101 Uses for a John Howard

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

One day you’re the mighty Colossus bestriding anything that takes your fancy and the next you’re a pair of three-toed feet on a pedestal in the desert (all Liberal Party members have only three toes on each foot, it’s some sort of inbreeding thing). Well, that’s Prime Ministers for you; it doesn’t matter how tasty they are going in, they all smell the same going out.

I know - Dickens, that Statue of Liberty poem, and now bloody Shelley? Sorry, I’m still compensating for the floating turd cartoon. Don’t worry people, we’ll be back in the toilet in no time. Speaking of which, with his immigration bill in said toilet, Liberal members going walkabout and interest rates moving in a direction contrary to that promised on the box, the King of Kings might be starting to wish he’d flushed himself with dignity a few weeks ago when he still had the chance.