TUC Conference: Tony Blair's verse for the TUC

The Prime Minister surprised delegates yesterday by beginning his speech with a poem, closing with a reference to Ken Cameron, leader of the Fire Brigades Union:

Every year, this time of year I come to the TUC,

And every year the press report, There'll be a row between you

and me.

They say I'll come and beat a drum, Unleash the annual cry,

`Change your ways, clean up your act, Modernise or die'.

Well modernised you have, I say, New Labour, new unions too, Both for the future, not the past, For the many not the few.

So the link between us changes, You've changed and so have we, You're welcome now in No 10, but no beer today, just tea.

And amid the change there's bound to be, A call for the link to end,

What staggers me is the call should come, From the left-wing

firebrand Ken.