The Burial of the Brief In the grey dawn of Stockport’s sprawl,
Where council estates whisper tales of gall,
Angela, Deputy of the Red Flag’s call,
Strides forth, her boots a-stomp, her voice a squall.
“Build homes!” she cries, 1.5 million by ’29,
A number plucked from ether, bold, divine.
Yet bulldozers yawn, and planners sigh,
The target looms like pie in the sky.
In Whitehall’s halls, where memos decay,
Her plans, like litter, blow far away.
O Ashton-under-Lyne, your champion’s flair,
A manifesto scribbled on a fag packet’s square.
A Game of Devolution
In the North, where cobbles gleam with rain,
She promises power, but it’s all in vain.
“Devolution!” she roars, a mayor for each town,
Yet Westminster’s grip never quite comes down.
Mayors sprout like mushrooms, damp and unsure,
Their powers as vague as a campaign brochure.
“Take back control!” she chants, a northern muse,
But Whitehall’s strings tangle her muse’s ruse.
The battlebus rumbles, her karaoke tune,
“You to Me Are Everything”—a socialist swoon.
Yet Reform’s shadow, Farage’s grin,
Winks from Runcorn, where her votes grow thin.
The Workers’ Creed
Oh, New Deal for Workers, a hymn to the toiler,
No zero-hours, no fire-and-hire spoiler.
She stands at the dispatch box, a warrior’s pose,
Her auburn locks a banner, her rhetoric flows.
But Hansard weeps, her grammar a maze,
“Less” for “fewer”—the scribes’ endless daze.
The Commons laughs, a Tory guffaw,
While she rails at “scum,” her passion raw.
“Rights from day one!” she vows, fists high,
Yet small print whispers, “Perhaps, by and by.”
The unions cheer, the bosses frown,
Her revolution shakes—but doesn’t bring down.
The Freebie’s Lament
In the land of gifts, where standards blur,
A New York flat, a donor’s allure.
Clothes worth thousands, a wardrobe’s gleam,
Yet “register them?”—a forgotten dream.
The Standards Commissioner raises a brow,
While Angela shrugs, “I’m human, allow!”
From Ibiza’s raves to Commons’ glare,
Her authenticity shines, unpolished, bare.
Yet whispers linger, like smoke in the air,
Of “scum” and “letterboxes”—a rhetorical flair.
The Mail on Sunday hums its tune,
Her allies falter, her foes swoon.
The Fire Sermon of Ambition
What is this mission, this “moral” quest?
Child poverty’s chains, she’ll break with zest.
But no single lever, she claims, will do,
A billion for jobs, yet the queue’s still in view.
Her voice, a clarion from estate to estate,
Yet policy’s weight makes her shoulders wait.
In the wasteland of pledges, her dreams take flight,
A rough diamond’s sparkle in the political night.
But like Prufrock’s musings, her plans defer,
“Time yet for a hundred visions,” she murmurs to her.
O Angela, with your stompy boots and northern fire,
Your reforms, like Eliot’s verse, both dazzle and tire.