HOW GREEN WAS MY TALLY? (weekly poem)

HOW GREEN WAS MY TALLY?

Sir Philip Green bought BHS in 2000 for £200m and sold it in 2015 for

£1. After dividends of £422m were mainly paid to him and his family,

the BHS pension fund deficit is now £571m and 11,000 jobs may go.*

Entrepreneurs, we love ‘em all,

Creating jobs and bucks; *

Not for themselves but solely for,

The lazy, undeserving poor,

Who’s attitude just sucks.

Despite such self-denial, they,

Are never short of dough;

Their total is what we’ve foregone,

Like millions of smackers on,

A yacht in Monaco; (1)

The public never seem to grasp,

They’re rich because we’re poor;

And we’ll get little more because,

The rich have their collective schnoz,

Inside the trough for more.

The wealth that all of us create,

They own through their ‘hard work’;

Whilst we get just the slops left in,

The universal rubbish-bin,

As workers simply shirk.

                                                                                     

That’s why when we all go on strike,

And nothing is produced;

The propaganda changes and,

From spokesman of the robber-band,

The lies are then unloosed.

We unproductive proles then have,

The country by the throat;

The public swallow all that spin,

About the state the State is in,

And politicians gloat.

It’s time said public wised-up and,

Stopped being so damn keen;

On giving handouts to all those,

Who wear the emperor’s new clothes,

Like that spiv Philip Green.

(1) His yacht, Lionheart, costs £100m. He owns two other yachts, a speedboat,

a helicopter and a Gulfstream Jet. His personal fortune is estimated at £3.2bn.

© Richard Layton