“The Leader Has My Full Support”

The Words of Doom

No party leader wants to hear
such words that ever bring great fear,
far worse than “guilty” in a court—
“the leader has my full support.”

No matter how the polls might fall
there’s always hope that, after all,
some issue might reverse the trend,
internal opposition end,
and popularity might soar
unto the heights they’d been before.
For Beasley, Latham, then for Rudd
the words, in turn, that froze their blood
and made their visages distort?
“the leader has my full support.”

Now Gillard daily reads the news
that, deep within the party, views
are these:  she’s past it, looking wan,
completely ruined, done-for, gone;
the party she “put on its tracks”
is ruined by a stupid tax.
So now she’s bunkered, feeling low,
reflecting things can hardly go
much worse than this, when comes a thought
of how her leader’s end was brought,
and how she’d guaranteed to all
she’d not effect her leader’s fall;
is Senator Arbib the sort
who’d plot behind her back? in short,
was he like her?  She hears, in dread,
the reportage of what he said;
her shoulders hunch, her eyes contort—
“the leader has my full support.”