THE BLAIR AFFAIR

There's a dud in every pocket,
There's a swine in every sty,
But the one you never reckon
Is the one that takes the eye.
For this age is one for lookers,
In a world that's done with trust,
With a dozen years of thieving
By a ruling class gone bust.
   So look around for someone -
   Most any smile will do -
   Believe things will get better
   And just because they're new.

As one highland heartbeat halted
First, a Campbell led the pack,
Then a media-money stampede
Told us all who we should back.
Though we'd learned distrust for decades
And we knew their grins for lies,
It's hard to keep your spirits up
When your friends spit in your eyes.
   So look around for someone -
   Most any smile will do -
   Believe things may get better
   Mostly because they're new.

For it's words that tell the story
Though the deeds may try to hide
And the verbs that soon went missing
Were the empty acts that bide.
Soon the posture was the message
And the photo op. the play
And the home fires disregarded
For the warfire's bold display.
   So look around for someone -
   Most any smile will do -
   Hope things may yet get better
   And still because they're new.

So the vain defined "impawtunt"
Where their ego found relief,
Not the counting of the numbers
That their humbug brought to grief.
That bad men murdered other men,
And the law was broke in bits,
Was seen less than an open shirt
In a frame that our world fits.
   So look around for someone -
   Most any smile will do -
   Things still may just get better
   Because they're almost new.

And the looker looked complacent
No opponents filled the lens
And a hopeless hoping people
In a new term sought amends;
But the looker looked beyond them
And in saintly vision saw,
In his shattering of nations,
He'd dispense His sacred law.
   So look around for someone -
   Most any smile will do -
   "Have faith! Things will get better!
   Behold, I make them new!"

Till our demi-god found evil,
But he saw not where it lay,
And clasped it warmly by the hand
To be led along its way.
And they broke the sacred chalice
For which fifty million died,
And they bombed a helpless country
And to do it all - they lied.
   So look around for someone -
   Most any smile will do -
   We know things wont get better -
   Old crimes cannot be new.

Then, good people, gaze beyond him
And the terms his life has shamed,
Our future's where the millions are
In a world to be reclaimed.
Lets destroy the wicked icons
And for idols let's atone,
And vote again for honest men
And the Blair Affair disown.
   So look around for someone -
   An honest one will do -
   Believe things will get better
   And not because they're new.

                    (Nigel Stuart)