WHO LEVIES THE LEVIER?

The cash for peerages scandal paralysing Labour moved perilously close to Tony Blair’s door when the Metropolitan police recently arrested Lord Levy, Mr Blair’s personal party fundraiser, Middle East envoy and tennis partner.

What is it wriggling at the heart of the rose
that with a gardener’s fingers the police seek to expose?
Is it a mask or a devil or simply a worm?
What is it that makes the Prime Minister squirm
like a schoolboy in love as his aides are arrested?
Has he something to hide or has he just not digested
the scale of the problem that’s eating politics away?
When will he stand up and at last have his say?
He said on election “we must be whiter than white”.
He’s achieved that now, purely from fright.
Too long at the coalface of leadership and power
has undermined Labour and turned politics as sour
as it was when the Tories collapsed so completely
under the weight of brown envelopes. Now, depressingly neatly
the worm’s turned full circle and stopped off for some cash
to buy a place in the Lords. But it’s really quite rash
to be levying funds to maintain position
Such behaviour only levies a war of attrition
which we’re seeing every day when we open the papers
(if we’re not being distracted by celebrity capers)
and the weight of the law will come down on the levier
If he’s found corrupt, it will get heavier and heavier
The red rose has turned white as if dipped in bleach.
At the heart of the rose there must wriggle a leech.