New Statesman: Clerihews
 

The present competition (Number 4140) is for clerihews featuring any active politician, home grown or foreign. Maximum ten per compeitor to comp@newstatesman.co.uk by 19thb August.

Well, I thought of one in the car. Needs a bit of polishing perhaps?

If Boris
Had been christened Maurice
Would he still bestride London like a Colossus,
Or be just one of those ordinary Old Etonian tossus?

Question - which American politicians have the Brits at the Staggers heard of. Obama and the divine Sarah, I should say. And which Aussies - Rudd, the Welsh lady and the Liberal in the speedos, Tony Adams is it?

nothing personal but...
 

I can't get enthused about clerihews. They're too much like verse for people who can't scan. So the deviant form is the basic joke, & the content often not v. witty, reliant on bathos or whimsy. Better Ogden Nash if that's the name of the game.

Better Ogden in any case. Nevertheless...

George Osborne
Was born
Filthy rich. Wallpaper is
What done the biz.

I agree with Bazza. I do like Auden's take on Blake from Academic Graffiti although it's one of the few good clerihews in the collection:

William Blake
Found Newton hard to take
And was not enormously taken
With Francis Bacon.

That's from memory so maybe the punctuation is wrong. Anyway, the "active" politician part really limits it, I think.

oh well
 

Michael Gove
Is an odd-looking cove,
Curiously thin
With an underdeveloped chin

Teresa May
Is quite glam in her way.
Her shoes
Are news.

Michael Gove
Strove
In vain to get our schools
To turn out fewer bloody fools.

[Unfair characterization deleted--someone found it offensive, and on second thought it wasn't all that funny, anyway.]

John!

Tony Abbott
looks like a skinned rabbit,
and why he lets himself be photographed in speedos
only He knows!

Julia Gillard
stuck a knife in Rudd, hard,
and Kevin’s lost his gall bladder.
She’s gladder, he’s sadder.

OR

Julia Gillard
stuck a knife in Rudd, hard,
now Kevin's lost his gall
bladder and all.

Ah, we're getting into the swing of it. I agree about the Abbott speedos. A Labour minister in the last government had himself photographed in his Y fronts! And he was a minister of religion - until he came out as a gay.

Offensive? Well, I wouldn't ofend the Governator myself, but offending is part of the name of the game. If I offend this fellow I shall be very pleased. Of course I have to win and he has to read the Staggers.

Ed Balls
Crawls
Like a snake in the grass
To bite the middle class.

Oh, I wasn't worried about offending Schwarzenegger, but being unfunny is unforgivable. Perhaps I'll try again and stay away from the hot-button issues.

Sarah H. Palin
felt she could not fail in
her political run
as a scattergun.

Sarah H. Palin
found the oil shale in
her state, and rejoices
now in Rolls Royces.

Sarah H. Palin
shot herself in the tail in
her infamous Twitter
saying she was no quitter.

And you are allowed seven more. Though they don't ALL have to be about Ms Palin.

Christmas at the Palins' a pain.
Noel spells "no ell". It's so plain
Their Yuletidish goose is ramshackle moose
Happy Trigger Tracked in from campaign.

Since the deadline, dear John,
was the sine qua non
I'll write no more stanzas
for this set of bonanzas.

Your friend, T. Coe
(And p.s. below:
the verses were naught
but an afterthought)

Terese Coe
said, 'I'll have a go.
It's long past the deadline
But what the hell, I'm not on the breadline.'

LOL ++++++++

(count 'em, 11 strokes)