Conference Blues

Judging by this evening's first edition of the Sappington Bounce Gazette there are more exaggerated headlines in store for the Right Path Party as our annual party conference reaches its climax at the Margate Convention Centre.

Yesterday I launched a raft of sensible new policy initiatives while water-skiing along the River Medway. No fanfare, no hype, no publicity stunts, just policies, culminating that afternoon with Lionel Blair parachuting in through the ceiling of the auditorium in a pink jumpsuit to announce that he's staging Own Goal, a West End musical in the spring about the private life of ex-soccer star and confused gay man John Fashanu. What better way to illustrate our non-dom celebrity tax proposals which stand to net the Exchequer a not-insignificant 490 million pounds?

But what do the newspapers choose to write about? Not Blair and his musical. Instead we get the "controversy" surrounding the RPP's autumn conference theme tune. Granted thrash metal combo Gang Rape may not (yet) have a pop career to rival that of D:Ream, the pretty boys behind New Labour mantra "Things Can Only Get Better". But their latest foot-tapper, “Gravedigger Ass Explosion”, especially commissioned by the RPP, met with the immediate and almost unanimous approval of our conference delegates, even our discriminating front row of "Blue Rinsers".

Admittedly most of our golden gals are on artificial respirators these days, and have to be wheeled in to the conference every morning in expensive medical chairs.

But spirits were raised and the eyelids perceptibly twitching throughout Gang Rape's thrash medley – barring the one unscripted moment when lead singer Bozz Death stagedived head first into the front row.

For those of you that missed the live streaming from our RPP website, let's recap this week's big announcement.

The RPP is launching a new policy that we're calling "Inspiration for Respiration", bringing together healthcare coordination professionals, regeneration zone stakeholders and wellness rejuvenation personnel. What prompted this ingenious initiative was in-depth research, commissioned by the RPP, highlighting the fact that a staggering 400,000kw of electricity is being consumed every hour in NHS intensive care wards. By hooking up cardiovascular rowing machines, housed in fitness centres up and down the country, to artificial respirators, we can help save the environment and get our population fit and motivated again, with the knock-on effect of keeping our elderly hospital patients’ lungs pumping at reduced cost to the taxpayer. That’s a win-win message.

Incorporating the Mind: Update

On 26 November 2007 The Right Path Party will be facilitating a group of 20 young people on a mind incorporation tour of South America. Part of the tour will include a stopover in Macchu Picchu to meet the Incas. For those of you who have been struggling with our Incas factsheet (which has now been withdrawn), please note that due to a temporary short-circuit in cross-cultural communication, some figures are wildly inaccurate.

It appears that our copy editing department wasn’t made aware of the fact that the Incas use the binary number system. So instead of 100 toilet rolls, participants are advised to bring an extra four each to Inca Base Camp. Equally every tent should NOT be big enough to accommodate 1,000 people, but eight people. And finally a word of reassurance for those of you panicking about the average seasonal inland temperature for November of 100,001°C. Leave the radiation suits at home. It’s actually a more modest 33°C.

Click here for more information about the tour.

(originally published 8 October 2007)