A prized plot of land is the centre ground
Where a sizeable crop of electors is found
Fierce turf wars are waged for its title deeds
For the rights to the lease and to sowing one’s seeds
On the centre ground
The mortgage endowment for this estate
Is paid with the heart of the one you vacate
The auction price rises as bidding is brisk
Don’t keep up the payments? Your home is at risk
For the centre ground
But the centre ground is not firm under feet
It’s boggy and foggy and shrinks in the heat
It shifts and it drifts and it easily sways
The mountains each side of it steering the ways
Of the centre ground
Its buildings are made with dry straw not with bricks and
Its banksides are slipp’ry, its bedrock is quicksand
To keep up you’ll leave your ideals by the road
The deeper you’re sinking the more you’ll offload
In the centre ground
And nobody lives there especially long
They move to dry land where they feel they belong
They head for the high ground but which is their guide?
The one they can see is the one on their side
Not the centre ground
The centre is haunted, consecrated ground
Where gravestones of sad opportunists abound
The LibDems are buried here, Blairism rusts –
Don’t move to the centre: bring its nomads to us
Let us stand our ground
And win.
