If Dolly Parton was the second female singer to top the US Billboard Hot 100 and the US Hot Country Singles chart with the same song, “9 to 5” in 1981, who was the first? The answer, Jeannie C.Riley with “Harper Valley PTA” in 1968, also a one hit wonder in the UK after the song reached No 12.
The story behind the song was how a widowed mother, criticised for her lifestyle and her miniskirts (!) by members of the local parent teacher association, confronted them at a PTA meeting and called each of them out for their blatant hypocrisy. That was indeed, in the singer’s words, “the day my mama socked it to the Harper Valley PTA”.
The widowed mother’s name was Mrs Johnson. By some curious coincidence 51 years later, we have a Mr Johnson – Boris, of course – under attack for his leadership of the UK and in particular his approach to Brexit. His attackers include the official and unofficial opposition, members of his own party who have recently become ex-members, the Speaker of the House of Commons, European leaders and EU functionaries. Their universal message is that Boris is wrong, in the wrong, and indeed in the wrong for being wrong. By necessary implication, they all assert that they know best and that the UK electorate would be better governed by people like them than by a Boris government. But their own track records only serve to display their hypocrisy.
Here’s how Boris might call them out, in Harper Valley PTA fashion: -
Boris Johnson was in Downing Street
And hard at work one Monday afternoon
Contemplating how the UK
Would escape the chains of Brussels really soon
When the Chief Whip came up running
In a panic that was verging on insane
For he had brought with him a message
From the forces of European Remain
“For three years we’ve been scheming hard
To overturn that referendum vote
We hoped the Chequers Plan would sabotage
The Brexit dream, and leave us free to gloat
So we’re really quite indignant
At your attitude to running the UK”
And it was signed by all the backers
Of European Union Remain
Well, Boris’s reaction
Was to commandeer the airwaves that same day
“How dare these forces of malevolence
Pour scorn upon my leadership this way
Once there’s a General Election
I will make my glorious vision really plain
And this is how I’ll take the fight
To the supporters of European Remain”
“The Referendum leaflet said that
‘We will implement what you decide’
I’m not prepared to lead a government
Proclaiming ‘we’re so sorry, but we lied’
I’m bringing optimistic purpose
That was sadly lacking in Theresa May
And that shady bunch of characters
Who call for European Remain”
“The IRA supporting Marxist can’t decide
If he’s for Leave or for Remain
And there’s that poundshop Jimmy Krankie
Who’d take Scotland for a journey down the drain
And those feeble whipless rebels
Who have authored their own unlamented fate
And that purple featured pipsqueak of a Speaker
Who’s been rigging the debates”
“Merkel’s Germany’s been swamped
By an invasion of illegal immigrants
And little Macron has the Gilets Jaunes
Rioting on the streets all over France
All the Mediterranean nations
Have a truly dreadful unemployment rate
And noble Greece has been reduced
To a pathetic and subservient vassal state”
“We see Verhofstadt, we see Barnier
The people never chose them for their roles
Just like that drunkard, Jean Claude Juncker
Who takes brandy with his breakfast, so we’re told
And then you have the nerve to tell me
As a leader you don’t think that I am fit
Well, you’re all living in Cloud Cuckoo Land
You anti-democratic hypocrites”
That was just the kind of spirit
We’ve awaited for so long in the UK
The day that Boris socked it to
The supporters of European Remain
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