The Waste Land (A Land Laid Waste By Gideon's 'Reforms')

A paraphrased adaptation - with apologies to T S Eliot.
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A paraphrased adaptation - with apologies to T S Eliot.

This variation was written to coincide with the first day of the UK Coalition Government's so-called 'Welfare Reforms' which will savagely cut into the income of the very poorest, at a time when millionaires will benefit from massive tax cuts. April 1st, the starting date of Gideon Osborne's main assault on the most vulnerable members of society, quite aptly also marks All Fools' Day.

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The Waste Land

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April is the cruellest month, raising

Bedroom tax out of the disabled, mixing

Malice and discrimination, stirring

Tory hearts with millionaires' tax cuts.

Winter kept us cold, covering

Doormats with higher fuel bills, feeding

A few of the poor from distant food banks.

And we were frightened.

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What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

Out of this Tory rubbish? Son of man,

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken promises, while the 'Sun' bleats,

And the Coalition gives no shelter, the government no relief,

And Parliament no sound of explanation. Only

There is despair under this evil regime,

(Come and feel the despair under this evil regime),

And I will show you something different from either

Your shadow at morning striding behind you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of 'reforms'.

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Shantih, shantih, shantih