AN OPEN LETTER TO TESSA JOWELL

“Tessa Jowell, the beleagured culture secretary, is expected to learn her fate tomorrow after an inquiry to establish whether she breached the ministerial code by failing to reveal some of her family’s business dealings.” The Guardian, 1/3/06

Dear Culture Minister, divine Tessa Jowell
I await with interest an earnest avowal
of financial transparency backed up with proof.
Or for your career to go quietly poof.

It may be judgemental to assume that your spouse
brokered shifty deals to pay for your house
but I can’t help feeling that a friend of Berlusconi
could be anything other than shady and phony.

Just remember, dear Tessa, minister for culture
that it’s far from polite to swoop like a vulture
on vast piles of cash and then make up stories.
You know what such antics did to the Tories.

It would be lovely to think that you and Mr Mills
are honest and true and won’t run for the hills
(taking the cash that you’ve carefully accreted
in offshore accounts so the taxman is cheated)

and will live cheek by jowl in public life
without further recourse to financial strife.
I just hope Tony Blair doesn’t offer support;
you know if he does you’ll end up in court

or you’ll be sacked in less than a week,
quickly learning that earnings must not be oblique.
It’s time to stand up, have your finances scoured –
a measure of honesty will leave you empowered.

Dear Culture Minister, divine Tessa Jowell,
it might well be simpler to just throw in the towel.