Thread by @gletherby

Smile it might never happen.’
Have you said it?
Have you heard it?
Maybe someone said it to you when ‘it’ had already occurred;
A death of a loved one,
A job loss,
A relationship breakup,
An unwanted, frightening diagnosis. 1/9

‘Smile it might never happen.’
An oft-used platitude. Advice with some meaning or just something to say?
Whatever, the implied criticism is clear;
Rise above your problems,
Don’t be so self-indulgent
Show some stiff upper lip.
Be happy, or at least pretend that you are, 2/9

It's your responsible to make sure others don't feel bad.

‘Smile it might never happen.’
Smile even when it has.
So when the leaders of the two biggest political parties,
walk in for the Queens Speech
it’s not the smirk on Johnson’s face that’s the issue, 3/9

but the grim look from Corbyn.
Bigotry triumphs.
Social justice? Who cares.

‘Smile it might never happen.’
What a sore loser,
Such a bad sport,
How rude,
Disrespectful,
LOL, what a game.
The voters have spoken, the Left were defeated, 4/9

Even if they/we ‘won the argument’ (the policies are popular) ‘Get Brexit Done’ (in seven years if we’re lucky) claimed the day, the election.

‘Smile it might never happen.’
But yet again it has, oh how it has. 5/9

4.1 million children living in poverty, likely to be 5.2 by 2022,
A homeless person dying on the streets every 19 hours,
No justice for Grenfell, for 1950's born women, for those at the sharp end of DWP crimes...
The NHS crisis,
And the planet,
dying by degrees. 6/9

‘Smile it might never happen.’
But it’s clear that it will
Promises broken, as we knew that they would be.
Human rights?
They’re expendable.
Living wage?
More than likely too dear.
It only there’d been a party committed to fighting for a better world for the many. 7/9

Oh wait.

‘Smile it might never happen.’
But it already has.
And with a media complicit,
Unable or unwilling to hold the government to account.
Whilst it obsesses, obsessively with the opposition, it’s leader and those who might follow,
day after day,... 8/8

hour after hour,
our democracy is threatened. Voter ID at polling stations right now.
Hold onto your hats, batten down the hatches, put on your life-jackets, for what comes next might make Orwell spin.

‘Smile it might never happen’…… 9/9