Do you remember the fifth of November, dears? It was just last week. Guy Fawkes Day. When all good republicans, tyrant-trashers, and other subversives recall the sad end of a hero of their faith. “Remember, remember, the fifth of November/Gunpowder, treason, and plot… There’s no good reason, the fifth of November/Should ever be forgot!!” (That’s how the ditty goes… but only some remember. Most of us have chosen to forget; because loyalty to royalty and doing the piously right thing by the religious right-wing are both in vogue these days…)

Guy Fawkes must be celebrated, in my opinion, because he was a unique conspirator against a corrupt and perverted crown. Not one to conceal his identity or his intentions, Guido – as he styled himself when he supported and fought on behalf of Catholic Spain against the Protestant Dutch – wore his heart on his mask. His vision was an England for the English and not the Scots; the restoration of a monarch loyal to the one true faith – as he saw it; and a resort to dire means to meet a dark end because of desperate times. Not very surprising that following his celebrated attempt to blow up the British Parliament in 1605, Guy Fawkes has been touted as the last man to enter the House of Commons with clear intent. And in any day and age where honesty, integrity, and transparency are virtues honoured more in the breach than the observance, Guido the bold must continue to be toasted – even if his perpetual fate is to be roasted in effigy all over the town…

That brings me neatly to another man who recently blew up a quite different parliament – with explosive words, rather than gunpowder. No doubt his detractors will call it “treason” and label it a part of the great “plot” to destabilise the monarchy, er, I mean the Machinery of our Republic. Do you remember the tenth of October, dears? It was only a month ago today. 

Maybe, already, some of us are in danger of forgetting the volatile speech by that firebrand opposition member of parliament. Maybe, no sooner were his incendiary words uttered, many – if not most – of us would have safely and cravenly chosen to forget. Maybe, to his danger or discomfort, a few may “remember, remember, the tenth of October”: garrulousness, reason, and quite a lot of loose talk…

Permit me to recap the salient points, O republicans good and true… and may the arsonists among you hold your fire… or fall silent – as did our outspoken House-exploder’s heckling opponents when they first sniffed the odour of cordite in the air. Here goes then.

Charges placed by our angry young MP before that august assembly for its deliberation and consideration included: a culture of impunity for cronies but punishment for dissenters and critics of the regime, political favouritism contra the national interest, big deal scams benefiting unnamed shadowy figures in high places, lost opportunities to develop local enterprises for the sake of dubious and vastly more costly foreign investment, loans at commercial rates for ill-thought-out development, waste of national assets for want of transparency and accountability. Choleric sentiments expressed used words like rob, rape, steal, pilfer, plunder.

In the light of these allegations and accusations – or revelations about the reality of the republic, take your pick – one of several things should have happened. Either the members of this House should have resigned en masse and retired to take a running jump for shame into a convenient nearby lake… Or our very own Guy Fawkes would have been hanged, drawn, and quartered (to say nothing of being made a bonfire of?)! In the time since the ‘explosure’ (I coined a word there, dears: “explosive exposure”), however, the only thing that could have happened in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land has in fact happened. Which is to say, nothing. Some gunpowder plots, for all their sound and fury, are still only damp squibs signifying nothing.

The Monarchical Reign is still on its throne. The royals still rule the roost and the royalists rule the House. Good and true republicans are blue in the face – as a result, equally, of their efforts at ‘explosure’ and their frustration and ‘flailure’ (“flailing failure”). And both sides of the House continue to sit as if they had never heard of gunpowder, treason, and plot… or graft, cover-up season, and widespread rot! A penny for the brave Guy! A plague on both loyalist-royalists and apathetic opposition members, dears. And don’t forget to remember not to hold your breath while you wait for the republican fuse to catch, the democratic keg to blow up, and our mono-partisan House to come down in a heap of contrite ashes and dust…