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Your support makes all the difference.Tony Blair vowed this week to launch a new moral crusade for the young. His ministers, meanwhile, promise to clamp down on 'workshy' youngsters, in a move which will deprive 'persistent refuseniks' of their benefits for up to six months
At the break of a burnished autumn
When the shadows lay long on the land
Came a knight on a knackered old destrier
With an often-used lance in his hand
But the knight was as fresh as alfresco
With a tan from the Tuscany hills
And a pledge in his heart for his people
To vanquish society's ills.
Or this was the gist of the pledge
which he made.
As he rode his high horse on the
moral crusade.
Now it happened to pass in this kingdom
That its striplings and maidens ran wild
For the striplings were idle, un-lettered,
And the maidens were heavy with child.
And it bothered the knight and his household
That these loafers weren't pulling their weight
And the drain on the kingdom's gold coffers
Had grown correspondingly great.
So the crusading knight set about them
With the sword of St. Nanny Knows Best
And a method for getting them moving
Which he'd cribbed from the King of the West
Until all of the striplings were settled
With a call-centre job and degree,
Or else fannying around with computers
While concocting some spurious CV.
And no one got fat on the wages
they paid
Though that's not the point with a
moral crusade.
From the burger-flip mum in the precinct
To the three-year-old scrawling his name
The flag of Sir Android de Workfayre
Flapped over the kingdom the same
And except for some homeless refuseniks
Oh... and actually, quite a few more.
The farrago continued as usual
In much the same way as before.
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