Ballad of Labour

This chequered history is us
So climb aboard the battle bus

Welsh orator and fiery Scot
Labour’s history has the lot

Noble lord and miner’s son
Hard drinker and puritan

Stafford Cripps was of that ilk
He dined on oatmeal and sour milk

But Harold Wilson’s pal, George Brown
Was the biggest drunk in town

The mighty shipyards turned to rust
The General Strike, Keir Hardie’s dust

James Maxton and ‘Red Clydeside’
The Jarrow marchers, all inside

Heroes, when the war was won
Bevan, Silkin, Morrison

Bevin from the TUC
Hugh Dalton and Clem Attlee

Labour’s women linger still
Like Dr Edith Summerskill

Feisty Castle, Bessie Braddock
Pioneering Diane Abbott

Ruddock from the CND
Shirley Williams, SDP

Jowell, Harman, Hodge and Walley
And in bright scarlet Follett, golly!

Also from New Labour’s years
Yvette Cooper and Hazel Blears

Rebels mark our history
Like Poplar’s mayor, George Lansbury

There is nothing new to war
The party has been here before

Warrior of pacifist
Each can be a socialist!

Lost leaders are written here
The tarnished king, MacDonald’s heir

The thief of Baghdad, Tony Blair
(Now a lonely millionaire)

And heroes lost to history
John Smith died young, a tragedy

Mo Mowlam and Robin Cook
Their names are written in the book

Tony Crosland’s heart gave out
Or he would have had a shout

Whose this come to join the show?
The Welsh firebrand, Kinnochio

He might have won, but for that night
When he swaggered – ‘Well alright!’

Some were fiery, some were bland
Here comes young Ed Miliband

Read the diaries of great men
Dick Crossman and Tony Benn

Some dodgy geezers got the sack
Stephen Byers and ‘Junket Jack’

Labour is a mosaic still
Of wealthy men, like Hugh Gaitskell

Heroes from the lower strata
Prescott, with his chipolata

And others who are far from grand–
Alan Johnson and his band

From council hall and union
Heffer, Dobson, Livingstone

(Once against an ‘EU state’
Now he is an apostate)

Economics brought us down
Before the days of Balls and Brown

Healey at the IMF
The crash of sterling, what a mess!

The right wing press’s ill intent
The dead unburied, discontent

To cope with strikes a master plan
‘In place of strife’, James Callaghan

From public school and tough estate
Each new pretender at the gate

To win the race must learn to fight
Trim to the left or back to right

New Labour, well their day is done
Blunkett, Straw and Mandelson

But will the tribe of Jeremy
Learn from Labour’s history?