Oh no! Sinister forces are at work: the government has suppressed a report into Russian interference in elections; the major parties and political figures are in hock to international spivs and gangsters. If only someone had written a poem about eight years ago predicting all this and read it out in public at every opportunity and, like, everybody had listened. Oh well. Never mind.

Oligarch in Speedos
 
On a mega-yacht, no less, brandishing
an innuendoed Möet overflow,
bronzed, with trouty-pouting babes-a-go-go.
Oh, copper-bellied kleptocratic king,
pray budgie-smugly flaunt your bling-a-ling
to advertise what everybody knows, 
you crass comb-over Russo-mafioso,
which is, restraint and taste are not your thing
 
but, grudgingly, we have to give full marks for
the way you reify consumption, greed,
and keep the groveling poor down on their knees.
Yes, you’re the sort of immigrant we need,
so why not help yourself to half of Berkshire 
and annex sodding Knightsbridge, won’t you, please.
 

from Avanti! (Red Squirrel Press, 2018)