Mark Thomas Presents the People's Manifesto - Mark Thomas [9]
‘Oh,’ the bankers will moan, ‘you can’t have a maximum wage. If I don’t get my bonus I won’t feel motivated enough to work.’ Most people manage to get out of bed and do a day’s work without the promise of a Learjet at the end of a year, so what makes them so fucking special? ‘We should get our bonuses,’ they reply, ‘because we are worth it,’ thus confusing want with worth and reality with L’Oréal adverts. Push them a bit further and they will say, ‘I’m only getting the market rate for the job,’ forgetting that they set the market rate.
The maximum wage rate would be set using a formula, with the most anyone could earn set at ten times the national average wage. The national average wage is about £25,000, meaning the maximum wage would be £250,000, a quarter of a million. The joy of this is that if someone at the top of the salary scale wants to pay themselves more money, they have to pay everyone else more to raise the national average wage.
11
WINDSOR TO
BE RENAMED
LOWER SLOUGH
THE ORIGINS OF this policy lie deep within the twisted hearts of the inhabitants of Windsor, some of whom took exception to the fact that the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead shares the initials for its postcode with Slough. Part of Windsor has the postcode SL6 and part of Maidenhead has the postcode SL4, the SL in both instances coming from Slough. Those who took exception decided to start a local campaign to give Windsor and Maidenhead their ‘own’ postcode, which would be WM.10
Such is the importance of a postcode that some believed the SL of Slough was lowering the tone of Windsor and possibly, horror of horrors, lowering property prices! A simple SL bringing down the price of a house – how fantastic is that! If it’s that easy let’s start putting SL on other postcodes: Ascot for starters, then Henley, Chester, St Ives and Chipping Norton. Let’s get those house prices down.
In response to the madness of snobbery, one of the good citizens of Slough decided we should change Windsor’s name entirely and replace it with Lower Slough. This policy was adopted by the diverse and overly excited audience in Slough, who cheered the result so loudly that their whoops of joy could probably be heard in Windsor, thus knocking a few more quid off the asking price.
But the success of this policy is entirely in your hands, dear reader, as a place name only really exists in the minds of those who use it. Therefore let us eradicate the name of Windsor. If you have to send a letter to that area, address it to Lower Slough. Tell American tourists visiting our shores that they really should visit Lower Slough Castle and that if the flag is flying at full mast it means Elizabeth Lower Slough is at home.
And as the famous public school Eton College occupies the area between the castle and Slough itself, technically it is in central Slough. It only seems right, therefore, to rename Eton Slough Central College. It would be worth it just to see the number of their pupils getting in to Oxford or Cambridge plummet.
As John Betjeman should have said:
Come friendly bombs fall on Windsor
It isn’t fit for nought but whingers
To rid of them we do avow
So rename it thus: Lower Slough
12
MPS SHOULD HAVE
NO JOB OTHER
THAN THAT OF MP
WHENEVER A MEMBER of Parliament is challenged on the issue of MPs having jobs outside Parliament, they throw their hands up in horror. ‘No,’ they cry, ‘if you banned politicians from outside work you would end up with professional politicians with no experience of life.’ There are few other jobs in the public sector where people are encouraged to moonlight as part of their job description. You don’t see many teachers abandoning a class to give a speech for Swiss banking conglomerates, declaring, ‘If all I did was teach you’d end up with very bland teachers.’ Or bin men leaving work halfway through a shift declaring, ‘I’ve got to write my weekly column.’
It is worth reminding ourselves