Socialist Sonnet No. 235: Reformation (2026)

 From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Reformation

Maintaining ‘Socialism’ as watchword

Can seem unlikely, when realpolitik

Is succumbing to the three card trick

Of the slight of hand dealer in absurd

Demagogy, when the popular vote

Is placed on populist blandishments,

Falsified promises; reason relents

Its influence. Without considered thought

Reform, however tempting it appears,

Remains a mistaken gamble to make,

Especially with the future as the stake:

Gamblers regret can last for years and years.

There’s none as asleep as the mistaken,

Being so, so difficult to awaken.

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 234: Patriotic States of Mind (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Patriotic States of Mind

Problem is not simply Zionism:

Nation states however constituted

Are, by definition, ill-reputed,

The foundation of discord and schism.

Meanwhile, picking on one to vilify

And then promoting another to toast

Is to risk taking route to holocaust,

In which not only the selected die.

Power may grow from the barrel of the gun,

But justice doesn’t, nor finds solutions,

As conflict grows from national illusions:

Poll the too many dead as to who’s won.

Patriotism might motivate crowds,

While patriotic flags turn into shrouds.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 230: Malevolence (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Malevolence

                                              

By what malevolent mechanism

Does someone become so self-promoting

As to seduce voters into voting

In favour of division and schism?

For all such Herodians, innocence

Of those being killed and buried in their homes

Is easily dismissed. Victory forms

Its own rationale, though it makes nonsense

Of any claims to civilisation,

Which surely should be a society

Of the commonweal, where people are free

From obligation to any nation

And its capital. Power’s the sly drug

That so intoxicates the demagogue.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 229: Whither the Commonweal (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Whither the Commonweal

Beyond flame, smoke and rhetoric of war,

Muffling hearing and dimming the vision

Of spectators lost to indecision,

Is there some greater purpose anymore?

Nothing’s resolved by strike and counter strike,

Disputation of sovereignty and borders,

The commonplace of following orders,

Whether with bow and axe, musket and pike,

Missile and drone, always the casualty

Is humanity. Victory or defeat

Figure in columns on the balance sheet

While profit’s the deciding reality.

There can be no leaders without the led

If they but choose the commonweal instead.

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 228: Conflicted (2026)

  From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Conflicted

Infallible leader! The Commander

In Chief, fashioning and refashioning

The earth moment by moment to bring

It into line with his propaganda.

Bothered neither by doubt or modesty,

He’s a political Janus who says

What he sees myopically looking both ways

At once: the world as he wants it to be.

He will make America great again

Through the power of his personality:

A few thousand deaths, mere banality.

First tariffs followed by missiles; but then

A new policy when the old won’t abide,

When share prices fall and markets decide.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 227: Telling Lies (2026)

   From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Telling Lies

 Listen! ‘Tell me lies about Vietnam’*

And Suez, Korea, Afghanistan,

Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran…

War’s the very worst deliberate scam,

Always a gross act of misdirection,

By which the misdirected lend consent

To their leaders’ malevolent intent:

All, of course, for the good of the nation.

What does victory look like? Much the same

As defeat! Inspired by cupidity,

Or even hubristic stupidity.

To the Lords of Misrule it’s still the Great Game.

The news will be encouraging no doubt;

Appear bare-faced, ‘tell me lies about…’*

D.A.

*From: 'To Whom It May Concern'

             Adrian Mitchell (1968)    

Socialist Sonnet No. 226: Spectacular Stories (2026)

   From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Spectacular Stories

Headlines were about a sex marketeer,

Spiced with possible royal relations,

The media was alive with sensations.

Until the tale changed and it became clear

The Commander in Chief had his eagle eye

On Greenland; cue a sharp change to the script.

How easily sovereignty can be stripped

Away, without a by your leave or why.

But, then on to the next cause, the next plan,

Kidnap an inconvenient head of state.

Yet hardly had he succumbed to his fate

When the world’s focus was moved to Iran.

Not letting news settle on a topic,

Spectacles might make people myopic.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 225: Collateral Damage (2026)

    From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Collateral Damage

The primary target has been destroyed,

By a surgical strike designed to leave

Blasted and charred ruins for those who grieve

To pick through, for all who couldn’t avoid

Being reduced to statistics, a body count

On the evening news. Strategy is clear,

It’s the brutal diplomacy of fear,

Leaving far too few remains to amount

To complete human beings. There is concern,

International stock markets are falling,

With speculation, futures are stalling:

How many losses before fortunes turn?

