In Competition No. 2881 you were invited to do as Carol Ann Duffy has done and provide an amusing poem about a piece of government legislation. The first line of her poem ‘22 Reasons for the Bedroom Tax’, ‘Because the badgers are moving the goalposts’, is, of course, a reference to environment secretary Owen Paterson’s unfortunate attempt to explain the government’s failure to reach cull targets.
Adrian Fry was entertaining on the Chancel Repair Bill. Commendations, too, to Mike Morrison, Virginia Price Evans, Max Ross and John Whitworth. Alan Millard takes the bonus fiver. The rest get £25 each.
’Twas legislation heaven-sent,
A spark of pure enlightenment,
That glorious Act of Parliament
Which crowned the days of yore:
Austerity throughout the land,
Delights denied, indulgence damned,
The ecstasy of Christmas banned
In 1644.
O Cameron, follow Cromwell’s lead
And have us all from Christmas freed
By legislation which, indeed,
Would fervently be backed!
We’ve had our fill of Christmas fare,
The annual frenzy drives us spare,
Restore the law, be Cromwell’s heir
And reinstate the Act!
Alan Millard
A stranded sturgeon when it’s seen
must be surrendered to the Queen
and then what happens to the fish
depends upon the royal wish.
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