The Emperor’s Same Old Clothes
"For the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions
— everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things:
bread and circuses."
Juvenal
The Emperor is at it again
parading naked down Whitehall
in his robes of CGI finery
whilst loyal politicians
sporting suits of focus-group grey
their throats tightly knotted with old school ties
fall over themselves to parrot obsequious platitudes
vacuous half-truths
and outright lies
The ladies and gentlemen of the Great British press
are pointing at squirrels and immigrants
whilst scattering circus tickets and doughnuts into the
gawping crowds
and then they lick their sticky journalistic fingers clean
with journalistically sticky glee
whilst
their erudite editors
with deft and witty phrase
analyse the Emperor’s knees
The men of finance
meanwhile
are all indoors
playing pocket billiards
with their bulging bonus balls
But the Special Branch goons
they're all out in force today
eyeing up the hoi polloi
scanning each and every face
against their never-ending database
for the presence of a particularly dangerous boy
For this boy knows joy
and this boy knows freedom
and this boy shouts
IMPERIAL BOLLOCKS!
whenever he sees ‘em
"For the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions
— everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things:
bread and circuses."
Juvenal
The Emperor is at it again
parading naked down Whitehall
in his robes of CGI finery
whilst loyal politicians
sporting suits of focus-group grey
their throats tightly knotted with old school ties
fall over themselves to parrot obsequious platitudes
vacuous half-truths
and outright lies
The ladies and gentlemen of the Great British press
are pointing at squirrels and immigrants
whilst scattering circus tickets and doughnuts into the
gawping crowds
and then they lick their sticky journalistic fingers clean
with journalistically sticky glee
whilst
their erudite editors
with deft and witty phrase
analyse the Emperor’s knees
The men of finance
meanwhile
are all indoors
playing pocket billiards
with their bulging bonus balls
But the Special Branch goons
they're all out in force today
eyeing up the hoi polloi
scanning each and every face
against their never-ending database
for the presence of a particularly dangerous boy
For this boy knows joy
and this boy knows freedom
and this boy shouts
IMPERIAL BOLLOCKS!
whenever he sees ‘em
