THE PLOT AGAINST THESE ISLANDS
One February night in ’74
the Army occupied Heathrow Airport.
The BBC’s Nine O’Clock news explained
the occupation was an exercise
in how to deal with a terrorist threat.
The new Prime Minister, Harold Wilson,
learned of the exercise from the TV,
recognised it as the dress rehearsal
of a coup against his premiership –
a coup that would have been sanctified
by an announcement from her Majesty,
an emergency government led by
her husband’s uncle, supported solemnly
by appropriate newspapers, and followed
by one or two assassinations –
but he kept his counsel, did not react.
His misdemeanors were: the wrong sort of school,
the wrong sort of accent, being ‘too clever
by half’; believed to be a KGB agent,
and to have poisoned his predecessor
as Labour leader, a Wykehamist;
believed to want peace in Ireland rather
than the IRA’s annihilation;
refusing to join the US in Nam, thus
causing the defence industry to forego
extra profits, preventing working class oiks
from becoming dead heroes, denying
regiments additional battle honours.
Wilson resigned less than two years later.
So, Jeremy Corbyn, what chutzpah
on your part to assume you could succeed!
Jeff Teasdale
December 18, 2020Great, David. A dark tale that exposes all the problems of this country and who rules it (as opposed to actually rules this ‘sovereign democracy’). I fear we will never be rid of it, so deep does it run through our national strata.
David Selzer
December 18, 2020I agree, Jeff. Fortunately there are optimists like Jeremy Corbyn to challenge our pessimism.
Alex Cox
December 18, 2020Wonderful. And the following year the same crew of spooks and oligarchs disposed of Gough Whitlam in Australia. Why weren’t we taught these things at Wirral Grammar School, beneath the honours board which bore the name J. Harold Wilson at its very top? (I know… because our teachers were still learning them themselves.)
Thank you for this ongoing process!
Adrian Ackroyd
December 19, 2020As always you make us think a little more.