odourofdevonviolet.com
The Scent That Captures That "1930s Moment"!
All material copyrighted to odourofdevonviolet.com © 2014
or to the various credited sources © 2014
Of so many obsolete Chubb keys clutched by evictees
After the locks to their hovels have been sealed; will
Unthinkingly lump all the agents of regeneration, growth
And wealth creation into one single homologous Ogreish
Gestalt of “tax-evading oligopolists”, altogether
Combining to form the phantom Sixth of Beveridge’s ‘Five’
Giant Evils: Disease, Want, Squallor, Ignorance, Idleness…
And ‘Privilege’! What do these plebs and scumbags know about
Privilege that makes them think they have the inalienable
Right to criticise it? The politics of Envy, that’s what it is!
These rabbles of subversives born with black-spoons in
Their sloganeering gobs, who’ve never done a decent
Day’s waged graft in their lives, nor know anything
Of the well-past-its-sell-by-date dignity of labour, only
Scrounged some tins from Poundlands they’ve been shelved in,
On paid-in-grind work placements, opportunities
For exploitation –pounced on by the ever-enterprising
Warburg Pincus’ pincers; refuseniks who’ve never even
Progressed beyond flat-sharing, dossing in camouflaged
Communes, squatting, or sofa-surfing, who’ve only yet
Dreamt of one day renting their own place –so much for
Aspiration– well they’d better get earning and saving, or
They’ll only have themselves to blame –but you can bet your
Bottom pound they’ll blame the system! They’re a disgrace!
XXIII
But still these ragged refuseniks of the great unwashed
Bang on about ‘corporate tax-dodgers’ and ‘carpetbaggers’,
Stigmatising anyone who’s so much seen in a pin-striped
Suit in the City as “parasites”; and they’ll carry on about
How those unemployed people the DWP is desperately
Trying to lift out from poverty, to help wean off benefits
Abuse, plasma screens and McObesity, of being “forced
To work for free” through some sort of “slavery” –Has any
One of these Trendy Lefties ever been strapped in a Galley
And whipped within an inch of their stripes to keep on rowing?
Keel-hauling’s too good for them. So, according to them,
The workless now work for free, and must be grateful for it,
On pain of losing all entitlements to state assistance,
And ostracised, or, as they call it, again, in bad taste, “socially
Cleansed”… And come the new four day extension to
The twenty-four already in place between the loss of a job
And the right to make a claim (‘O old Iain “Damascene” Smith
And Baron Osborne like to rub our noses in it: signing on to
Sign our rights and dignities away’, as they’ll spin it)…
XXII
And how is this all to be achieved? Well, according to
These Sunday subversives, through advertising! Cue
Government mantras and straplines strung like bunting
Throughout the land: “We’re all in this together”, “We
Owe it to the next generation to pay our debts”, “Britain
Has to pay its way in the world”, “The nation’s maxed out
Its credit card!”, “There is no alternative”, etcetera, etcetera –
The trendy Reds, dreadlocked refuseniks, spendthrift Lefties,
Unshaven Shavians and three-day’s-growth Trotskyists
Will trot out those slogans in sarcastic tones as if to suggest
Such austerity narratives are being circulated like bogus
Brochures touting for customers in hackneyed text (that’s
How much they’ll cheapen any attempt at dialectic!), yes,
They’ll try to portray such essential directives as derivative
Advertising verbiage, hypnotic product-pitching, so much
Commercial spiel, consumer mesmerism, as if to appeal
To the public’s appetite for consumption in spite of its
Paucity of spending power, presented in some tempting
Plastic package, branded and labelled ready for purchase
As some self-immolating commodity for the austerity-
Strapped populace to lap up, nudged into emptying
Their impecunious pockets –sifting through tumbleweeds
Of ancient receipts– and paying up to be complicit in
Their own disenfranchisement and indefinite overdrafts
Of deprivation, even to buy shares in social cleansing
Of their communities, in many cases, sponsoring their own
Scooping-up and decanting into ghettoes out-of-town,
Degeneration Zones and Renterprise Precincts –all to
Pay off some “mythic deficit”…! It’s enough to make you
Want to spit, just to think of it –such irrational and infantile
Attempts to tar all ministers, politicians, tycoons, corporates,
Markets, Buy-To-Vet property developers and speculators,
Absentee landlords, absent-hearted lettings agents, loan sharks,
Pawnbrokers, pay day lenders, bailiffs, with one broad
Simplistic brush, as being uniformly usurious, parasitic,
Sculpting opportunities out of the poverties of those millions
Lumped with poor credit –once more proving in droves
That all properties are not-so-petty thefts – and debts
Exacerbated by caps to benefits, hikes on rent, bedroom taxes
And doughnut churns of gerrymandered population limits –
Each community bulldozed through to put down new
Gentrified roots of paving stones for another ruthless
Cul-de-sac called Malthus Mews! To think these grubby
Polly Toynbee pinko-whippets, whipped-up scrubbers
And truculent work-shy rebrobates will at a moment’s
Notice pitch themselves outside industrious portacabins
With their grotty little placards, rattling out their litanies
Of chants metallically with mock-outrage and synthetic
Emotion, thumping tubs and clanging cymbals to crescendos...