A Fracking Cautionary Tale
The chief defect of David Howell,
As lacking Tact as Simon Cowell,
Was to suggest that fracking Shale
Would be beyond the Shocking Pale
If it took place in Kent or Hants,
As wearing, inside out, one’s Pants –
Far better Miners wrestle, late
In Areas which are ‘desolate’,
As say – it sprang to Mind at Will –
The North-East. Where else would you drill
Than Places filled with savage Types
Gone down the Tubes and Drains and Pipes?
Where primitives with giant Leeks
Do not possess ornate Antiques,
But wander, jobless, hopeless cases,
With windblown, wrecked and pockmarked Faces?
If somewhere is a sheer Disaster,
With slums like Bamburgh, dives like Craster,
What better way to salvage Fuel
Than Places far beyond renewal?
It soon turned out – what swift Mistakes! –
That where he’d meant was ‘in The Lakes’,
A place so vile and off the Map,
That Life was crackle, pop and snap,
Where Mountains, Lakes and B’n’Bs
Would bring the Country to its Knees:
So with his Remedy brought forth,
He’d damned on both sides all the North,
And with his loose and thoughtless Mouth
Defended where he lived: the South,
Where Fracking would be, God forbid,
The kind of thing that Satan did.
Lord Howell, swapping West for East,
Betrayed he was that awful Beast,
The kind of Chap whose Brain’s been pilfered
By living as the Lord of Guilford,
Who does not think his Northern Pals
Are more than stray Neanderthals –
Where all are ready by Design
For any kind of Shallow Mine
And who with brains of Ox or Ass
Are best placed to provide the Gas
With which his Castle may grow hot.
The North was thus a perfect Spot.
*
Howell’s son-in-law, by the way,
Whose feet were made of selfsame Clay,
Was Minister of money’s Mecca,
The Chancellor of our Exchequer.
When Wifey’s Dad is so bizarre,
It tells you where the Rulers are.
When George and David were next together
In Northern England, how the Weather
Came down with Lightning and with Thunder!
It burned them both to crisps. No Wonder –
And all because this Howell (Lord)
Thought that the Pennines were Abroad.
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