Some days he scours the Channel in his boat,

binoculars scanning for hapless migrants

in leaking dinghies; or sits atop

Dover’s white cliffs, keeping sentry

on Britain’s behalf; or barges into

budget hotels, hunting down those

who have evaded his dragnet;

or wipes away the occasional

milkshake, like seagull poo, that has

landed as if from the sky on his jacket.

 

Back then he had tottered, shaken,

lucky to be alive, no laughing matter,

from a light aircraft on election day,

the lead item on the first edition story.

By the end of a night when

a divided country had failed

to make up its mind his fall to earth

had been relegated to the last paragraph,

already forgotten, a footnote in history.

Or so it seemed. These days his face,

 

contorted with fury or snarling laughter,

is everywhere; smirking invader

of our democracy, stirring up

the worst of us with lies and hate,

the man of the people with his pint

of flat beer and friends in the City,

infiltrator disguised as Home Guard,  

rabble rouser making mugs of us all.

Yes, he’s still a fruitcake: but laughing

at such figures is often a mistake.