Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition: a poem for the victorious Nicola Sturgeon

In a 1985 interview with the New Republic,  Mario Cuomo famously said that politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose. Last week, we asked competitors to put their own twist on Kipling’s rousing poem. The winners are below

IF – For Nicola (by Brian Murdoch) If you can lose a referendum and still act       As if you’d won it, time and time again; If you can claim you’re going to make a pact       But never make your real conditions plain; If you can try to split from the UK       Then six months later make it clear to see That now you want to rule the lot your way,       Yet still play down illogicality;

If you can woo the English viewers too       In fierce debates on national TV, So they don’t notice they can’t vote for you,       And you’re not even standing as MP, If you can do well in a vox-pop poll,       And gain the maximum publicity, Yours is the whole election rigmarole,       And, which is more, you’ll keep the SNP!

IF for Ed Miliband (by W.J. Webster) If you can look on Deficit and Debt And treat those paper tigers with disdain; Say those most taxed should pay more taxes yet Since having wealth should mean deserving       pain. If you believe that coal and oil should stay Where Gaia formed them deep beneath the       ground So they as fuel should have no part to play When clean replacements have long since been       found. If you feel sure that British Rail was great Till Beeching axed a path for privateers; That fine, uncrowded trains were rarely late, With fares kept low and fixed that way for years. If carbon capture is your favourite scheme To be pursued no matter what we’d spend, For you can hear the planet’s silent scream — Then have no doubt you are a Green, my friend!

And next week’s competition? The poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy penned a poem about the bedroom tax but has declined to write one for the new royal baby. You are invited to step into the breach and provide verse of up to 16 lines befitting the occasion. Please email entries to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 20 May.

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