by Jim Grundy
If you can keep your job when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men hate you,
But make allowance for their loathing too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
And being a liar, don’t deal in ‘whys’,
Or being hated, don’t give way to baiting,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make principles your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the shite you’ve spoken
Exposed by knaves as a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you sold your soul for, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one referendum for an alternative vote,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word of anything of note;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve yourself long after the voters are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hang on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep a straight face,
Or walk with Tories — having lost the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can stand you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving electorate
With sixty seconds’ worth of coverage in the Sun,
Yours is the Coalition (or the fag end of it),
And—which is more—you’ll be a Clegg, my son!
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