Lucy Vickery

Dominic Raab’s ‘Nightmare Song’

[Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images] 
issue 20 November 2021

In Competition No. 3225, you were invited to provide a version of the Lord Chancellor’s ‘Nightmare Song’ from Iolanthe for any member of the British cabinet.

Long Gilbertian lines mean there’s space only for me to applaud stellar contributions all round, but especially from D.A. Prince, Katie Mallett, Rachael Churchill, Janine Beacham, George Simmers and Bill Greenwell, who imagines what might rob the levelling–up secretary of his rest. Here’s a snippet:

When you’re lying awake and it feels like a snake Is adjusting your weak moral compass Then you groove to ‘Le Freak’ as an elderly geek Throwing shapes in an Aberdeen rumpus…

The winners below net £35 each.

When you’re lying awake and you shiver and shake, as you’ve done for the whole of the evening, And you can’t stand the fuss about you and Liz Truss over which of you ought to have Chevening, Well, you’re sleeping at last, but it proves a disaster, as nightmares begin to take over, And you have to admit to an MPs’ committee you didn’t know trade came through Dover. And

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