'In the Margins', Mr Murdoch? Don't make me laugh.

My poem below is a response to a video which Sky News have been running as part of their coverage of the run-up to the General Election this year.

The advert features a poem, which seems to be something of a trend in advertising these days. It's a poem that I find somewhat irritating, because I feel that, in its urge to hype the Murdoch-owned 'news' channel's election coverage, it glosses over the very real struggles that have characterised life in Britain under the Coalition, a Coalition whose policies have been generally supported by the right-leaning Murdoch press and television channels. It seems a bit rich for Sky News to suddenly come over all concerned about those who live in the margins when the people they support have spent the last five years kicking the shit out of us.

So I wrote this.

In the margins?

Politics ain't oven chips,
or Maccy Dee's, or football:
politics is how we live
and often what we're killed for.

It's not about the purple shires
or cities turning green,
it's not some sporting spectacle,
a tournament of teams,

and 'hang the King'?
I wish I could hang
Cameron and Osborne,
spike Nick Clegg's head
on traitor's gate,
run Farage out of town,

but putting ticks in boxes
is only half the fight:
half not nothing, people fought
so we could have that right,

but the struggle's not decided
on the day the votes are cast,
we don't go back to training
to prepare for the next match,
we struggle on a daily basis,
catch as we can catch,

we fought back with rioting,
strikes and occupation,
fought back just by having thoughts
they thought above our station,

fought back just by living
in a world that wants us dead,
by giving to a food bank
or shoplifting daily bread,

fought back by demanding more
than just our rulers' scraps,
fought back by saying mansions,
and not bedrooms, should be taxed.

We fought, for we know votes alone
won't make the centre give:
don't talk to me of margins.
The margin's where I live.