|
A belated nod to New Labour's
committment to British socialism. Recent reports show that child
and pensioner poverty are both rising, along with inequality
and social mobility, after eleven years of New Labour. The S-word
is so seldom used these days as to be archaic, but romantic old-timers
and whiskery Trots can still recall heady days where talk of
state ownership and redistribution were the norm, in the cold
church halls and smelly pubs of urban revolt. This is a slightly
disrespectful version of a detail from Constable's
"Cenotaph to the Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds"
which can be seen in it's full glory in the National Gallery.
In the original, busts of Raphael and Michelangelo provide comfort
to Reynolds's cenotaph, while a stag adds a certain natural majesty.
In this version, a bust of Kier Hardie is less than impressed
as the stag (once upon a time the beautiful "Bambi")
has been a Very Naughty Boy, leaving his mark in the glade in
his own particular way. A small Brown Bear follows in his wake,
happy to roll around in the "legacy". |
