GROWTH IN PARTY UNITY

by Jerome Betts

Available from RedMolotov

Liz Truss has attempted to unite her party around a common enemy of the “anti-growth coalition” of unions, remainers and green campaigners… —The Guardian, 5 October 2022

Inspired by some words from Liz T.

And her mantra of ‘Growth’, triple G,

    Green, Lib Dem and Labour

    Can now nod to a neighbour

 Enrolled in the new AGC!

Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England, and edits the verse quarterly Lighten Up Online. His work has appeared in a wide variety of British magazines and anthologies as well as UK, European, and North American web publications such as Amsterdam Quarterly, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, The Asses of Parnassus, Better Than Starbucks, The Hypertexts, Light, The New Verse News, and Snakeskin.

POT AND KETTLE

by Jerome Betts

Safety first: the many hats of George Osborne. Composite: Rex/Getty via The Guardian, June 5, 2016.

“Welfare for Osborne was just a bottomless pit of savings, and it didn’t really matter what the human consequences were, because focus groups had shown that the voters they wanted to appeal to were very anti-welfare . . . “ —Nick Clegg in a Guardian interview 2 Sept 2016.

“Like the Living Dead in a second-rate horror film, the premiership of Theresa May staggers on oblivious.” —Editorial in London Evening Standard edited by George Osborne, 31 August 2017.


Hard hat on head, photographers on hand,
He knew to whom this image most appeals.
Disabled? Jobless? A negligible band,
Their money useful, though, to grease his wheels.

Cold-bloodedly, the snake, now scotched, not killed,
Still slithers towards its overarching goal,
A prospect leaving half a nation chilled,
The pitiless George Osborne in control.

Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England, where he edits the quarterly Lighten Up Online. His verse has appeared in a wide variety of British magazines and anthologies as well as UK, European, and North American web venues such as Amsterdam Quarterly, Angle, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Light, Parody, Per Contra, TheNewVerse.News, The Rotary Dial and Snakeskin.

QUESTION TIME

by Jerome Betts

Theresa May Caricature by Masakonen

T. M. still PM? Why is this?
The leader Fortune gave a miss
A faded star that’s on the blink,
A stock which now can only sink,
A Premier who’s lost the plot,
Majority and trust, the lot,
But carries on, a headless hen,
Behind the door of Number Ten?

Not hard, perhaps, to read the runes.
The five-watt bulbs and weird buffoons
The Tories muster to compete
To win her hot and thorn-strewn seat
Prefer to leave the Brexit folly
To blow up on some other wally,
And so until that dismal day
We’re stuck with hopeless hapless May.

Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England, where he edits the quarterly Lighten Up On Line. His verse has appeared in a wide variety of British magazines and anthologies as well as UK, European, and North American web venues such as Amsterdam Quarterly, Angle, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Light,  Per Contra, TheNewVerse.News, The Rotary Dial and Snakeskin.