YOU really couldn’t make this new Prime Minister up, could you? “Elected” by about 60,000 bigoted fossils. Appointing a Chancellor who wants to use their mutually penned batshit disaster capitalist  book “Britannia Unchained” as economic policy – not so much Robin Hood in reverse but Thatcher on acid. (There was an anarchist punk band called that in the ’80s – now it’s happening in real life.)  

Embracing fracking and unchecked sewage discharges and dismantling green economic policy in the name of “growth.” And, glory of glories, now coming up with a name for her enemies – basically anyone who is not a banker or a brainwashed geriatric bungalow bigot — which is the best own goal since Brighton centre half Steve Gatting lobbed Perry Digweed from 25 yards against West Ham at Upton Park in the early ’90s. “The Anti-Growth Coalition.” It just begs for a limerick, doesn’t it?
 
When faced with Liz Truss’s position
There’s only one option: sedition!
So bollocks to manners
Let’s pick up our banners:
WE’RE THE ANTI-GROWTH COALITION!
 
And the coalition must coalesce to the point where the nation becomes ungovernable.

For the sake of the poor, the vulnerable, the sick and above all the planet: we need a general election now. Even right-wing social democracy tinged with green is better than this ghastly bunch.  
 
Had an absolutely wonderful experience a few days ago. Drove home tired and happy from a lovely gig for Chiddingly Festival, picked up my phone – and there was Benjamin Zephaniah filming himself dancing to my new dub poetry album Forty Years In Rhyme. Words cannot express how much that means to me.
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/c/rhyming-revolution
 
And then he sent me a lovely letter. “I’ve just finished having a quieter listen to your album, and I still think it’s as good as it was when I was blasting it out. I  think it’s great that you are just being yourself. I love the humour.

“You seem really at home on dub tracks. And the music is tight. The matches work. Kingsley (Salmon, brilliant music producer) did a really great job. Take care and dub it up.”

To get that from one of the greatest dub poets and reggae artists on the planet really made my day. Thanks Ben.
The album is available from https://attilathestockbroker.bandcamp.com/album/40-years-in-rhyme-4
 
My 40th Anniversary Tour continues apace next week: it’s the first part of the Welsh leg, with gigs in Cardiff, Pontrhydygroes, Tywyn, Denbigh and Cardigan.  

I’m really looking forward to them. In the mid-80s I met up with, gigged with and befriended Welsh language punk pioneers Anhrefn and Datblygu and organised their first ever gigs in England.

I have had links with the scene ever since, have done countless gigs all over Wales, and as a keen linguist, over the years I have acquired bits of Welsh from road and shop signs and the brilliant lyrics of my friend David R Edwards, poet and leader of Datblygu.

David sadly died during lockdown, and as a tribute to him I have written my first poem in Welsh — and during this tour I’m going to continue to try and learn some more. Bard hen pwnk Saisneg yn ceisio dysgu Cymraeg. An old English punk poet trying to learn Welsh. You’re welcome to come and teach me some!
 
And this is my final column before I reach what used to be retirement age. 65. I can assure you all that I shall not be retiring in any sense of the word – there is even more to get angry about now than when I was a teenager, and I shall continue writing, performing and spreading a message of socialist hope, laced with the odd knob gag, until I am physically incapable of doing so any more. Take care.

For further info please visit http://www.attilathestockbroker.com/merch.php, https://www.facebook.com/attilathestockbroker/ or Twitter: @atilatstokbroka