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!
By David Selzer