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No Room, We're Full

Was going to leave things fallow for a couple of days, but then I was pointed towards this story in the Daily Mail, peddling their usual brand of xenophobia, with tales of waves of Romanians ready to come and claim benefits in the UK... The journalists (and I use that word liberally) on that paper, which prides itself in standing up for the UK as a Christian country seem to have missed out huge chunks of the Nativity stories in Matthew and Luke... about there being no room in the inn, and Jesus' parents being asylum seekers...  But they're not too keen on lots of the Old Testament either... the bits that talk about looking after the poor and the alien...

Anyway, it reminded me of this poem that I adapted a couple of years ago:

No Room: We're Full

There's no room in this country,
we're full up
In fact we're overcrowded,
there's hardly room for us
(well, for our cars, at any rate)
so we really can't take you or anyone else
Sorry.
No really, believe me,
there's no housing to spare,
none at all,
especially with the rising demand for second homes.
So you see, we really can't help you.
You must go somewhere else
And please, move your old banger away from the front door.
It lowers the tone so...Thanks.
The stable? What stable?
What on earth do you mean?
We couldn't put you in a stable…
This is a civilised country and a stable,
wouldn't comply with the building regulations for human habitation.
And anyway
You might frighten the animals
So move away, please.

No, my dear, it's all right
They've gone now, thank God.
Just a couple of foreigners,
bogus asylum seekers, probably,
in a clapped out old car.
She even looked like she was pregnant…
A young slip of a thing
So irresponsible.
Of course we couldn't take them in
people like that…

Louise Pirouet adapted

Selah
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