And the Government shall be upon her shoulders

 

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.