Mark Thomas Presents the People's Manifesto - Mark Thomas [21]
Splintering the network has made our railways the most expensive in Europe. The reason for overcrowding is economic. Privatisation separated the rolling stock (carriages) from the train operators, so the train operator now has to lease the carriages; they make more money by renting fewer carriages and cramming us into smaller spaces. Conditions are so cramped that veal calves are protesting on our behalf.
And we heavily subsidise the only privatised national railway in Europe. For example, Virgin Trains received £294.6m to run the West Coast mainline.39 Giving Richard Branson a single pound coin in the street under any circumstances is wrong; giving him £294.6m to run a railway line is utter insanity.
GIVE US BACK OUR RAILWAYS, YOU LIARS.
(Or do I have to keep shouting at loudspeakers?)
40
GOATS ARE TO BE
RELEASED ON TO THE
FLOOR OF THE HOUSE
OF COMMONS (NO
MORE THAN FOUR);
MPS ARE FORBIDDEN
FROM REFERRING
TO THEM EVER
IHAVE NO idea why this got voted through, nor what its purpose is, but as an act of surrealist sabotage it has a certain odd appeal.
NOTES
1. Blue is the correct answer.
2. ‘Making London Safer’, page 30, Boris Johnson, 2008.
3. http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2009/02/01/tax-havens-cost-the-uk-185-billion-a-year/
4. Department of Work and Pensions. http://campaigns.dwp.gov.uk/campaigns/benefit-thieves/
5. Patricia Hewitt – Register of Members’ Interests, Nov 2009 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/091111/091111.pdf
6. DMGT Half Yearly Report, page 35, point 23. http:// www.dmgt.co.uk/mediacentre/newsreleases/20090521/5833/
7. http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Pensionsandretirement planning/StatePension/Basicstatepension/DG_10014671
8. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jun/18/rbssir-fred-goodwin-pension
9. See Policy 2 for remedy on this problem.
10. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/windsor-wants-its-own-postcode-ndash-not-sloughs-773870.html
11. Register of Members’ Interests. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/091111/091111.pdf
12. Theyworkforyou http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/ann_widdecombe/maidstone_and_the_weald
13. Register of Members’ Interests. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/091111/091111.pdf
14. Theyworkforyou http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/george_galloway/bethnal_green_and_bow
15. Register of Members’ Interests. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/091111/091111.pdf
16. Theyworkforyou http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/alan_milburn/darlington
17. Offences Against the Person Act Section 59. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/RevisedStatutes/Acts/ukpga/1861/cukpga_18610100_en_3#;pb7-l1g52
18. Interview with MT.
19. http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/publications/Safe-and-Unsafe-Abortion.pdf
20. The figure of 27 hours was calculated using data-free analysis and para-factual science imaging.
21. The research that led to this conclusion was based on singular objective result-led projections.
22. Daily Mail, 10 July 1933: ‘I urge all British young men and women to study closely the progress of the Nazi regime in Germany. They must not be misled by the misrepresentations of its opponents. The most spiteful detractors of the Nazis are to be found in precisely the same sections of the British public and press as are most vehement in their praises of the Soviet regime in Russia. They have started a clamorous campaign of denunciation against what they call “Nazi atrocities” which, as anyone who visits Germany quickly discovers for himself, consist merely of a few isolated acts of violence such as are inevitable among a nation half as big again as ours, but which have been generalized, multiplied and exaggerated to give the impression that Nazi rule is a bloodthirsty tyranny. The German nation, moreover, was rapidly