The enemy is easily identified,

Being those barbarians on the other side.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 219: Security (2026)

    From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Security

 

More guns, bigger bombs, longer range missiles,

Thicker armour, smarter drones, firm allies,

Control of the land, the oceans, the skies,

Compliant nation of bellumophiles,

A leader blessed with infallibility,

Martialled prelates to assure the laity

That they have conscripted the deity;

Add political instability.

Meanwhile the bottom-liners try to gauge

Where the rarest rare earth minerals lie,

The cost/benefit of those who will die

And the profits to be made from carnage.

Behind rhetoric, where’s the surety?

Only real change can secure security.

 D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 218: These Old Men (2026)

    From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

 

These Old Men

 

Such are the old men. It is their thinking,

Not accumulated years, make them so,

These holders of office, presidents who

Have become too addicted to drinking

The elixir of power, or theocrats,

Even now, claiming divine appointment

For what is really their corrupt intent,

Reacting violently to perceived plots

In any opposition. Whether god

Or Mammon is promoted or cited

Is of no relevance to those slaughtered,

Supposedly for the national good.

There’s no proper accounting because

Theirs’s is the profit, the people the loss.

D. A.  

World Socialist Radio - Abolish the Wages System (2025)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Abolish The Wages System: Why We Need To Get Rid Of Capitalism by The Socialist Party of Great Britain

This episode is a recording of a talk given by Johnny Mercer at The Socialist Party’s Head Office on 30th November 2025.

The speaker outlines the Socialist Party of Great Britain’s case for abolishing the wage system, arguing that capitalism is rooted in minority ownership of the means of production and in production for profit rather than human need. They reject the idea that capitalism emerged naturally, instead tracing its origins to violent dispossession – from the Enclosures and Highland Clearances in Britain to slavery and colonialism globally – which created a propertyless working class forced to sell its labour. Drawing on Marx, the talk emphasises the exploitative and alienating nature of wage labour, detailing how workers are separated from the products of their work, the labour process, each other, nature, and ultimately their own human potential. Capitalism’s pursuit of endless growth is linked to ecological destruction, and global conflict is framed as competition between capitalist interests fought at the expense of the working class.

The second half outlines the principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, founded in 1904 as a breakaway from reformist movements and committed to a leaderless, democratic, revolutionary transformation. The speaker defines socialism as a stateless, moneyless society based on common ownership and production for need, stressing that emancipation must be won consciously by the working class itself. They argue that all other political parties – including those considered left-wing – ultimately support capitalism, offering only reforms rather than systemic change. The talk concludes by urging workers to unite under the SPGB’s banner to replace capitalism’s inequalities with a society grounded in freedom, equality, and genuine human solidarity.

World Socialist Radio is the official podcast of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. We have one single aim: the establishment of a society in which all productive resources – land, water, factories, transport, etc. – are taken into common ownership, and in which the sole motive for production is the fulfilment of human needs and wants.

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To read more news, views, and analysis please visit: worldsocialism.org/spgb

Socialist Sonnet No. 215: Bloody Bondi (2025)

   From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Bloody Bondi

There’s blood in the sand, sharks circle offshore.

An unridden surf is still surging in

Under an ascendant unflinching sun,

Rapacious gulls hover and dive and soar.

Beach bags wouldn’t have been packed with bandages,

Flip flops and sun block, but no tourniquets.

A day for standing down and being at ease

With the world awhile, away from its rages.

Folk gathered comfortably together,

Sharing a common weal for a few hours,

Unaware agents of much darker powers

Were preparing for a change in the weather.

How the day started! How the day finished!

With humanity, once more, diminished.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 214: Your Party – Not Mine (2025)

   From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Your Party – Not Mine

 Is it time a new party was founded?

Sure, the old one’s comprehensively failed,

The locomotive of Labour derailed.

It seems hope is once again unbounded,

As so often before, another red flag

To be run up the polls and kept flying.

Then come the splits, the schisms, the dying,

Such a weight of expectation to drag

Down the vision that was always myopic.

