Villainy today is a multi-million-pound racket – everybody’s at it
so Cruella needs a new persona to make herself a packet.
She turns her attention to a new ambition –
building a portfolio for the thoroughly modern villain
with 21st century hopes and aspirations,
she’ll be a wicked role model, an evil inspiration.
But then of course, you’ve guessed it – the name’s not cool.
Too obvious, she purrs, too boring, too old-school.
She strokes her chin in villain style, her villain’s brain cells whirl and wheel.
She tries a few new names that have the right sort of feel –
Anthrax, Rubella, Flagella, Salmonella.
Then – I have it, she screeches, I’ll call myself SUella.
She gets a job, Home Secretary, the perfect cover story.
Hiding in plain sight as a right-wing hardline Tory
Eradicate Asylum Seekers – it’s the perfect way to start,
style over substance, the way to win the voters’ hearts.
My dream to see those planes take off, she cackles like a witch,
Can’t wait to watch them disappear – I’m such an awesome bitch.
But then she has another thought – why bother to delay
when we can send The Navy out to turn them all away?
What’s a few drowned families or missing children
between adoring followers and a world-beating villain?
Next those hobos and druggies making bad lifestyle choices.
So unsightly my dears. What’s wrong with cardboard boxes?
It’s more than good enough for those destitute tossers,
and if they cut up rough, then I’ll simply send in the rozzers.
Her next clever move is to sack her loyal sidekicks,
Jasper and Horace, those bumbling useless dipsticks,
And it doesn’t take long for her to find a new associate.
His name is Tommy Robinson – he’s got a gang of vicious mates.
She whispers in their ears a song of racism, hate,
rewrites a few annoying laws so we can’t demonstrate,
can’t carry banners, can’t chant slogans, can’t shout,
can’t support any of the causes she doesn’t care about.
Cruella/Suella smiles her best villain smile,
already she’s come up with some fantastic villain wiles.
And the best bit is, you fuckwits haven’t realised,
that I’m a bone fide devil in a brand-new disguise.
I can’t wait to find out what a monster I CAN be –
just wait till I’m Prime Minister, then — YOU’LL SEE.
Liz McPherson
Cartoon Peter Brookes
Liz McPherson has been horse-riding in the Mongolian desert and motorcycling in Morocco but tends to stick more to poetry these days, which is not necessarily a safer pursuit but definitely a less sandy one. Liz’s work is in Dreamcatcher, The High Window, Obsessed with Pipework, Culture Matters, Dreich, and other print and online poetry zines.
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