The Charge of the Light Brigade was a suicidal charge by British light cavalry against Russian artillery during the Crimean War’s Battle of Balaclava in 1854. Lord Cardigan doggedly led his troops under decimating withering fire on a full frontal assault in totally the wrong direction against the mistaken guns. It was a futile action, killing & wounding hundreds of men, over a hundred prisoners taken (up to 500 horses dead); an attack which the Russian enemy had perceived as ‘drunkenness’ & the French allies as ‘madness’. Cardigan survived unscathed and claimed innocence for the disaster. The charge lasted minutes and then the remnants of the Light Brigade drifted back down the valley to the British lines.

The Charge of the Yellow Brigade has been a suicidal attempt by the British Liberal Democrats to power share with the Conservatives during a national fight to recover from a global financial crisis in 2010. MP Nick Clegg determinedly led his lightweight parliamentary troops, activists, and field supporters on utterly the wrong path, under decimating withering criticism on a road of broken promises and principles abandonment, in support of Tory ideological policies, bringing the poor of the Country to their knees with punitive legislation & excessive austerity. Hundreds of their Councilors have been lost forever & candidates’ prospects morally wounded, hundreds including activists defected to other parties (thousands of supporters finished with the party forever). The Labour enemy say they will not let them ‘off the hook’ for abandoning the poor for a place in the coalition. UKIP are overjoyed but ‘in disbelief’ that Clegg inducted them into the world of televised debates. Clegg lives on, even if injured, will not give-up the job he spilt blood for, and insists none of it is his fault. The storm will last until 2015 (5 years!) and then the runt of the collapsed Liberal Democrat Party will stagger back into the political wilderness.

Like Cardigan before, Clegg has ignored the catastrophe happening around him & behind him, and continues to lead the doomed assault against the voting public. The loss now of a dozen MEPs, and constant polling predictions for next year’s General Election of massive MPs loss, has left the party terminally sick & divided, but him personally unabashed and undaunted

[Cardigan’s and Clegg’s names will go down in history no less – and for the same reason (blind leadership of their troops into a devastating disaster). The difference though is that the ‘Poet Laureate’ will not be writing a poem to laud the courage of the LibDems!]

The Charge of the Light Brigade [Lord Tennyson Poet Laureate]

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made,
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.