Continued…As a social democrat I recognise this is a fundamentally Tory government and will continue to oppose a marketised NHS and argue for different social priorities.
Nevertheless I will seek to hold this government to pursuing as its first priority the Brexit agenda. Namely, taking back control of our country, binding together the four nations that make up the UK, reversing the inequalities that broadly exist between London and the rest of England and developing a foreign and defence policy that is more outward looking to the whole world.
In writing this statement, two poems sprang to Lord Owen’s mind:
Extract from Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound:
….To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love and bear, to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change nor falter, nor repent;…
And also The Dawn Wind commonly referred to as New Dawn, by Rudyard Kipling. (click here)
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_dawnwind.htm
The first and other favourites chosen by Lord Owen can be found in his book Seven Ages: Poetry for a Lifetime which can be printed on demand by Anthony Rowe (see book section for more details).