Uploaded October 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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THIRTEENTH – CLASS ACT

By P B Taylor

I


The aristocratic burden lies upon you
Ever from lame critics of the new-found left
Yet you have always understood ordinary views
Excavated from the yawning crazed political cleft

Facing a repeated era of high unemployment
Always representing more than one class of opinion
A practised politician of conciliation, appeasement
Maintaining our rules of Christian religion

Campaigning in times of shear economic instability
Occupying that uneasy position of wealth standing
Possessing that natural capitalist stock maturity
Which the unreconstructed jealous have no understanding

You always have that splendid natural self-assurance
A charm and an unfettered political intelligence

II

Then there’s that doctrine of indispensability
Protecting inside the thick skin of any career
Becoming an irrelevance with diplomatic ability
Floating amongst a deep detailed interest in foreign affairs

Sadly, the position of premier is viciously hard
More for those with a spectacular surprise progress
Always the conventional government as a cobbled yard
In the rough smooth jagged critical distress

In the sunset as the politics of tides begin to ebb
Days dealing with political grievances long past
A foremost statesman within the web
Now back to the Lords, retired at long last

Consistent a man with great courage humility
Secretly combines acceptable strength sensitivity

ADH Harrogate September 1973