Mark Thomas Presents the People's Manifesto - Mark Thomas [19]
Either way it is bunkum. Simon Singh, a journalist who has written extensively on New Age quackery, says, ‘There have been more than 200 trials investigating homoeopathy and the overall result is that its remedies are utterly bogus.’
This policy, that those who peddle homeopathic remedies should only receive homeopathic medicines when they have a major illness, takes the homeopaths’ dictum at face value. If ‘like cures like’ then those that live by the water memory die by the water memory.
This would help weed out those homeopaths with the odd trace of self-doubt, and when the remaining peddlers get a major illness, a quick and painful demise is pretty much guaranteed. On the upside, we can dilute their remains and sell the memory water as a cure for ignorance. It is what they would have wanted.
36
CEOS AND BOARD
MEMBERS OF ANY
COMPANY CONVICTED
OF FRAUD SHOULD BE
FORCED TO DRESS AS
PIRATES IN WHATEVER JOB
THEY GET IN
THE FUTURE
BRITAIN IS A newcomer to fighting corruption and bribery – after all, it only became illegal in 2002. It would have been made illegal earlier but someone paid a bung to keep it off the statute books and they were perfectly within their legal rights to do so. (Oh, all right, I’m making that bit up, though the 2002 bit is true.)
The first major company to be convicted under the new law were Mabey and Johnson, the Reading-based bridge-building firm, after they admitted bribing officials in Jamaica and Ghana and breaking UN sanctions in Iraq.35
David Mabey, the CEO of Mabey and Johnson at the time, resigned from the board in 2008, but under this policy he would have to dress as a pirate should he wish to re-enter the world of remunerated employment. And properly like a pirate with a big pirate hat, a sash cummerbund thingy and a cutlass. He would also be forced to talk like a pirate. So if his new job was as a receptionist he would have to growl down the headset, ‘Will you wait a minute while a salty sea dog like meself be putting you on hold.’
These pirate urchins would be able to wear normal clothes when not working, unless there was a business cross-over. For example, the Mabey group of companies made regular donations to the local Tory Party in Wokingham; were David Mabey to attend Tory Party functions, the financial cross-over between his former business and the Tories would require him to wear his pirate daywear. Indeed, at Party Conference time, it’s easy to suppose that business receptions would look like a Johnny Depp looka-like contest.
This policy forces us to take white-collar crime seriously, rather than excusing it as the price of doing business. My personal favourite is the prospect of the BAE Systems AGM commencing as the board take their places on the podium to the sound of wooden legs echoing around the room, followed by the mass squawking of a flock of parrots.
37
ANYONE WHO BUYS
A SECOND HOME IN
SOMERSET MUST BUY
A HOME OF EQUAL
WORTH AND GIVE IT
TO SOMEONE WHO
ACTUALLY LIVES IN
SOMERSET
AMENDMENT 1. THIS HOME WILL
BE BUILT UPON A GOLF COURSE
THE BRITISH COUNTRYSIDE is a thing of genuine and rare beauty, unfortunately ruined by the people who live there – or at least the people who drive there on a Friday night. The countryside of a weekend is essentially the City of London in green wellingtons, full of vile twats in cords who have come down to get the Range Rover muddy, walk the labradors and talk about boarding schools for their children. The type of people you hope are shot first in a hostage situation.
This policy was elected in Taunton but a very similar one was chosen in Exeter, probably because the southwest of England has suffered disproportionately at the hands of the City bonus and rich London knobs forcing up house prices beyond the reach of those