Charles Clarke’s Ark

Home Secretary Charles Clarke resisted calls today to update Parliament urgently on efforts to track down more than 1,000 wrongly-released foreign criminals. The Home Office said he would give only a progress report “by the end of the week”.

Charles Clarke, Charles Clarke, no bite just bark,
would have failed to count animals into Noah’s Ark.

He’d have then bedded jackals down with deer
let lambs lie with lions in a state of fear

and roasted dodos for every sailor.
It’s safe to say that he’s not a great gaoler.

If Noah had ever asked for a progress report
it would have taken Charles weeks to squeeze out a retort

whilst the foxes ate the chickens and the rabbits as well
and the world’s ecology went rapidly to hell

in a frenzy of fangs, fur, blood and claws
Then, puzzled and defensive, he’d have asked for a pause

as he considered how he could make things right,
whilst tigers made emus wish they’d learnt flight.

Noah, as a boss, would have surely used his rank
to force Charles Clarke to walk the plank.