Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our hackéd phones hung up by columnists;
Our stern alarums chained to buried meetings,
Our deathly margins to despiteful measures.
Grim-visaged Wootton smoothes the wankers’ font;
To taint the souls of fearful adversaries,
They caper nimbly in my lady's chamber
To the diverting piffle of baby scoops.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor bothered to support a fragile working class;
To sit before inquiring Andrew Neill;
I, that am blessed of this Rupert’s backing,
Cheating your future by dissembling nature,
Uninformed, indolent, spent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half masked up,
That Dilyn barks at me as I sneak in;
Why, I, in this bleak Brexit time of peace,
Have to talk shite – ‘The free press it must shine’ –
Or else to spy my deceits in The Sun
Descanting on mine known dishonesty:
To entertain these dire hell-spoken days,
I am determined to play comedian
And wear the high-viz of buffoonery.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By Tufton Street pork markets, libels, dreams,
In deadly hate the one against the other:
And if the hopeful be as true and just
As we are subtle, false and treacherous,
This day should England be divided up,
About patriotism, which says 'we';
Dive, thoughts, down to Wapping: here
Cummings comes."