The Right To Reply

The house looks for an answer to end all the violence

The ungovernable finally break silence

There's endless white papers and new institutions

That still won't stop us, it's no solution

The right and the left wing continue to bore

With pre dated policies all heard before

This is mankind now see how mankind kills

Now we are hitting back hard and you see how it feels

They preach and teach examinational tests

So, the political privileged can order the rest

Of the young parasites who live in a world without hope

To get back in line, and stay there, then assure us they will cope

In the new violent Britain, they pledge to invest

In skills and communities with renewed interest

To build schools of education, not colleges of crime

A manifesto so perfectly timed

Providing help for the helpless, their new commissions strive

For a stable reeducated society by 1995

Meanwhile, we fight on in desperation still trying to break through

Their barriers of insanity and even now they know it's true

That to eradicate violence effectively, injustice has to unfold

But, instead they choose to compensate, to lie and then collaborate

No interest in any true debate, their courts set up the offender's fate

The new secure units for the old custodial sentence

Well we have listened to you for long enough, taken all your threats and you ain't so tough

You intimidate then punish the persistent hard core offender

You condemn more and understand less; so you will get no apologies ever

In an atmosphere of moral panic, you blame us for fighting back

But it's us that has been dragged through your streets backwards, battered shell shocked and attacked

The pressure's building on law and order, but we ain't even started

They may think that they have been tested, but no way, for we still stand divided

More and more, we're turning against our own, how come? How have we forgot?

That this is the one thing they want us to do, to compensate for the freedom we ain't got

Some mug old folk and these are scum

It's the one main thing that just isn't done

We can deal perfectly with our own problems

By taking the law into our hands

We can protect our own, young, the weak and elderly

And therefore smash their callous plans

I shall not work to build my death, nor have decisions made by fools for my or your behalf

As though I can't see or hear that which surrounds me

As though I'm quite content with all that, disgusts me

I will not build for another's gain, although it always ends up the same

It's as though I can't see or hear, as though I'm content, with everything that disgusts me

How can they talk about low life, whilst they're destroying the earth?

How can they take away someone's freedom, when they don't know what it's worth?

To the people with feelings, to those not totally succeeding

Those, shattered, torn, ripped right in half, and whose broken hearts are bleeding

Yet still they bash and batter, to them, mad onslaught does not matter

They create society's whitewashed picture that everything is alright

Then when people voice opinion and object, they show disgust,

confusion and then demonstrate their might

Don't you dare think for a moment, that it's only in a riot that we show we are discontent?

It is with every so-called criminal act that we demonstrate our contempt

You shove your outstanding promises, your respect; I only have respect for life

That you destroy time and time again, then dismiss in your stride

I'm still hoping for the hopeless and making excuses for the lawless