Mark Thomas Presents the People's Manifesto - Mark Thomas [15]
Nor does this policy allow us to nominate countries we would like to invade. France, for example, has nothing to fear from this policy. The referendum applies to circumstances where a build-up of hostilities has been taking place over a period of time or where the international community28 decide we need to act aggressively together.29
War by its very nature results in people getting killed (indeed any war without death is essentially the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme with alcohol) but those who lead us to war are the last to face the consequences of it. A member of one audience suggested we should develop an MPs’ battalion, so as soon as they vote for war they are the first wave to be sent in – though looking at the state of our politicians this is not so much a military attack as a sacrificial offering. Atheists can regard it as giving the enemy a head start.
The decision to go to war is too important to leave to politicians, so it should be put to a referendum and voted on by the people whose children, relatives and friends will be the ones fighting the war.
In 2000 the Electoral Commission was tasked with conducting referendums and although they have not been run off their feet in that time, they are more than ready to hold a national vote should the prospect of invading a country and waging an illegal war based on false evidence and at the whim of the most detested president in US history ever present itself again.
24
THE PRIME MINISTER
SHALL BE LIMITED TO
TWO TERMS OF OFFICE
FOUR WORDS SUM up the argument for limiting a Prime Minister to two terms of office: Gordon Brown John Major. Had Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair been limited to two terms of office then neither would have resigned mid-way through their third term. Both Brown and Major (initially) had their Prime Ministerial career foisted upon us unelected. They were not the first: Jim Callaghan became PM when Harold Wilson resigned in 1976, giving us three unelected PMs in the course of 31 years. An average of one a decade is pretty undemocratic for the mother of all Parliaments.
Other reasons for limiting the PM to two terms of office:
1. It stops them becoming too powerful and stops us becoming too familiar with them. When they are familiar, we get lazy as an electorate and start voting on personality rather than policy.
2. The job of Prime Minister is simply too difficult to do well for more than two terms. It requires total concentration for every single waking minute. For proof, look at the state of them when they leave. Thatcher quoted Francis of Assisi going into Number 10 and dribbled on the way out. Blair entered looking youthful and full of hope and left looking like he was part of a hostage release programme having spent five years chained to a radiator.
3. They all go a bit mad after two terms. What did Tony Blair do for relaxation when he retired? He tried to restart the Middle East peace process.
4. If rotation is good enough for vegetables, it is good enough for politicians.
25
THERE SHOULD BE
AN AGE OF CONSENT
FOR RELIGION
ALL RELIGIONS ARE essentially cults with varying degrees of historical peer approval – the Church of England has Henry VIII, Catholics have St Augustine and the Scientologists have Tom Cruise. You can dress religious brainwashing up as spirituality or culture but it is still brainwashing. OK, it can teach you how to look alert when terminally bored and how to be thinking one thing and chanting another, both invaluable skills for a career in market research. But ultimately brainwashing by a cult is unacceptable as it can lead to a Channel 4 documentary.
If adults want to believe that the world was made in a celestial microwave powered by a divine space acorn, they have the right to do so. If they want to worship the acorn, pray to it and wear a golden acorn around their necks, that too is fine. But