Sir
Reginald Horner
Knelt
in the corner
Worried
about his career.
He
feared he’d be late
For
the Budget debate
But
his Nanny was keeping him here.
In
the House, with disdain
He’d
rise up, to explain
That
an increase in Health Service pay
While
undoubtedly right,
Was
not on, in the light
Of
the fiscal position today.
Nanny
Strict, with her feet up
Read,
over her tea cup
Her
paper: the politics page.
She
was thinking of days
Lost
in memory’s haze
As
a staff-nurse, on minimum wage.
So she picked up her tawse
To
prepare for a course
In
arithmetic: “Stretch out your arm!”
“Take
a nurse’s base pay (thwack!)
Then
take taxes away (thwack!)
And
you’re left with a hot stinging palm!”
“Here’s
another quick sum
Take
one fat fleshy bum
Add
twelve strokes from a long rattan cane
Then
if feeling contrition
You
can check your addition
And
add up the budget again.”
All
the MPs were stunned
By
Sir Reggie’s new fund
To
pay nurses twice what they now earn.
Then
he winced as he sat
And
they wondered at that
What
had led to this sudden U-turn?
“I
just felt nurses’ pain”
He
explained, in the rain
Interviewed,
by the TV and press.
“This award, you might call
It... a 'tribute', that's all
I
could not sit at ease giving less!”
The
rest is just history:
Whatever
the mystery
That
changed his decision back then.
All
the experts agree
That
this speech was the key
To
his new house in Downing St: ten.
As
PM he has access
To
experts on taxes,
Defence,
Home and Foreign Affairs.
But
he likes to defer
For the last word, to… ‘her’:
To
his ‘Special Adviser’ upstairs.
Now every decision’s
Thrashed out with
precision:
The
smack of firm government’s here.
Yet bad luck for the Right
(Who
should cherish the sight):
It’s
the Nanny
State that they so fear.