by Ian "Sir Francis Burdett" Fraser
Nothing so difficult as the beginning
In poesy, except perhaps the end;
For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning
The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend,
Like Lucifer when hurled from heaven for sinning;
Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend,
Being pride, which leads the mind to soar too far,
Till our own weakness shows us what we are.
—Don Juan, Canto 4, Stanza 1.
Mrs. Thatcher is really most quixotic
She tilts at windmills, thinking they’re real
Quite unaware she’s being idiotic.
She thinks she’s treating the common weal
Her policies are actually quite despotic
But she’s transfixed by their reforming zeal.
"Poor Thatch, your time’s run out," the masses say
And still the crazed leaderene must have her way.
"Privatise this, privatise that," she bellows
To cabinet ministers, quivering with fear.
They begin to hope one day she’ll mellow—
But their hopes are vain, at least this year,
They can’t resist her interminable flow,
They have not even seen her shed a tear—
Only when son Mark was lost in desert
Did her womanliness temporarily revert.
"Is this woman mad?" asks the Indie,
Only when she thinks she’s persecuted
Does she appear to become quite barmy,
And her vigour remains undiluted
Even when Kinnock attacks her nimbly.
In the house the idea most mooted
Is that she will reshuffle her pack
To take the blame and hide her lack
Channon, who’s become known as "Mustique man"—
He’s always there when disaster strikes—
Will most probably have to take the can.
Lawson, inflated beyond hope, she dislikes
And may too become an also-ran.
The man who once said, "On yer bike!"
Had an image problem too much for Saatchis
And now makes programmes nobody watches.
The opposition’s weak and full of pride
The liberals have left their stinking ship
With Ashdown’s democ-rats to ride
And the name vainly on everybody’s lip
Is Tarzan king of the apes, they say he’ll stride
Out, the only who’ll shoot from the hip.
And, if his defenses didn’t add up to nought
Even Kinnock-i-o could win popular support.