Out from the crowd ...and proud!

Seeing as nobody reads the small print

The Monster Raving Loony Party is a great conversation starter. One of my friends has met one guy from the Monster Raving Loony Party many times whilst at home and decided to ask me if my local area had any representation from them. We don't and, in fact, it wasn't that long ago that I thought they were just any old crowd of complete idiots and not an actual political party with policies and candidates and all the rest.

The conversation about the Monster Raving Loony Party then led on to a conversation about how to hide anything you do not want people to find out about but still be honest and mention it. This, I thought, was a great way of sneaking really unpopular policies into election manifestos. The end result would be completely honest but would look something like:

I believe that you want more from the NHS and therefore I will stop your local hospital from closing.
We have been promised that everyone will have access to an NHS dentist time and time again by Labour but this is clearly not happening so I want to do something about it.
I believe that we need more bobbies on the beat and that policemen should not spend all their time in offices doing paperwork.
Taxes will have to rise beyond recognition to pay for my overly ambitious proposals.
We need to build more prisons rather than letting criminals back into the community where they can easily re-offend.
Every child should have access to good education.
I actually plan to spend most of the next 4 years on holiday and I don't actually care about the people on the street.
Binge drinking is a serious problem for our community today and needs to be sorted but any goals should be realistic.
I'm actually a really nice person, just in case you were interested.
- but you are all such losers and probably don't care.
People who don't vote for me should have to pay three time more tax than the sane people.
In fact, if you are all that stupid then I am going to abolish the right to vote.
I oppose the planned road pricing scheme and would replace it with something that I see as much better for the environment and also revenue neutral. I would abolish road tax and increase petrol tax to cover the cost so that you pay as you pollute.
Recycling facilities would be available to everyone.

It should be noted, however, that this is purely a hypothetical example. I do believe in some of what I have written but definitely not all of it. I am merely trying to express a point that came up in a conversation that I thought was really interesting and relevant to some of the previous posts on this blog.

If, in a hypothetical parallel universe, I decided to stand for a hypothetical parallel universe Parliament on this hypothetical manifesto then I would have every right to raise taxes beyond recognition and abolish the right to vote. Anyone who complained would get the simple response of "then why didn't you read the small print, it was all there".

If only it were that simple. But for now, I think dishonesty will continue to reign.

posted by Average guy on the street @ 12:10 am