benefit. Three of our local MPs here in West Sussex, Tim Loughton, Peter Bottomley and Nick Gibb — all vice-presidents of the local mental health charity Mind — supported the £30 cut in disability allowance, which will obviously adversely affect people with mental health problems.

That is sinking to depths which even Thatcher wouldn’t have dared to plumb.

Should I have the misfortune to be in the same room as any of these puke-inducing individuals in the near future, I shall inform them of this opinion. At very close range.

Osborne’s Budget reinforces the message that to those who have, more shall be given, to those who have not, tough.

A ludicrous electoral system enables the Tories to claim a “mandate” with 24 per cent of the electorate and do what they please, having done everything they can to try to disenfranchise sections of the population opposed to their loathsome ideology.

And they and their supporters are quite open about it now. Not fair? Undemocratic? So what?

Sun executive Trevor Kavanagh admits on live television that Rupert Murdoch will tell them what line to take about the EU referendum. In other words, the personal opinion of an Australian resident of the US will determine the stance of Britain’s biggest-selling “newspaper” on one of the most important issues to face our country for a generation. Once again, the charade of “freedom of the press” is there for all to see.

But we are fighting back, led by Jeremy Corbyn and a revitalised and radical Labour Party, literally laughing in the faces of those who try to smear and discredit him and us and the gullible fools who believe them.

Brilliant gig at Croydon’s Fairfield Halls last Sunday night alongside Charlotte Church, Jeremy Hardy, Michael Rosen and many more on the south London leg of the JC4PM tour. It is going all over the country, a great opportunity to meet up, have fun and celebrate our solidarity. Check it out!

Writing this on my way to Brussels for a weekend as bass player with Contingent, my old Belgian punk band muckers. Doing my customary pub crawl from the Eurostar terminus at Midi station to Muriel’s flat in Schaerbeek where we rehearse, then we have festivals in Paris and Rennes tomorrow and Saturday.

A gig in Paris has special significance right now. Fuck you, Blair, Sarkozy et al. Destabilising peaceful Middle Eastern countries at the cost of tens of thousands of lives, reducing them to lawless charnel houses which export thousands of hopeless, homeless refugees — and a handful of music-loathing fundamentalist fanatics who gun down innocent gig goers.

Vive la musique!

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