4 OCTOBER 2003, Page 38

A lot to ask

From Michael Bright Sir: 1 would like the Conservative party conference to bring back Mr Nasty. I would like to hear that the burden of tax is to be reduced to 35 per cent of the national cake; immigration and asylum to be frozen pending a proper manpower plan; the NHS to be privatised; grammar schools, polytechnics and apprenticeships to be re-invented; academic elitism to be restored; council tax to be abolished; the euro to be ruled out sine die; any Euro constitution to be subjected to retrospective referendum and withdrawal failing a 66 per cent majority for it; public-sector jobs to be cut back to the numbers in 1997 and the pay bill to be axed to 1997 plus RPI since; regional assemblies to be dropped; the House of Lords to be composed 50/50 of working hereditaries and elected cross-benchers; capital punishment to be restored for the most heinous crimes and corporal punishment in schools for persistently evil children; homosexual kissing on TV to be banned; voluntary euthanasia to be legalised; the Americans to be avoided until they rejoin the real world; a proper freedom of information Act to be passed; and the MOD to be investigated for institutional mendacity. And, oh yes, hellfire to be preached every day on Thought for the Day.

Michael Bright

Oxford