This is what I wrote on a thread devoted to MacColl's The Grocer on 24 Aug 09:~

>>>Well, Ewan would have hated Thatcher with a vehemence, & as someone remarks above he wasn't the only one. But this is an ill-natured, witless song to my mind, not worthy of the considerable poet that EM at his best could be: what kind of socialism and 'Brotherhood of Man' is it to sneer at someone because her father happened to be of petit-bourgeois origin? In my review of his 'Journeyman' autobiog for the Times [16 Mar 91], I wrote that I admired his fine Radio Ballads songs and songs of men-at-work like "Champion At Keeping 'Em Rolling", 'but wouldn't give a dime a dozen for the political songs of which, he tells us, it was his aim from the sixties to the eighties to write at least ten each month'. The song which is subject of this thread strikes me as a pretty dire example of this genre.<<<

I see no reason to depart from that opinion. But I don't expect much agreement from the ill-natured & malevolent posters above who relish the thought of people's ill-deaths. I hope they won't trouble to respond as I shan't open this thread again. I just find it too distressing.

~Michael~