RULE CHANGES

Familiar ground rules alter
And familiar laws grow strange,
A sad world's soon sent spinning
Down dark, ringing grooves of change.

Now '45's sound judgements
Are unlikely to be heard;
Our leader's turned the tables,
Peaceful concert seems absurd.

The bottom line is shifting
And old ideals disappear;
Old allies wear false faces -
Check the ones they wore last year.

The Yanks are in the money
And a nation's fallen down;
The wells of truth are empty,
There's no honour left in town.

The manifestos yellow
In the life we used to haunt
And we've no one left to follow
Though we still know what we want.

We fear our bloody futures,
Dread regimes they'll yet arrange,
As the world is hurled on spinning
'Neath Blair's grinding mills of change.

                    (Apologies to Fran Landesman - and to Tennyson)