John Hutton, before he settled down to the blameless task of reporting on public-sector pensions, was accused of writing poetry. He did not deny the practice but did reject the authorship of a verse about Gordon Brown, when he was still prime minister: ‘At Downing Street/ Upon the stair/ I met a man who wasn’t Blair./ He wasn’t Blair again today./ Oh how I wish he’d go away.’ Mr Hutton said: ‘I would write better poetry.’ But I have not had the pleasure of seeing any of his since.
One politician who has published poetry recently is Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian who is President of the European Council. In Britain he is mocked on those grounds alone, but even more for having a funny name — something many foreigners have. Mr Van Rompuy’s elegant little volume, with a black ribbon bookmark, is called simply Haiku.
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