SUGGESTED POLICIES
To paraphrase delicately, “To heck with them if they can’t take a joke.”
LOCAL (Torbay) POLICIES
(TO BE ANNOUNCED)
DOMESTIC POLICIES
NEW POLICY! It’s bad enough that the British reputation has gone from one of world-changing innovation and influence to us being a bunch of drunken football hooligans at Dubya’s beck and call, and afraid of our own hoodie-clad kids. But when 390,000 people put “Jedi” down on the census, making us the first nation to have that considered an “official religion,” that took our global laughing-stock stature to new lows. By hook or by crook, but most probably by appeals to what little patriotism we’re allowed and crafty legislation, I intend to eliminate the Jedi Order. Well, what do you expect from someone who takes the title Darth? And, no, the irony is not lost on me. That’s part of the fun.
NEW POLICY! All right, if you city-folk insist on meddling with our rural affairs, we’re going to start passing laws on how you go about your corporate mergers, outsourcing of jobs, parking charges, congestion taxes, smoking in pubs, and what you’re allowed to do for entertainment.
Sell the Millennium Dome and Millennium Bridge to a rich American, to go with London Bridge. Use the money to help the homeless.
All schools should endeavour to teach children to speak with a BBC standard accent. All parents should endeavour to teach their children to speak in their own regional dialect. How the children choose to speak on their own should reflect one of these two modes of instruction. This is part of a concerted effort to wipe out the hybrid Neighbours/EastEnders accent people pick up off soap operas which makes Americans think we’re all Australian. Remember: “no” has only one syllable, not four.
Until BSE and foot-and-mouth problems can be resolved once and for all (hem-hem, fire the people they’ve got in charge of rural affairs now, hem-hem), ostrich and emu farming will be implemented. Such large, flightless birds provide delicious, low-fat red meat, soft leather and feathers, do not get foot-and-mouth or BSE, and can easily kick the heads off any interfering DEFRA agents that come snooping around.
A new tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products (except stop-smoking products) will be levied to contribute to Morris Dance Preservation Societies.
Gemini FM will be required BY LAW to play more than the same twelve songs they play over and over and over all day.
And, in a whole policy to itself, there’ll be a damn sight fewer city-folk moving into second homes out in the countryside. Anyone wishing to buy a second home in the country will have to pay twice the actual asking price. And for those of you who already have second homes in the country, driving up the market prices and keeping local folk off the property ladder in their own area -- let’s just say that if you can afford double the number of houses as most others, you can afford double council tax on the second home.
With the hunting of foxes banned, new niches must be found for ex-fox hunters. Considering how introduced, exotic, or feral animals are causing more havoc than wild foxes, this should not pose too much of an obstacle. For example, since grey squirrels, introduced from North America, are pushing out the native red squirrel, it is only proper that grey squirrels should be hunted to preserve our indigenous fauna. This would only require the minor re-training of the hunting hounds, and the use of small-calibre air-guns (for when the hounds fail to capture the squirrels)*. And from my stay in the United States, I have been informed that grey squirrels are good eating, too. If the anti-grey squirrel campaign seems to work, more plans will be forthcoming to help our dwindling British wildlife.
* Take this to mean what you will. Either for shooting the grey squirrels when they are treed, or for shooting the hounds for failing to capture a squirrel, depending on your temperament. Personally, I’d choose the former.
Should ex-hunters require more in the way of blood-sport, they could always take up Pokémon. Any parents claiming not to understand this phenomenon, the explanation is forthcoming. Pokémon is a video game where the players go around collecting small, cute wild animals, then making them battle to the death for fun and profit. It’s cockfighting for kids, in other words. That wasn’t so hard to understand, now, was it?
. . . Or they could go after the badgers spreading Bovine TB. Not all badgers, mind you, just the ones on affected farms. And I’m sure many farmers would agree with Raul Hernandez’s assertion from the movie UHF: “Badgers? Badgers?! WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ BADGERS!” Well, not the tuberculosis-carrying ones, certainly.
The second week of July will be declared “National Andean Music Appreciation Week.”
The national measurement system will revert to Imperial / Avoirdupois. Metric will take second place, used only for the benefit of foreigners who don’t know any better. This reversion will also make it easier to trade with the United States, which, ironically, is the last true bastion of the Imperial system, and a staunch opponent of metrication.
To get even with Mel Gibson and Hollywood, one government-sponsored program will be to make a feature-length movie about the Vietnam War which shows the Yanks (or to be more specific, one particular legion of them) to be utter arseholes.
