PERHAPS the most flabbergasting example of the current turbulence happened last Monday.

Mid-morning came the sad announcement of the cancellation of Rebellion this year from its organisers. The biggest and best punk festival in the world, it happens at the Blackpool Winter Gardens at the beginning of August annually.

Showing exemplary collective responsibility,  self-denial and discipline, the serried ranks of the international  punk community  applauded the inevitable decision to cancel in order to protect the aged, the vulnerable and those with underlying health conditions.

That describes some of the festival-goers themselves these days — there are now three generations of us. We look after our own and we do our best to look after everyone else. As is right and proper. Punks care.

Later the same day, the Tory government made an utterly irresponsible and anarchistic announcement encouraging people to go back to work. It was confusing, contradictory and muddled but the underlying message was clear.  

Not everyone needs to go back to work — just  poor people who make money for rich people. The latter can go back to the golf courses  and the tennis courts. Observing social distancing, obviously.

Soon, inevitably,  there were pictures of crowded tube trains and buses and a maelstrom of recrimination from the medical profession as stockbrokers and CEOs partied in celebration, anticipating the stream of surplus value which would once more be heading their way.

Their wells of human compassion were pretty, pretty vacant and they didn’t care — soon they’d have complete control.  Right-wing libertarians toasted Anarchy in the UK with a rousing chorus of God Save The Queen. Never mind the bollocks, here’s the profits. Cash from Chaos.

There can only be one answer to this. Oh Bondage – Up Yours. It is the responsibility of Starmer and the trade union movement to oppose this development. No return to work until it is safe to do so.

If the kids are united, we will never be divided and if you want to listen to my seven-minute Facebook Live broadcast on this issue you can find it at https://www.facebook.com/attilathestockbroker/videos/3245154982202455/

Writing, broadcasting and inviting donations for our local food bank and community support group, I'm even busier now than before the lockdown. So far, I've raised over £2,500, and thank you so much to all who have contributed.

And, if there is one advantage to transferring everything online, it is that the world is your oyster. Last Monday I guested at a spoken-word event in Portland in the US and the week before in Boston.

My old 1980s ranting poetry friend David Eggleton from Auckland, now Poet Laureate of New Zealand, will feature in the online version of my Glastonwick Festival on June 6 and I'm currently sending out more invitations to friends I’ve met in my global travels to do the same.

Last Wednesday I guested at a fund-raiser  in Manchester, Thursday I did a show for Safe and Equal, the new trade-union sponsored initiative in London, and on Saturday I’m in Winchester, doing a gig in aid of a homeless shelter in Canterbury — all these on other people’s channels.

On Monday, I’m doing my Early Music Show on mine, featuring crumhorn, cornamuse, bombarde, rauschpfeife, mandocello and more, with songs about the English Revolution of 1649.

All, of course, from my poster-spattered office on the Sussex coast and all details are at facebook.com/attilathestockbroker

I’ll leave you with the poem I wrote in response to Johnson’s ridiculous new slogan. The video version is the title picture at the Facebook page above.

Stay Alert

Stay alert!
It’s huge and fat.
It’s got a flick-knife
and baseball bat.
Stay alert.
Like a pink thistle.
An album cover
By Throbbing Gristle…
Stay alert.
It’s got a willy.
Waves it around.
Looks bloody silly…
But don’t be fooled.
Those pink spikes hurt!
So keep your eyes peeled
And stay alert!