The Wednesday Poem #21 - The Fall of The Empress & musings on Empires

The Fall of The Empress

The Queen and Theresa May

She awakes, a ray of sun screams through the curtain,
A new day has dawned, just for a moment full of promise,
Then the world come flooding back,
It wasn't meant to be like this

Today,  the Queen will bless the house,
The Queen - who has seen so many come and go,
Churchill was the first, many decades ago,
A giant from a different world.

How it was meant to be

She looks in the mirror, sunken eyes stare back,
"Mirror Mirror on the wall, oh go to Hell" ,
In her mind she sees them all, lined up
"Et tu Brutus?"

Today the Empire will fall around her feet,
As the Queen lays bare her demise before the eyes of the world,
The sycophants have moved to pastures new,
She stands alone.

Copyright 2017 Roger Tichborne.

Today's poem is was specially to commemorate the Queens Speech. For Theresa May, it wasn't meant to be like this.

Guest Poems are always welcome at The Barnet Eye.

Just a few words on the the subjects of Empires. I've always found it fascinating how seemingly invincible empires fall. I was born in 1962 and my father was born in 1917, in Australia. He was a "Commonwealth Citizen" and fought in the second world war. In the early part of his life, The British Empire was one of the largest empires the world had seen, controlling much of Africa and Asia. At some point, I really can't quite work out why or when exactly it all happened, the British decided that running an Empire wasn't such a marvellous thing after all, packed and went home. I am not quite sure what was the most despicable aspect of the British Empire, but probably for me it was the state we left the world when we upped sticks and came home. It should be a matter of shame for us all that just about every place on the planet where there is serious conflict is somewhere that the British Empire stirred up a hornets nest at some point. In my lifetime, the Soviet Empire fell. I travelled extensively in the USSR before the fall of communisim. It was fascinating. We'd been brainwashed that the USSR was some sort of mighty power, but in reality it was a complete shambles. I am sure their military were more than competent, but any supposedly communist society, where citizens are excluded from hard currency shops is clearly suffering a personality disorder. Whilst nuclear weapons buy a place at the top table, what is the point if your population is pauperised. But then Emperors in their palaces have never much cared about such things.

Cruella DeVille

Which brings us to the situation today. When Theresa May called the election, everyone believed she'd sweep to power and be the most powerful PM for decades. Whilst Blair had a majority, he never really had the heart of the Labour Party. He simply couldn't do what he wanted. Gordon Brown, the Iron Chancellor (remember that), ruled the roost. Theresa May would have been the sweetheart of the Tories if she'd pulled off what she tried. Had she got the 150 seat majority that the Mail talked of in the early days of the campaign, she'd have been simply unassailable. But Democracy is a funny old thing. The British are a strange race. I suspect that the thing that did for May was that she chose to campaign as an Empress. The rest of the Conservatives were irrelevant. She simply thought  that by saying "I'm the boss and I'm the one who can deliver "strong and stable" (remember that) government would be enough.

Obi Wan Kenobi

I've read all sorts of analysis as to why Jeremy Corbyn thwarted her. The reasons as far as I can see are simple. For most of us, May was simply Cruella DeVille. The problem was that she was up against Obi Wan Kenobi. It is quite amazing how many parallels there are between Kenobi and Corbyn. Kenobi was revered by the Young, and inspiration, spending most of his time in the desert. He was the archetypal political outsider. His career was really one of failure, as he'd completely failed to stop "The empire", a hard line fascist organisation, taking over much of the Universe. Although it isn't mentioned, my guess is that he too spent far too much time tending his allotment on Planet Zob, whilst Darth Vader was busy enslaving the 17 planets in the Zork system. Of course politics in the real world are far more complex, but if you have a bloke who looks rather like a bloke we all recognise as a hero, running against a woman who looks like someone who is famous for murdering dalmations, there is only really one way it will end in animal loving Britain.

I do wonder what The Queen makes of it all. Her first Prime Minister was Churchill, perhaps the man, more than any other, who saved the world from the Nazi's. A tower of a man. Maybe her last Prime Minister? Theresa May, a woman who can't even butter up the DUP to support her. I doubt the Queen has ever had such a speech to read. One imagines she is mightily put out, given she was meant to be at the Gee Gee's today. Perhaps the one lesson we can draw is that, as my Dad often told me "an Empire is at its weakest when it looks to be at its most powerful".

One final word. I don't believe it is anti British to be critical of the British Empire. Many on the right say that we should cut our foreign aid budget. To me, this is unpatriotic. The British owe many poor countries a huge debt. To me, a primary British value should be honouring our commitments and debts. Many of the fine Victorian edifices in London and other major cities, were built using profits from exploiting poorer countries. The least we can do is give some of that back. I am proud to be British, but people who are small minded and stingy make me embarrassed for my countrymen.