Send football hooligans to fight wars instead of the military. We seem to have far more football hooligans than military personnel, and they seem far more destructive than their fatigue-clad countrymen. We should, however, keep the military in reserve and fighting-fit, should the unthinkable happen and the football hooligans actually fail to utterly destroy the adversary.
Considering how crowded this island is getting, and how difficult it is to find decent jobs, the government will give tax breaks to single women over the age of 16 and couples who REFRAIN from having children to make up for those who have four or five children. This way, within a generation, there should (I hope) be enough housing and employment for everyone. There will be no penalties for having more than two children, since if you have more than two children, you’ve got enough to worry about to begin with.
It will be legal for celebrities to hunt paparazzi with tranquillizer rifles and claim their cameras as trophies. Note to celebrities: tranquillizer rifles ONLY, and no fair aiming for anything above the neck, tempting as it may be.
To prevent any further unnecessary cruelty to animals (culling grey squirrels is necessary), all future medical testing will be done on extremist Animal Rights activists; the ones who preach about the sanctity of all life, then threaten to kill specific scientists and investors. PEACEFUL Animal Rights activists will be left to protest in peace.
Genetically engineer a new type of predator that will attack and devour anyone riding on those stupid little silver scooters, anyone riding their bicycles on the pavement, or anyone smoking or using their mobile phone offensively in an enclosed public place.
All models whose weight is below what it should be will be fed red meat, potatoes, cider, and chocolate until they are deemed “healthy.” By which, I mean “actually having curves.”
I feel that people would be a lot more relaxed, nicer, and friendlier if relaxation massage were incorporated into daily routines.
IMPERIAL POLICY
All former colonies, at the request of their populace, may be reclaimed and governed until such time as they are fit to rule themselves once more. For example, any former African colony where the people are starving and ill and the government uses foreign aid money to buy themselves brand new cars and armies of thugs to brutalise anyone who disagrees with them will have a Colonial Governor installed. The Colonial Governor will be in charge of distribution of foreign aid, and organizing a general election to get the colony back onto its feet and independent as soon as possible. The United States comes under its own special category (see Foreign Policy).
International Talk Like A Pirate Day will be strictly enforced. Me buckos.
FOREIGN POLICY
I would like to make it a goal that within twenty years, there should be gorilla ambassadors to the UN. Whales (this includes dolphins), orang-utans, chimpanzees, and elephants may be brought in at a later date, should this plan prove successful. To get things rolling, I would like to suggest Koko from The Gorilla Foundation and her translator, Dr. Francine “Penny” Patterson.
For every demand Europe makes in regard to Britain’s agriculture, such as “Stop making cheese,” “Stop growing apples,” “Stop growing sugar beets,” and “Stop producing black pudding,” the standard response will be a Bronx cheer and the V-sign while business continues as usual.
The United States of America, should Dubya “Pull a Palpatine” and decide his regime should stay enthroned “under Emergency Powers until the end of the crisis for a safe and secure society,” will acquire fifty Colonial Governors until the next fair election can be held, or such time as the populace can prove responsible. (Honestly, most of the people don’t vote, yet they still complain about the results which they could have influenced, but couldn’t have been bothered.) I myself will volunteer to be Colonial Governor of Ohio, since I lived there for 24 years, and know what needs to be done there. Volunteers for the other states will be asked to submit their applications via e-mail. So far, we have had the following come forward:
Alabama: 144b
Alaska: Fhyndoh
California: Li’l Amish Boy
Florida: Sarah Jane Howitt
Hawaii: Boodle
Massachusetts: Dark Oracle
New Jersey: Nel B
New York: Presbyopia Calabash
Ohio: Darth Bargepole
Las Vegas (Mayor): Donna Vittoria “The Diva” Miocore
A trilateral trade agreement between Britain, The United States, and Guatemala will be established to share the best each of these nations have to offer with the others, and financial benefits will be reaped by all. Such items include:
U.K.
Ribena
Hoover appliances
Cadbury’s chocolate
bacon and sausages (for all their marvellous accomplishments, the Yanks still haven’t gotten the hang of bacon)
U.S.A.
Ziploc bags
dryer sheets
American refrigerators (can’t get enough of ’em)
Reese’s peanut butter cups and related Reese’s products
edible pizza (sweetcorn and baked beans are not tolerable, Britain!)
U.S. Grade-A beef (aged black angus for preference)
Guatemala
cocoa
coffee
rum
fresh fruit
clothing at a FAIR exchange rate
A percentage of the revenue generated would be added to foreign aid funds. Should this arrangement prove fruitful, other nations would be brought in to benefit.
