Mark Thomas Presents the People's Manifesto Read online

  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 falling under the control of its alien elements. In the last days of the pre-Hitler regime there were twenty times as many Jewish Government officials in Germany as had existed before the war. Israelites of international attachments were insinuating themselves into key positions in the German administrative machine. Three German Ministers only had direct relations with the Press, but in each case the official responsible for conveying news and interpreting policy to the public was a Jew.’

  23. Daily Mirror, 22 January 1934: ‘Timid alarmists all this week have been whimpering that the rapid growth in numbers of the British Blackshirts is preparing the way for a system of rulership by means of steel whips and concentration camps. Very few of these panic-mongers have any personal knowledge of the countries that are already under Blackshirt government. The notion that a permanent reign of terror exists there has been evolved entirely from their own morbid imaginations, fed by sensational propaganda from opponents of the party now in power. As a purely British organization, the Blackshirts will respect those principles of tolerance which are traditional in British politics. They have no prejudice either of class or race. Their recruits are drawn from all social grades and every political party. Young men may join the British Union of Fascists by writing to the Headquarters, King’s Road, Chelsea, London, S.W.’

  24. Register of Members’ Interests.

  25. Ditto.

  26. Ditto.

  27. Ditto.

  28. America.

  29. With Britain and Spain.

  30. I use the term lightly.

  31. Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Triennial Survey for 2007. www.bis.org/publ/rpfx07.htm

  32. This rate was tested in a small UK bank in conjunction with the campaigning group Stamp Out Poverty.

  33. Labour Behind the Label, Let’s Clean Up Fashion 2009 – the state of pay behind the UK high street. http://www.labour behindthelabel.org/images/pdf/letscleanupfashion2009.pdf

  34. Guardian, 17 July 2007. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/jul/18/health.medicineandhealth

  35. The company was ordered to pay £6.6 million in 2009.

  36. National Housing Federation Home Truths 2009 – South West http://www.housing.org.uk/Default.aspx?tabid=288&mid=835&ctl=Details&ArticleID=2524

  37. http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm

  38. Neil Clark, New Statesman, 2009. http://www.newstatesman.com/business/2009/11/railways-public-privatisation

  39. Neil Clark, New Statesman, November 2009. http://www.newstatesman.com/business/2009/11/railways-public-privatisation