IRA

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!