The poetry of politics
Erudition on display again at Holyrood today. Iain Gray, opening for Labour in the economy debate, was in poetic mood.
He concluded his remarks thus: 鈥淲hat manner of economic beast is hidden here slouching towards separation.鈥
No sweeties on offer today - but I feel sure you spotted this is a pastiche of W.B Yeats鈥 poem, The Second Coming.
William Butler, not always the cheeriest of chaps, wound up that particular work by wondering 鈥渨hat rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.鈥
Why that poem? It could be that, in parodying The Second Coming, Mr Gray was merely reflecting his own experience (he lost his seat in 2003 and is on his second run as an MSP).
But I suspect deeper motives. I think he was in apocalyptic mood. Indeed, he implied as much.
Mr Gray was suggesting that SNP mnisters were in league with darker forces.
No, not that dark force. But something comparably grim in Labour eyes. Yes, he accused them of supporting the economics of the American Right.
Alex Salmond, apparently, is a closet Reaganite. John Swinney, we were assured, is an adherent of 鈥渧oodoo economics鈥 (author: George without-the-W Bush, Sr).
Mr Swinney, I should say, was guffawing fairly frequently, if mildly, during these comments. I think I saw him mutter the word 鈥減iffle鈥 - though, on reflection, it may have been another word entirely.
Still, it was stirring stuff. Yeats and the Gipper. Fear and loathing. The concept of dread.
Must confess, though, that in a lengthy and generally entertaining career of covering politics, I am drawn more commonly to a different quotation from that particular ditty by WB.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
I'm 
Comments
Is it just me or does Iain Gray bear some resemblance to Peter Cook's portrayal of Richard 111 in the BlackAdder series? Nows hows that for having something of the night about him!!
The unhappy Shelley realised that poets were unacknowledged legisaltors, even in Holyrood, but my Ode scans better.
WE are the music-makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams: Yet we are the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems.
I must say, I have a great respect for politicians who appreciate literature. (Even if they do quote The Bits Everyone Knows - kind of like a soundbite version of Classic FM.)
In the Panorama show about Alan Johnston's kidnapping, the bit that made me weep was when he spoke about how he kept remembering that line from Keats' 'Ode to a Nightingale', about Ruth 'amid the alien corn'. The man has been *taken hostage* and he is quoting Romantic poetry to himself. I love him.
I must say, I have a great respect for politicians who appreciate literature. Even if they do quote The Bits Everyone Knows - kind of like a soundbite version of Classic FM.
Going on past performances, I felt there was a little too much meat in his speech for him to have written it himself!
Alex Salmond has been going on about the Laffer Curve - the one that Reaganites used to 'prove' that lowering tax rates would actually raise tax revenue - for years. The only brief time he stopped was when his party adopted their "Penny for Scotland" tax rise policy.
Unfortunately for Alex, the result when the Reaganites tried it in the States was a record budget deficit.
things fall apart,the centre cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world (available in CD rom, encrypted version)