The U.S. national anthem will change from “The Star Spangled Banner,” which has some tricky notes in it, as well as a bunch of words that many people can’t remember anyway (When was the last time anybody singing it at a televised ballgame got it right?), to the Team America: World Police theme song, “America! F***, Yeah!” The notes are easier to hit, the words easier to remember, and the sentiment pretty much being exactly how most Americans think, anyway. Trust me. I lived there for almost a quarter-century. And since I moved out of the U.S.A. in 2000, it’s gotten even moreso.
Peace talks and negotiations would go all the more smoothly and end in cordial international relations all around if they were conducted whilst the participants were receiving relaxation massage.
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES
NEW POLICY! Oh, sure. People talk about saving the trees and reducing carbon footprints, and all that, but look how many pointless glossy magazines are out there now. Why, the worthless gossipy women’s rags alone are enough to account for Sherwood Forest! I believe it should be mandated to have all these magazines online, available by subscription or pay-by-the-issue basis, with the ability to download, bookmark, or otherwise archive your favourite articles and images to allow you keep them for all time. Exclusive video and audio content for these online mags should help to push people in this slightly greener direction.
Ms. Sarah Jane Howitt wrote to a politician who is a trained biologist, with an interest in conservation, and who has actually been to Florida and a number of its national parks (in other words, me) about the plight of the Florida manatees. Her letter, which can be seen HERE, speaks for itself.
This is indeed a problem that needs to be addressed and acted upon. However, the problem is not so much the declining manatee, which is just a symptom of the real problem, namely the overpopulating human. For some reason, U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials just don’t want to hear about culling the local human population to restore the proper ecological balance. (Heck, if they just took out all those drug-runners in speedboats, it’d help measurably.) Perhaps an annual 20% High-Speed Jerk Tax on the net worth of all engine-powered pleasure craft of marine speed-freaks could be funnelled into a conservation fund. After all, if they can afford speedboats and jetskis, they can afford to contribute to the preservation of the marine proboscideans they keep running over.
SUGGESTIONS
UPDATE!
In response to my ostrich and emu farming policy, Greggyeggy wrote: “Fantastic policy for Stoke-on-Trent with the ostrich farming. Think of the plate size for ‘a leg and chips’ and what this will do for the ceramics industry. If each plate was 6 feet long the pubs could be bigger and eventually we would be a pub-only country. We would have to rip up roads to fit the pubs in. I am on your side, buddy.” Well, quite. And perhaps with so many pubs around, they’d be forced to lower their prices for competition reasons. Then, you’d be able to go for a night out with the gang without bankrupting yourself. Not that I’m bitter. Or even lager. Moving on . . . .
Presbyopia Calabash, the volunteer Colonial Governor of New York, has also requested a return to the Old Pound, including the use of guineas and shillings. The Black Knight seconds this idea. We have spoken. Now let it be law.
Ms. Sarah Jane Howitt also writes: “Llamas, as far as I can tell from the bumf from the llama people, don’t get BSE, (Maybe CJD but as no-one has a clue whether humans get that or not, I think its probably safe) and due to a hatred of most other animals foot and mouth seems unlikely, they are nice, woolly, not too fatty and a bit fussy about what they eat anyway, so they are unlikely to eat anything GM or chicken-fed! Also, yaks are great, you can milk them and their meat has barely any fat.” Aside from being a good idea for diversified animal farming, the suggestion about llama-raising from Ms. Howitt also ties in beautifully with my National Andean Music Appreciation Week (see Domestic Policies, above), so I simply had to include this suggestion.
Fhyndoh suggests: All “Spell Checker” and “Grammar Checker” software avaliable in the United Kingdom should conform to the content of the Oxford English Dictionary, or other internationally recognised English dictionary. The current ones speak only a peculiar dialect known as “American.” (Bargepole’s Aside: And whoever wrote those software suites certainly wasn’t even an etymologist, grammarian, or philologist of the American dialect, either.)
Fhyndoh also suggests: For historical accuracy, the Commonwealth and Great Britain should be coloured pink again on all maps . . . just to remind ourselves just how much of the world we used to keep to the (relatively) straight and narrow.
If anyone has other good ideas, I’d like to hear them. Kindly use the e-mail link below. Should an idea be particularly noteworthy, or just plain brilliant, it will be used on this page, and you will receive credit for your idea.
web-surfers are now probably either mystified or outright confused.
