Rhetoric, Spin and Bluff

Rhetoric, spin and bluff
The stock-in-trade of politicians
Do they really think we will be convinced
By their spurious arguments, distorted statistics
And biodegradable promises of utopia?

It doesn’t seem to matter whether their
Pronouncements are made during the hustings
At the Party Conference, or in a duel on TV
With arrogant political journalists
Determined to draw blood

Why cannot political animals
Ever depart from the Party line?
Are they standing on the brink of deselection
If they were to concede any good in the opposition
Turn their back on received dogma

As Maggie said U turn if you like
“The lady is not for turning”
Thus setting the standard of orthodoxy
Intransigence the greatest virtue
Open mindedness mere surrender

But sometimes ‘events’ are overwhelming
U turns become the necessary fashion
Even di rigueur in times of crisis
And then rhetoric, spin and bluff
Employed in instant justification

Perhaps this sophistry is not
The sole province of parliamentarians
Preachers too, when cornered by the awkward question
Quickly resort to formulaic responses
To justify God’s unexplained absence!

And maybe we are all just the same
We use rhetoric to pump up modest achievements
Spin to explain why you must buy the latest toy or gizmo
And bluff, disguising a brand of white lies
When we are really strangers to the truth

Ken Fisher