The old nostrums and canards trotted out,

Members who cannot debate, only shout:

Who is going to vote for the shambolic?

This challenge to capitalism’s resolved,

With, at no point, socialism involved.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 212: COP . . . out (2025)

   From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

COP…out

Assemble fifty thousand delegates,

From around the world. Ask what the price is,

When considering the climate crisis,

Of convening fourteen days of debates.

Then there’s the press corps and TV news,

Social media that requires broad banding,

The wining, the dining, the glad handing:

A towering Babel of discrepant views.

Far, far too many are still enraptured

With fossil fuels and profits they’re making.

For all the hot air there’s no mistaking

That not a gram of carbon is captured

After the fortnight, despite pressing need.

Just lots of motions with nothing agreed.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 211: No . . . (2025)

   From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

No . . .

‘No Irish, no Blacks, no Dogs’, set in quotes

From a world and a time long gone, or so

It might be presumed, or should it now go

None of those arriving in rubber boats?

Ballistics do not respect borders,

As poverty pays no heed to flags flown,

Changing climate means sea levels have grown

Dangerously high; by such disorders

People, not migrants, are forced to retreat,

To abandon homes, to cross stormy seas

Hoping for better, but no guarantees,

Somewhere fairness is the common conceit.

Meanwhile, politicians are none too slow

At taking advantage of saying, ‘NO!’

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 210: 11.11.11 (2025)

   From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

11.11.11

 

Cataracts of poppies pour into parks

And public spaces. The not forgetting

Has become a theatrical setting

Where the performance of remembrance lurks.

Pieties are preached, lone bagpipes skirled,

The Last Post bugled, cadets paraded.

All observe silence, even the jaded

Are restrained from pointing out how the world

Hasn’t seen war ended, despite the fallen;

Age didn’t wither them, but machine guns did.

National capitals continue to collide,

Yet, should the ranks of workers think again,

Then they might transcend borders that divide

And spurn futility of national pride.

 

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 209: Halloween (2025)

  From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Halloween

Halloween marks the way to the season

Of remembrance: let the dead be recalled

To mark how too frequently peace has stalled,

For which there’s one fundamental reason,

The persistence of capital in its

Voracious pursuit of profit, heedless

Of the inhuman cost, of the needless

Near countless lives lost. The market sits

In impersonal judgement as to where lies,

Not a moral, but the fiscal value,

Wherever barbarism’s breaking through,

No matter which blood drenched flag it flies.

Leaving the haunted, those who always lose,

To appear almost live on rolling news.

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 208: Your Party . . . Not Mine (2025)

  From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Your Party…Not Mine

 On a gloomy Autumnal Saturday,

The red revolution in its latest

Incarnation, trying its very best

To look credible, made its ponderous way

To the bandstand in a Huddersfield park.

Bearing aloft flimsy flags and placards

Proclaiming this new party, hopeful words

Unable to dispel what is the stark

Reality, Lenin’s inheritors

Still misrepresenting socialism,

Soon to be riven by split and schism,

Another grouplet the voter ignores.

But, even if they don’t suffer that fate,

At best they’ll move capital to the state.

D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 207: Shouting Down (2025)

  From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Shouting Down

 

Clamorous cacophony of discontent:

Public outrage finds some collective voice,

Finds its feet, finds its demagogic choice

Of blame bearer, but then does not relent

To draw breath, reflect, perhaps consider

How another view might well be taken,

One more profound, one that might awaken

Perception, challenge the highest bidder

For visceral thought to think again

About those parties who’re in contention,

Laying claim to popular dissension,

Offering their quack final solution.

While anger and shouting are in season,

They’re muting the measured voice of reason.

 D. A.

Socialist Sonnet No. 206: Wading Through the Motions (2025)

 From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Wading Through the Motions

The great, the good, the faithful, gathering

In conference halls, to bask in oration,

Of how they’re going to save the nation

Via three or four days of blathering,

As well as much waving of flags of course:

They will have the answers, once they find them.

Now all their past mistakes are behind them,

Not that they have any cause for remorse.

Immigration? Free Trade or Protection?

All the threadbare old arguments elide

As markets, not politicians, decide,

No matter who might win an election.

Leaders speak! Delegates go home again,

While ills of capitalism remain.

 

D. A.