Amnesia

This is the text for this song that was ommitted from the North American version of the "Tubthumper" CD:

A change of Government is no guarantee of getting policies which put people before profit... as proved by the British Labour Party's past record. Short-term solution, long-term procrastination.

"A dozen former ministers, from David Mellor to Douglas Hurd, have decided not to declare income from lucrative directorships in the first register of members' interests which requires MPs to disclose outside earnings. Roy Hattersley, the former Labour deputy leader, emerges as the top earner, receiving £104,300 from two contracts with the Mail on Sunday and The Guardian - in a guide to MPs' outside earnings. Others include Patrick Nicholls, Conservative MP for Teignbridge, who receives nearly £60,000 from his directorships, and Sir Dudley Smith, Conservative MP for Warwick and Leamington, who earns £45,000. Some 40 Conservative MPs and a handful of Labour MPs have not declared earnings. Journalism aside, the going rate appears to be between £15,000 and £25,000 for a banking consultancy and up to £10,000 for other work. Jack Cunningham, Labour's national heritage spokesman, earns up to £30,000 from three consultancies." --Press report, 1996

"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch" --Anon

'Michael Foot (Leader of the Opposition): "The Government must prove by deeds, not words." Edward Du Cann (Tory backbencher): "There are times in the affairs of our nation when the House should speak with a single, united voice. This is just such a time. The Leader of the Opposition spoke for us all." --Press report, April 3rd 1983, the day after the start of the Falklands War.

"I woke up at 6am and started working till 2am. I wanted everybody to do the same. I saw relaxing as a personal attack on the campaign. I started saying to people: 'You're not serious.' I started kissing babies and shaking every hand I could catch. I had no time to get stoned. I began to look at people as 'votes.' The people who were voting for me were the finest people who ever walked the earth. The people who weren't voting for me were my enemies. People were either pro-Rubin or anti-Rubin. I was never seen without my white shirt, long tie and new suit. On election night I was super confident. Then the votes started pouring in: Johnson. Rubin. Johnson. Johnson. My heart sank deeper. There was a 'Rubin' here and there but I was getting creamed. I finished second, 7385 votes, 22 per cent and won four precincts, all in the campus community. I got slaughtered in the hills and a few votes in the black community. I learned the hard way that you can't build a new community while scrounging for votes in elections. To succeed in electoral politics you must be dishonest." --Jerry Rubin, from 'Do It!'

"The punishment which the wise suffer, who refuse to take part in government, is to live under the government of worse men." --Plato

"Labour's unspoken election promise is that they can run capitalism for the rich better than the Conservatives can. New Labour portray themselves as a management team waiting to take over an ailing company. What we've got, and what we've always had, is two parties supporting the status quo. Our democracy is but a name. We vote. What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats; We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee." --Helen Keller, 1911 letter to British suffragists

"The struggles of the youth, already divided by the propagation of multi-culture, had also taken off in different directions. The trouncing the police received at the hands of the Afro-Caribbean youth at the Notting Hill Carnival (1976) had only led to a more sophisticated, mailed-fist velvet glove approach to policing. The tactic of using the media to legitimise the criminalisation of black youth, first begun under Police Commissioner Robert Mark, was continued by his successor, David McNee - only he, taking to heart his nickname 'The Hammer', now brought riot shields to the 'defence' of his force. And increasing police authoritarianism itself found legitimacy in the policies of a Labour government which, with an eye to the forthcoming elections, had begun to back-pedal on its anti-discriminatory programme (however ineffective) and rely on the forces of law and order to smother black discontent." --A. Sivanandan, Race and Class, 1985

This song always makes me think of Bowie's Young Americans where he says "Do you remember President Nixon? Do you remember the bills you have to pay? or even yesterday?"

People have to learn from history before they'll be able to change anything.

This song was done for the Liverpool Dockers (as stated in the inlay card). I think what it is actually referring to is the dockers were in the same position in the 90's as the miners were in the 80's. "out with the old, cheated by the new", the mines were closed in the UK and all jobs went abroad, same with the dockers, and also at present the same thing is happening to call centres. As for the title Amnesia, I think it's referring to the fact the new government (Labour) made promises to safeguard jobs and that they wouldn't do the same thing that the old government did (Conservative), and there they were doing exactly the same thing that the Conservatives do (so did they forget about this or did they have a sudden bout of Amnesia!)

Not much to add to the comments given already, but I particualrly like the line "Hydra fighting head to head." The suggestion as I can see it is that the various political parties, no matter how much they fight with each other, are all ultimately part of the same beast.

the b version of jumping off someone else's train