The People’s Manifesto

Scanning the newspapers while queuing up in Waitrose (and I have heard all the ‘middle class’ jokes thank-you-very-much) election fever has gripped the partisan press who are nailing their political colours to the party political masts. The Daily Mail and Express banging on about their favourite subject ….immigration… usual reactionary crap. Guardian, bless ‘em, going on about who will profit when the Tories slash the NHS and everything else that isn’t nailed down…. But my favourite is the ever clever witty Sun (my keyboard drenched in sarcasm) with the line, ‘Brown a Clown’… Well, if Brown is a ‘clown’ then what’s Cameron?

Gazing at the headlines the media and politicians are so desperate to grab the populist soundbites and it brought last night’s ‘People’s Manifesto’ presented by Mark Thomas at the National Theatre into focus. The audience wrote down on pieces of paper what policies they would like to see; some were from the sublime to the ridiculous and the disturbed (one person wrote: ‘not enough police on the streets and I passed so many iffy looking people…’ Not sure if they were being satirical or….serious!)

Some of my favourite policies that didn’t get the audience vote (Shame!!):

Chris Grayling forced to open a B&B in Blackpool greeting guests singing Shirley Bassey songs.

There were policies which seem to expose just how vivid, violent and sadistic fantasies the audience have….involving bankers. This was possibly a more sedate policy:

Bankers should be forced to parade themselves in the streets while the public chuck flour and water at them.

Other favourites included, There should be only two criminal offences; being out of order and the more serious offence of being bang out of order.

The national anthem should be changed to the Dr Who theme.

Mark Thomas included some of his own such as ‘Invade Jersey’….because it is a tax haven. And if it doesn’t get support then there’s the back-up plan of a dodgy dossier (WMDs are a dead cert in Jersey) and ‘Ooo, oil has just be discovered there’! Other policies ….Maximum Wage (and good to see Mark mention the book The Spirit Level), scrap Nom-Dom status, a three day weekend.

The policies were reduced to 10 where a candidate, Danny Kushlick, has been selected to stand in Bristol West based on the policies below:

• Drugs will be legalised and their production will be nationalised (and Mark Thomas will become Drug Tsar)
• If it pisses down with rain on a Bank Holiday, it will be considered a rollover.
• Trident will be scrapped.
• Newspaper retractions will be printed in the same font and on the same page as the offending article.
• A cap will be on house prices, relative to the average wage in the area and more council houses will be built in these areas.
• People who complain that there are too many immigrants will be banned from restaurants serving anything other than Britain food.
• The railways will be renationalised.
• The introduction of a ‘maximum wage’.
• The introduction of a Tobin tax on all currency transactions.
• All ministers will have had experience of their ministry prior to taking office.

Last night was about ridding politics of the sound bites and populism. Kushlick made a good point about how politicians play to the right-wing populist media especially on an issue like illegal drugs, how panic and fear blows everything completely out of proportion and a desperation to show how ‘ard they are by criminalisation. Last night was about the reality of politics and the pragmatism and importance of policies, and that the truth becomes funny when we are fed so many lies day after day….

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