Londoners, march with us today, make your voices heard! Our world class National Health Service is being steadily starved of funding. The Government promised, not just a ring fenced NHS budget but also a year-on-year increase in spending. FOR THE LAST TWO YEARS THE NHS BUDGET HAS FALLEN IN REAL TERMS. Where is this being reported, who is being held to account?
This Government’s modus operandi is death by a thousand cuts. Less controversial aspects are being quietly privatised, wards and, indeed, hospitals are being closed, the work is being done piecemeal as mendacious obfuscation.
Once the budget has been devastated and the service is no longer able to be shouldered by the devoted NHS staff the Lib Dems and the Tories will quite rightly be able to say that the service no longer works, of course THIS IS THEIR INTENTION and they are further down the road than you think.
Don’t let it happen.
There’s a muckle bright day
that’s swaggered through my bedroom curtains
and sat his fat arse in the middle of my room.
I’ve been jolted from my pithy slumber, without ceremony
by my dogs and that day conspiring
to have me rub my eyes
and laugh with each toss of a ragged ball.
So awake I am
and the sky
underwritten by a ribbed-white cloudy carapace
rolls up its long sleeved blue
tucks the morning moon in his top pocket
and says, alright, son, I’m ready for you.
For each of us
for we all come and go
for my love
for myself
for the cast of angels in the wings
for the sleep in which we’ll never end
for gavel and the anvil
for another midnight
for the late orange clouds racing through forbidden purple skies.
Forever.
I love.
Barking, wee Napoleon
the maddened stubby instigator
bellicose and battle-worn
his line drawn in the hand.
That poor little man,
the leader of my wave
cracking a chapped hieroglyphic
a message to the marigold.
“Guardians of a pristine after tea-time
I am sick from the mild, green, fairy-poison
lo, come on, I will don your handsome rubber gauntlet”
and e’er it was the lesson learnt.
Mr flat-capped, all faced like a gavel
with your well crafted, top-lipped dash of gravitas
A mannered chap, clad in plaid, a dad, indeed a grandad
a sober gait replaced the long gone days of ribald gaiety
no cause for concern, the man is sound.
Supping from a baby cup
blacker than between the stars
espress-oh dear, fizzing with a bow-tied rim of casual brown.
Chin on palm, tips on cheeks
eyes a-glaring, horns a-blaring
I am alone here, they are, indeed, somewhere else.
And she, with her shining, lacquered lips, ready poised and purposeful
well, her stop-start staccato bravado
arms aloft to show she is awake, she is here
But, let me tell you, dear, I am merely tired in Deptford.
Thundering, the glam-garland toddler
the chuckling, ruddy rollercoaster
traversing the table legs and shouting the odds.
Leaden clumping, stumpy stamping peachy buttercup,
have you heard the news, she indicated,
let me tell you, I can’t quite tell you yet.
Swept away, decorated in her pram,
dreams, thumb-sucking and sleep laden
and now only the whir of the refrigerator.
The buzz of rail beneath the orange carriage, waltzing o’er South London
at Wapping the tunnel roars our approach but yawns us through to Shadwell
eight jaws slackening, sixteen eyes closing, the windows clickety-clacketing.
Screwfaced resignation, worn well clean pressed troos,
Saturday heavy hearts pumped full of dread for the razor start
contended baby dreams.
And still the scent of misadventure, last night clung to the skin
tapping silent drums, the gurning solo reveller, to Camden returns
Scraping the roof of his mouth with a pasty tongue, a thrum, an airbrush, I will not come down.
Lay your hands, one potato, two
The long march in the morn, shoulder to face
gifted a place near a stranger’s breath on your neck.
Forty little sort of squares
ring around a diamond shape
mustard socks kick out of the tired brown moccasins
The undulating murmurs of the mother-to-daughter chatter
bobbing afloat with a requirement not to be still and not to be quiet
I will say no more
So a peppy salutation from a thumbnail suit
and tall tales told out of turn in the lock of a shift’s clock
dramas and tic-tocs, squares and their job lots.
[video]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/dec/04/benefit-cuts-rise-homelessness
Please read the article above.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer delivers his Autumn statement today amid much gloom, a gloom, may I add, much of THIS Government’s making.
MORE THAN 5000 PEOPLE SLEPT ROUGH ON LONDON’S STREETS LAST NIGHT. THE UK IS THE EIGHTH RICHEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.
As the snow falls this morning in, what is still, the financial capital of the world it makes me sick to the pit of my stomach that the direction of the Government’s cuts is focussed mainly on lower middle income families.
‘Where The Westlin’ Winds Do Carry Me’
Out on the road and here I go again, just like I promised I would not.
You say you know me well but I’ve tried to tell you, dearest heart, that with a blue moon on the rise.
I will wipe my brow in the auburn, malted glow, and I’m always going to go where the Westlin’ winds do carry me,
I’ve tried to prove I could be good in my heart but I’m always going to go where they carry me away.
I hear you cry just like you believed in me, like you promised that you would,
I’ve been howling at the moon, I’ve been breaking myself in two, it’s all I’ve ever known.
I will wipe my brow in the auburn, malted glow, and I’m always going to go where the Westlin’ winds do carry me,
I’ve tried to prove I could be good in my heart but I’m always going to go where they carry me away.
My cruel heart, oh my, all she wanted was to love me.
My cruel heart, oh my, you leave me broken, lost and lonely.
My cruel heart, oh my, you leave me fumbling with disaster.
I build it up just to break it down again, my cruel heart, oh my.
Armistice
The war is lost, even if the battle’s won,
So I wave the white flag and I put my hands up.
All my life, you know I’ve fought my way,
Now I’ll try to see if I can’t be a peaceful man.
Darlin’ would you say that you rue the day,
You pledged your love to my torn face.
My granny said, “boy you’d cause war in an empty hoose.”
I was raised beneath her roof,
If you know me, chances are you’ve seen the proof.