Mark Thomas Presents the People's Manifesto - Mark Thomas [2]
The word ‘fuck’ should be included in the automatic text/dictionary on mobile phones.
Ban golf umbrellas in cities.
Some of the policies fixated on celebrities, and although I am sure Jeremy Clarkson doesn’t care what my audiences think of him, he should worry just a little bit in case any of them actually try and enact their suggestions. Each night produced a handful of what became known as ‘celebrity death suggestions’ but my favourite concerned Noel Edmonds. It simply read:
Noel Edmonds should be publicly beheaded and his severed head placed in one of 22 sealed red boxes.
Unsurprisingly many policies reflected public anger at bankers and MPs, but 4x4 drivers featured a lot too:
4x4 drivers should be forced to drive everywhere off-road, even to Sainsbury’s.
4x4 drivers should be forced to drive their vehicle sitting on the roof in a deckchair with a long steering column.
Anyone with a 4x4 in a city must also volunteer for the nearest mountain rescue service.
As did the Olympics:
To save money and the environment, instead of the Olympics being held in one country, people could run around in circles in their own country at the same time.
The Olympics are too costly and will really cripple our economy for little return. Why not give them to the French?
As we are paying for them, any British citizen should be eligible to enter any of the Olympic events.
Every night there would be ideas that genuinely took me, and most of the audience, by surprise. One chap in Leicester wrote:
Everything in supermarkets should be stacked in alphabetical order.
Pondering a world where Hovis would be found next to Hobnobs or coffee next to cotton wool, I congratulated this chap, saying that I thought his policy was very funny. He fixed me firmly with a glare and said, ‘It’s not funny, it’s serious. I can’t find anything.’
Not all the policies voted through were ones I agreed with, and some nights I found myself at odds with the proposers and indeed the audience. In Darlington the policy that won that evening was: ‘Institute the Sky test on benefit claimants, so if you suck on the teat of Murdoch, no benefits for you.’ Basically, if you are unemployed and have Sky, you get your benefits cut. I said to the chap who proposed it, ‘You can’t tell people on the dole what to do with their dole money.’ ‘I work in the benefits office,’ he replied, ‘and I can tell you now that a basic Murdoch Sky package is about £4 a week. Jobseeker’s Allowance is £64.30. So if you are unemployed and have Sky, that is a subsidy of the Murdoch empire from the taxpayer via the unemployed at a rate of over 6 per cent of their benefit a week.’ Staggered by his precision, I replied, ‘Well, I still don’t think you should tell people how to spend their dole money.’ ‘But,’ he said with a grin, ‘if you campaign on this and are even halfway successful, you will force the Sun to run a counter-campaign arguing for the right of the unemployed to sit on their arses and watch telly.’ And I have to admit, that nearly won me over.
The audience was the ultimate jury for the ideas and shows often became rowdy affairs; good points would see the crowd cheer and clap, while other times audience members argued with each other and once or twice I had to break it up. The rules were created as we went along, but audiences roughly voted for ideas on wit, ingenuity and appropriateness (though not in that order). In London one chap suggested:
We should abolish all criminal laws in this country and replace them with two offences.
1) Being out of order
2) Being bang out of order
This received the best reaction to a policy all night – the audience clapped loudly and indeed he had to take a bow – but his policy did not win the vote. Neither did the man in Hemel Hempstead who got a great reaction to:
All cash point machines should have a GAMBLE button, so if we can’t get enough out we still have a chance of affording what we want.
What I loved was that audiences could be discussing something quite serious one minute and talking