by Alan Morrison
The Chancellor sits puffy-eyed on the front bench
As the Prime Minister leans in to his nondescript script
At the despatch box amidst rambunctious
Eighteenth century theatrics of PMQs—
Are those tears running down the Chancellor’s cheeks,
Wonder the Tories opposite? She’s under
So much pressure now the flagship welfare reforms
Have been emptied of £5bn—she’d hoped
To balance the books on the backs of the disabled
As her role model George Osborne had done before her
But now that’s been in part sabotaged by
Those bleating bleeding-hearted Labour rebels
Reminding her which party she is supposed to be in
& how this Bill will be a bloated albatross—
Was the Chancellor gripped in inner-turmoil?
More inner-tantrum, throwing out her fiscal toys
From that battered red box—
The newspapers prompt us to empathise,
Those same newspapers who show no empathy
Towards the poor, only cruelty, cheerleaders for
Benefits cuts & scrounger-rhetoric against claimants,
Their vituperative red-top blood sport,
Scapegoating the unemployed & disabled,
They’ve only sympathy for the fiscally disciplined—
Did the Chancellor have a Damascene moment?
Did she feel a sudden pang of remorse for
The punishing cuts to already diminished support
For the sick & disabled driven vicariously
Through Kendall, Secretary for the Department
Of Work & Potions, & the unwitnessed suffering
Of countless claimants over past months
Of relentless ministerial dog whistles
& headlines further stigmatising them
To pave the way for their fiscal sacrifice?
Or was she suddenly rueful for having helped bring
The Labour Party into permanent disrepute
Tarnishing its reputation for compassionate politics,
For such reprehensible Tory-pitched persecution
Of the most vulnerable in society,
Moved to tears by the passionate speeches
& diatribes of Labour backbench rebels
& suspended Independents trying to protect them
& defend traditional Labour values?
More likely those tears were for herself
For being under pressure to now go back
To the Treasury & plug a £5bn black hole
They’d hoped to fill with discarded Zimmer frames,
Emptied wheelchairs & upturned prams,
A stagnant littered pool in an urban waste ground,
A bruising inky thrombus on a laptop spreadsheet—
Unlikely the Chancellor understands
The consequences of her policies since MPs,
Ministers in particular, seem a cosseted elite,
Overpaid & overpampered by a parental
Speaker who keeps them in their infantilised
Westminster pantomime, spoilt children
Stamping their well-heeled feet, entitled
Delicates of Erskine May‘s etiquettes,
Overindulged & steeped in special privileges.
But the Chancellor’s tears have consequences:
They are tears that rattle bond markets
& markets are Parliament’s masters
(As well as the City of London Corporation—
Lest we forget the Remembrancer!),
There comes the unfair pressures on MPs,
& the markets are panicking at the possible prospect
This Chancellor could be replaced by a left-wing
Chancellor who would spend, spend, spend,
Raise taxes, or even, Heaven forefend,
Redistribute wealth—so now other fiscal victims
Will be in her sights, with a little sleight of hand,
The two child benefit cap might have to be kept
Like a moulting mascot to Tory cruelty
For the future to come keeping the nightmare-
Light of Malthusian austerity glimmering
Through the new indigence-engineered generation—
The Chancellor’s tears will be their rusting…
Because the markets were betting on disability cuts
To shore up more of their ill-gotten profits—
This Chancellor will come back in the autumn
To announce more fiscal sacrifices
In that shattering, metallic, portcullis-voice,
Cold as iron, that rings through Parliament,
& maybe she’ll be wearing a phial filled with
Those tears, not those of traumatised claimants,
But her own shed near the despatch box,
As a special keepsake—we can only trust
Treasury tears rinse the welfare state to rust.
