Barry’s dead.

I saw you dying weeks ago;
An oyster shell turned empty can,
Scrumpled up and finished
By the past’s magnet attraction
In your shakey hands.
It’s just a habit now and you can hardly kick yourself.

Buckets of Grolsch:
My swash-buckling hero
Turned slosh-slurping zero once again
And shiny surfaces
Never suited you.

Scrub away at that black demon matter
With the sole white spirit
Your genius affords. A shattered socialist
Posy primrose ******;
That’s the story of your life –
All
      most
               man.

Now beneath the cowslips
And the heifer’s hooves,
Your saintly-thorny words without a roof:
But who will speak for you?
And trawl the depths
As you once did in youth?
Prizing open oysters…

I hope that where you are
Your silence brings relief.
I hope that where you are
You smell the borage breeze.
I hope that where you are
There’s ox-cheek for tea
And your carbonated past
Is carbonating in mute peace.

Tonight the argent stars
Are dulled in disbelief
Tonight the slate that you’ve carved
Is the hardest you will teach.
Tonight the tumblestones
Are falling down in grief:

For Barry’s gone to rediscover Pearl
And the beauty of her peace.

(Earnestly)* This is the first time I address the House
From these back benches in twenty-odd years.
I must confess that I had forgotten
How much better the view is from up here.

It was frequently my necessity
As Leader of the House to talk my way
Out of accusations that a statement
Had been pre-empted by an interview.
On this occasion I can gladly say
That no such interview has taken place.

First I have chosen to address the House
On why I can't vote for a war without
Support at home or agreement abroad.
The present Prime Minister is the most
Successful Labour Party Leader of our times.
I hope that he will continue to be
Our Party Leader, and I hope that he
Will long continue as successfully.
I have no sympathy nor comfort for
Those who use this crisis to remove him.
I applaud the efforts that he, heroically, has made
Until today to secure a second resolution,
And nobody could outperform the Foreign Secretary
In trying to win the backing of the Security Council.
But the intensity of those attempts
Just shows us it was vital they succeed:
Now those attempts have failed we can not
Pretend they were of no import to us.
It is not France alone who wants more time.
Germany wants more time, and Russia too.
Indeed at no time have we ever had
The minimum support we would require
And it is mere delusion to imply
That this degree of fierce hostility
Can all be due to France's President.
The truth is that Britain is being asked
To go to war without any support
From any body to which we belong:
Not from NATO, not from the EU and
Now, not from the Security Council.
A year ago a coalition formed
Its cause: to wage and win a war on terror.
To end in diplomatic failure
Signifies a most obvious error.

History will be amazed surely at the
Miscalculations that led so quickly
To the fall of such a coalition.
The US can afford to go alone;
But Britain is no superpower now.

Our interests are not best protected by
Unilateral action, but by the wide
Agreement of a World governed by rules.

Tonight the partnerships we value most,
The EU and the Security Council,
Are those that sadly are the most weakened.
These indeed are heavy casualties when
A single bomb has yet to be released,
But since the US have already warned
Their strategy will be to "Shock and Awe"
It seems, of casualties, there will be more.

It's been a favourite theme of our critics
To say this House no longer occupies
A central role in British politics.
Nothing could better show that they are wrong
Than for this House to stop this Government
Committing troops to a war that's without
Support at home or agreement abroad.

I intend to join with those tomorrow
Who vote against this war now at this time.
It is for that reason, and that alone,
And with a heavy heart... that I resign.

It’s embarrassing to have too much money
The make believe buddies and the fake deference
Measuring your height in yachts and widescreens
Kids who are unfamiliar with your touch
Ever more expensive toys to overflow
The ever-thinning circumference of time.

Holidays can be a way of dealing with
The superfluity of excess in day to day lives –
The addict learns to miss his true love
While the CEO goes food shopping
And remembers how to set forks and knives
On an empty placemat’s either side.

