Mark Thomas Presents the People's Manifesto - Mark Thomas [4]
2
SHUT DOWN
TAX HAVENS…
BOMB SWITZERLAND
IT IS IMPORTANT to bomb Switzerland if only to prove that just because you’re neutral it doesn’t mean anyone likes you. In any case, the Swiss were bankers to Nazi gold and hoarded art works, which in my book doesn’t count as ‘staying out of it’. Not so much being neutral as being service providers for fascism.
The real issue here is tax. Switzerland is one of the biggest tax havens in the world, so financially advantageous that bombing it is probably tax-deductible. You might even be eligible for a rebate. The low tax rates (and in some cases no tax rates) for businesses, added to legendary banking secrecy laws to hide behind, make tax havens the financial pirate coves for multinationals, tax dodgers and corrupt politicians. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs loses about £18.5 billion each year to offshore tax evasion, tax avoidance and corporate tax ‘efficiencies’.3
Benefit cheats cost the UK taxpayer £900 million in 2009,4 a fraction of the money lost through offshore tax havens – money that could be spent on hospitals, schools and duck houses.
Switzerland is only the start. There are 60 tax havens (or ‘secrecy jurisdictions’ as they are becoming increasingly known) around the world, and Britain has jurisdiction over or strong influence on a staggering 31 of them.
Three are British dependencies: Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man.
Seven are British Overseas Territories: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos Islands.
Twenty-one are members of the Commonwealth of Nations (formerly the British Commonwealth): Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Brunei, Cook Islands, Cyprus, Dominica, Grenada, Labuan, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Nauru, Seychelles, Singapore, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, City of London (UK), Vanuatu.
Britain could start to shut them down through diplomacy, but when did it become British policy to solve problems diplomatically when there is a chance of a fight? Bomb Switzerland and the rest will shut down automatically. What has Switzerland got that is so indispensable to the world? Fondue, luxury pralines and yodelling, that is what. If you like chocolate, cheese and shouting in gangs, you can find it at any bus stop in Croydon at 3.30 on a school day.
‘Ah,’ you may cry, ‘every country has a tourist selling point’ Indeed, and Switzerland’s is assisted suicide.
3
MODELS SHOULD
BE CHOSEN AT
RANDOM FROM THE
ELECTORAL ROLL
GET A MENTAL image of your grandfather sitting down for breakfast. The radio is on and steam gently rises from a cup of tea. In front of him is a half-eaten boiled egg and some buttered bread. He opens the morning post and as he reads his eyebrows raise until he splutters, ‘Bloody hell, I’ve got to go and model Calvin Klein pants tomorrow!’ Now imagine him standing bare-chested in baggy-fit jeans with his pants pulled right up to show the brand logo on the elasticated band. Finally imagine walking past the billboard advert of your grandad in those pants. This, then, is the full glory of this policy: the selection of models is left to chance and we end up with anyone and everyone sashaying down the catwalk in Milan and Paris.
Instead of an idealised vision of what is erotic or beautiful, airbrushed and primped by the fashion industry and supported by a modelling industry predicated upon eating disorders, we get to see our lives and bodies reflected back at us. And at that point we rewrite the rule book for what society deems to be beautiful.
This policy was chosen in London, but it harks back to another policy suggestion from an audience member in Hull. Roundly cheered when it was read out, it simply declared that ‘we should take fashion designers outside and bash them into the shape they think we’re in’. Although both policies have certain merits, the random selection of models causes designers far greater pain than mere physical violence – imagine the mental anguish of having to create haute couture at size 22.