In the fourth year of austerity, after a series of already brutal measures, George Osborne introduced the bedroom tax.
People who had lived in their council houses for most of their life were suddenly forced to leave their homes and often move into unfamiliar communities. Once again people with no voice or power were at the mercy of the powerful. I agree with the sentiment of the book title, coined by Vickie Cooper and David Whyte, ‘The Violence of Austerity’.
Read the poem England by Emily J Gibson
England, 2013
I look at the fire
And ponder the fate
Of a politic set
On creating hate
Why play a game
Reducing the trust
Creating a world
Disabling us
To feel part of a show
In which engage
Why plunder our hope
To excavate rage
What goes on in a head
That chooses war
Pertaining to be an
Ethical law
There’s a war on the poor
A war on the weak
A war on the homes
Professed to keep
The vulnerable safe
But not anymore
It’s a mind field of
Ideological war
The heart of Britain
Silently bleeds
In rhetoric
Crushing the very seed
Of landscapes that dream
Of better times
Far from the wasteland
Of capit’list lies.