I don’t like Marmite.
I’m going up on deck.
Don’t look. Don't Look. That’s why I said don’t look.
WAIT! Somebody! I have to go inside.
To find my glasses. My swimming glasses.
In the wonderful world of haribo.
Do you smoke? I don’t want you to die. Why? But why?
The purple ones are so sweet, did you know that?
A giant one came out! A giant one – two eggs!
In the game his eggs are like – that – big! He made two.
Is that friendliness?
I’m going crazy.
But dadDy!
My feet used to be – THIS - big.
I told you you had to use this.
Hey you! Come back with my slippers.
Put a glass with only ice, I want to make very very very cold water. ..

Trying and failing to get to sleep -
I’ve never sailed before.
I've already tried counting fish
So I turn my thoughts to statistics
In the hope that they reassure:

The chances of dying on a yacht are
Absolutely minimal
(Unless you’re a millionaire).

So when the ocean swells and the boat rocks
I pray to the god of my holey socks
That danger is safely slipping by
On my port or starboard side
And the hungry old whale of fate
Has bigger fish to fry.

Nobody understands children
Or plays their games properly.
Nobody looks them in the eye
As equals
Or tells them a secret
In return for one of theirs
A real one.
No one cares what they think,
Just how they are, and what people think of them.
They do not exist.
Their opinion is not there.

It’s sad because
In many ways
They’re good at life
And in many ways
We’re not -
We take on too much,
Live unsustainably
And end up
Disappointing all round.

Oh well.

Julia exercised her power
Over the happy family’s
Holiday photo shoot at dinner.

To cage the moment
The adults sent a camera to either flank of
Her and her father.
She was suddenly reticent, shy, they thought.
Her face dancing away from the camera
While she monkey hugged her father
(For some more haribo).
But he would not give in, because he did not have them,
And everyone wanted a picture of them together,
The spotlight was on them now,
He was sweating in the glare of the media circus,
The pressure was mounting, no retreating now.

So when daddy said,
"Come on Julia, smile for the camera!"
She narrowed her eyes
And clung harder to his neck,
An all-encompassing embrace -
Not so much of love, but of
The only power she had –
To hide her
Face.

"What's up Julia?" Asked Dad.

"I'll smile for you if you want,
But I'm not smiling for the camera." She said.

(Earnestly)* I beg to move the motion
Standing on the Order Paper
In my name and those good names
Of my Right Honourable Friends.

Straight up, I’ll say, it’s right that we this House
Should debate this issue, should pass judgement.
That is democracy; that is our Right
That others elsewhere struggle for in vain.
Again I’ll say I do not disrespect
The wavering of those not yet convinced.
This is a tough choice and – yes – a stark one:
To stand down our committed troops and turn back
Or to hold firm and so continue on.

I strongly believe that we must hold firm.

The question most people will ask is not
Why does it matter – no – but why so much?
Well, as we brave this new Millenium
And face up to the Nation’s greatest threat
With our majority already stretched,
A resignation from the cabinet,
With all the other parties also split,
With everywhere the closest of allies
In disagreement while on different sides
Those who usually would not agree
Agree on this. The people, this parliament
Echo the discord with an echo made
Less bitter as time passes, not less grave.

So why, then, does it matter quite so much?
Because the outcome of our firm resolve
Will find itself determining much more
Than Iraq’s future and her peoples’ fate
More than the liberty of an whole race
Brutalized in Saddam’s sick sick name.

It will in fact decide the way in which
Britain, the world and we confront the threats
Our right to liberty requires met.
It will, what’s more, affect the UN’s role,
EU relations, Transatlantic ties,
The manners of the US in the world.
It will prove the political pattern
For a generation, perhaps more, to come.

This is no longer the time to falter;
I will not be party to such a course.
This is now the time for this house to lead;
To show that we will fearlessly confront
Terror, tyranny and dictatorships
Which threaten to put all our lives at risk.
To show that at this moment of decision
We have the courage, we have the vision
To do the right thing. I beg to move the motion…