Poem: I Don’t Do Politics

‘I don’t do politics’ drips from the lips and is somehow a praiseworthy thing

Like abdicating responsibility for your world is the latest trend that’s ‘in’.

You can have a strong opinion, on some celebrity’s hair or shoes

But for pity’s sake do not bore on ‘bout some story on the news.

“Free at last, free at last, thank god almighty we are free at last”:

The ringing in my ears of calls from heroes of the past.

The men and women of yester year who held roses up to guns

So our generation could grow obese and swap politics for fun.

We really weren’t built for this, the generation of me, me, me

We were raised to believe there’s no such thing as society

That individual freedom was the highest attainable goal

While in the background our fathers broke their backs while digging coal.

Not for us this laboured life of working til your dead.

We’d go to University and wear shirts with white collars instead.

‘There’s no such thing as working class in Britain anymore

We’re a great big pile of middle class; there’ll not be any poor!’

The dream they sold us every day of our piss poor education

While Thatcher, Major and later Blair sold off the entire nation

We didn’t need our civil rights and business did it best

As they gave away the keys to the public treasure chest

They sold off all the factories; they sold off all the mills

Instead of milking cows, the poor swipe cartons at the tills

They sold off the utilities; thus privatising heat.

And now pensioners are forced to choose to warm their rooms or eat.

They sold off our national railways, gave Branson and co our trains

Now it costs the sky for standing room only while record profit reigns.

And not a penny back to us who built and paid for it all.

Apparently public money spent on public good is terrible.

And now they’re taxing our bedrooms to afford a tax cut for the rich

While the idea of affordable homes for all lays dying in a ditch.

They’re forcing the unemployed to work as shelf fillers full time for free

Or lose the payments guaranteed to us all under social security.

The sick and the disabled are having their life lines cut to shreds

As the department of work and pensions becomes the department of rolling heads.

 They’re selling off the hospitals; they’re selling off the schools

They’re busy giving tax breaks to the banks that broke the rules.

While all of this is happening some of us are coming round

From a fast food anaesthetic which has kept our dosed minds bound.

But still a great majority refuse to rouse from sleep

When every single one of us is needed on the street

We fight them in the Twitterverse, the Blogosphere and Reddit

We repost every bad word said with a funny pic of the fool who said it

We fight them on their servers; we hack into their sites.

We spread their secrets round the world in gifs and megabytes.

But if nobody is listening, or joining the front line

If the cavalry will never come and the war is lost within our time

If no one dares do politics, or step up to have their say

We let the vanquishers vanquish every hard won right away.

Our children will have it worse than our great grandparents had it

They’ll work harder for longer for less on a dirty, dying planet.

They’ll ask us where we were, when their futures were sold at auction

To a capitalist class who put their own greed over caution.

 They’ll ask us why we can’t afford to fix their broken bones

‘What happened to the NHS?’ Their wretched mouths will moan

They’ll suffer from diseases that were eradicated decades ago

Rickets, scurvy, tuberculosis rise as we sink to a whole new low.

So when you say ‘I don’t do politics’, what do you really mean?

You’d rather stay fickle and facile rather than grow as human being?

The thing is, the planet needs you, your unborn successors too

We simply cannot win this thing without the help of you.

The time has come for our generation to put down its childish things

The fight of our lives us upon and the bell for round one, it rings.

The time is now for us to stamp our will upon the earth

To stand in solidarity with all those who’ve been hurt.

We need to take our rightful place among the soldiers of our time

To say ‘Up with this we will not put’ and form an unbreakable line

From pole to pole across the earth, all of us saying together:

“We will not let you destroy the world. Equality and justice forever!”