They speak of working families
those suits on the TV
advising their decisions
are for people just like me.
They talk of average earnings
we could never hope to get,
we're all in this together
that's what they say... and yet
I cannot fail to notice
as I look outside the door
their average nuclear family...

they don't live round here no more.

© Ian Nenna

Wage stagnation over decades as income gap widens

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Ian Nenna is fairly new to writing poetry. He has strong connections to Birkenhead and performs around Merseyside. More of his work is on WriteOutLoud

George is one of those guys
With that dead callous look in his eyes.
He'll catch you and skin you,
His cuts will continue,
No matter how loud the cries.

© Martin Hodges

2011 Budget: Osborne says 'huge mistake' to slow cuts

If you can say nothing, say nothing.
If you must talk of change, change is always good.
Cutbacks, downsizing, downgrading,
rationalisation, tightening...
everything is only getting smaller, not going away.

When you talk of redundancies,
beware of ‘putting out to grass’
– or severance: a serious word bringing to mind
wealthy uncles striking names from wills –
say ‘letting people go’ instead as though
they clamoured at the very gates of freedom.

Do not refer to ‘scrap heaps’
or, indeed, to age. Call older workers
‘longer-standing staff’
not ‘past their best before’, ‘used up’, ‘worn out’
which smacks of wrinkled aunts hogging the fire,
sucking the life out of a Werthers Original
with yellow teeth. Do not acknowledge
time you kindly set aside for jobsearch
is as redundant as they are.

Smile, when you say anything. Remember tears
have no truck in the modern workplace.
Lift the ends of sentences to stress
the merits of ‘work/life balance’
(once the work’s removed).
Speak of their liberated future days
with a hint of envy in your voice.

And those remaining few?
Remind them daily how lucky they are -
The Chosen - when issues arise
around the increased workload,
spinning plates now crashing to the floor,
the longer hours, wage freeze, et cetera
– how very, very lucky they are.

© Clare Kirwan


2 March - Best Practice in Local Government HR
-------------------------------------------------
Clare blogs as brokenbiro and is one of the founding editors of this site. The only way to stop her posting her own poems is by submitting YOURS! www.clarekirwan.co.uk

As common folk, perhaps you thought
That bankers, having sold us short,
And boomed and busted every bubble,
Should now cough up and ease our trouble.
You thought that those who've worked to serve
The public might perhaps deserve
A modicum of help when they
Have paid their taxes all the way.

If such you thought, it proves again
That Britain's public needs more pain
To keep it from that thought most vile:
That, once an economic while,
A Government in times depressed
Should take some small, vague interest
In making sure the ill and old
Are not abandoned in the cold.

For instance, we all know it's wrong
For pensioners to live too long,
Since each new year the wrinklies stay
Means more that others have to pay;
And that is why the new Lord Hutton,
With brain of bone and heart of mutton,
Has laboured for the nouveau Blair
To find solutions that are fair.

We all must pay; we all must work
Lest teachers, doctors, nurses shirk,
Lest dust- and postmen grab their bonus,
Forgetful of that sacred onus,
That burning, shining, Boys' Own piety
Which calls itself the Big Society.
We're all together in this mess:
You must work longer, and for less.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/mar/10/lord-hutton-pensions-change-fairness

© Philip Challinor
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Weblog: The Curmudgeon - You'll come for the curses. You'll stay for the mudgeonry.
Books: Philip Challinor's Books