Labour: The Shakespearean Tragedy

Darling sticks the knife in.

So with the news alive with Alistair Darling's performance in his interview with Jeff Randall, and his admission that he knew 'Colostomy' Brown and his henchmen were briefing and smearing against him, the current Government takes on ever more the shape of Shakespearean tragedy.

And while Colostomy was the one who 'cried Havoc and let slip the dogs of Whelan and McBride', Darling's comments surely place him as the Marc Antony of the piece. Which brings us to:

Gordon Brown Act III Scene 2


MARC ANTONY ALISTAIR DARLING

Friends, Randall, Electorate, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Gollum, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Brown. The noble Hutton
Hath told you Gollum would be "a fucking disaster":
And it is so, he was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Gollum damaged us.
Here, as was done by Purnell and the rest--
For Purnell is an honourable man;
So are they all, except for Geoff Hoon who's a twat--
Come I to speak in Gollum's funeral.
He was my friend, yet briefed and smeared agin me:
But Peter says he was as Moses;
And Peter is a dishonourable man.
He hath brought many taxes home to roost
His ransoms did not the general coffers fill:
Did this in Gollum seem Prudent or competent?
When on the telly with Piers, Gollum hath wept:
Yet we all know he's made of harder stuff:
But Peter says he was as Moses;
And Peter is a dishonourable man.
You all did see that for the Leadership
It was presented him a kingly crown,
Elections he has twice refused: is this Courage?
But Peter says he was as Moses;
And, sure, he is a dishonourable man.
I speak not to disprove what smears were spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You never loved him once, you had no cause:
What cause commands you then, to shill for him?
O Government! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And Labour have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My political future is in the coffin there with Gollum,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

One can only hope that Darling's interview was among the last we have to hear of Brown, and that he was indeed speaking of Brown's political funeral.