Their manners are polite-bemused,
Their instincts shy and thrifty.
They talk the way the monarch used
In circa 1950.
They still say “golly”, “gosh”, and “crumbs”;
They suffer with their tummies,
And as the nation loves its mums,
They love their ageing mummies.
They have front gardens (grass, not rocks)
And if there’s a garage
It (like the car) no longer locks,
But rhymes with (um) Farage.
Their children, Imogen and Ned,
Are raising free-range crickets.
From piles of books, by every bed,
Droop ancient concert tickets.
They’d rather use a fountain pen.
Their clothes are sound but wilty.
They give to charities and then
Feel variously guilty.
They hate to break the smallest rules:
Tax-dodges really shock them;
They fret about their children’s schools –
For which the papers mock them.
They’re poorer than their parents were.
Their houses are in pieces;
But every year, as all concur,
Their poshery increases!
They see the joke. They do their best.
They only swear in traffic.
And yet there is, of all the rest,
No other demographic
That both the Right and Left belittle thus.
These are my people. I am proud of us.