If Big Ben Was a Dandelion Clock

If Big Ben was a dandelion clock,

It wouldn’t go tick-tock.

Or BONG, BONG, BONG. . .

If Big Ben was a dandelion clock,

How would we know when to watch the news; set of the fireworks to mark a new year; leave the EU?

If Big Ben was a dandelion clock,

We’d have to rely on our watches, or our phones. Can you imagine anything worse?

If Big Ben was a dandelion clock,

What other icon could we employ to demonstrate to the world our greatness and our pride and our glory? 

BUT…

If Big Ben was a dandelion clock,

There’d be less bluff and bluster to distract us all from:

• Summer holiday child hunger and the many other dire consequences of living in ‘food bank Britain’,
• The cuts to benefits and rises to pension age and the truth behind the ‘high’ employment stats (including pay caps, zero hours contracts and more) which means that work is NOT the route out of poverty for growing numbers of individuals and families,
• The not so slow, but sure, dismantlement and destruction of the NHS; the sometimes inefficient and often extortionately priced railway system; the crises in our prisons and our schools and in social care. . . etc. etc. and so on and so on.
• IN SUM the overwhelming evidence that our society as it is works for the few and not for the many.

AND...

If Big Ben was a dandelion clock,

There might be more focus on morals rather than (so-called) morale (and yet I know I’m far from being the only one less than bothered about the disruption).

So we would be spared our observation of the xenophobic umbrage of those who believe the announcement of the name change to Massive Mohammed.

And instead of fretting over a four year repair job that is definitely ‘not a national disaster’, those that are paid to govern the country might concern themselves more with the rise of ideologies that fuel and foster hate and the very real threats to peace at home and abroad.

If Big Ben was a dandelion clock,

Do you know, just now, I’d really rather it was.