Reform Act

One from the back catalogue today, written on 04 April 2005, this looks at the idea of politics and reform, of political xenophobia, and Disraeli's ideal of  a "One Nation Tory". 

We have travelled far from this time - but labelling the "other" (and antisemitism) is still rife today, along with xenophobic attitudes to outsiders, and the UK political system seems broken, with party leaders elected by a diminishing number of members, many of which with the Conservative party, are over 65s and occupy rural Nimby enclaves. 

Meanwhile Nigel Farage's "Reform party" aims not at reform, but societal division, just as it did horrendously when it was the Brexit party. 

I think this poem is still very relevant today, just over 9 years after it was written.

Reform Act

In 1832, the first greatest of reforms
Took place to avert the greater storms
Of revolution, and all was quite at last
For a while, Palmerstone sounded blast
At all foreigners, so nothing new there
And then Gladstone came, all sincere
While subtly rousing kinds of prejudice
His opposer, making some horrendous
Comments, underlying these he knew
That Disraeli, was after all, just a Jew
And not properly British, in the club
Like the moneylenders who did grub
But Disraeli won through, all despite
The slurs, and reached the very height
Of Prime Minister, seeing One Nation
A clear vision of unity, not division
Is there a moral there today, I wonder
Perhaps the reader may well ponder.