I warn you

Most of this blog isn’t going to be my own work, I warn you now. But the words below are as apt for the “emergency budget” tomorrow as it did 1983.

I warn you that you will have pain -
When healing and relief depend on payment.

I warn you that you will have ignorance -
When talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right.

I warn you that you will have poverty -
When pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a Government that won’t pay in an economy that can’t pay.

I warn you that you will be cold -
When fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don’t notice and the poor can’t afford.

I warn you that you must not expect work -
When many cannot spend, more will not be able to earn. When they don’t earn, they don’t spend. When they don’t spend, work dies.

I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light.

I warn you that you will be quiet -
When the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient.

I warn you that you will have defence of a sort -
With a risk and at a price that passes all understanding.

I warn you that you will be home-bound -
When fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up.
I warn you that you will borrow less -When credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income.

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Posted in: Labour