Mark Thomas Presents the People's Manifesto

A funny and inspiring alternative election manifesto by political activist and comedian Mark Thomas

Mark Thomas has worked as a comedian for over twenty years. His activist, campaigning brand of comedy has been a thorn in the side of many politicians and corporations. However, recently he has been invited to give evidence at various government select committees. He is one of a limited number of people to be awarded a UN Global Human Rights Defender Award and has also been awarded a Kurdish National Congress Medal of Honour amongst other citations. His three-year campaign to stop the building of the Ilisu dam in Turkey was ultimately successful and saved 78,000 Kurds from being displaced.

Mark Thomas has been touring the country for months, getting audiences to come up with policies aimed at sorting out the country's political chaos and taking back the power for the people. Sick to death of bailing out bankers and subsidising MPs homes, the audience vote on the best policy of the night to be included in the brand new People's Manifesto. 
 
From the inspiring to the downright hilarious, you'll wonder why these fantastic ideas aren't part of the constitution already. For example: 
 
- All politicians will be forced to wear the names and logos of the companies sponsor that them or with whom they have financial links. 
- Anyone who supports ID cards is banned from having curtains. 
- All models have to be picked at random from the electoral register. 
- Anyone found guilty of homophobic hate crime has to serve their sentence in drag. 
- CEOs convicted of fraud will be made to dress as pirates in whatever job they get in the future. 
 
The People's Manifesto will outline 50 policies of the manifesto shouted out in bold type on a page to themselves with Mark's commentary opposite. Mark has even 'road tested' some of them - like hosting a party in an MP's second home (which clearly belongs to the taxpayer) and getting university boffins to work out a way of SAT testing MPs to rank them by value. And Mark's guerrilla antics won't end there... 
 
Power to the people is really happening.

Global Adventures with Coca-Cola

Belching Out the Devil

Take a dangerously entertaining trip with Mark Thomas in search of the real story behind Coca-Cola...

Funny, frightening and a damn fine read ... It's the real thing

This is great comedy, great travel writing and great reporting

Part light-hearted travelogue, part passionate polemic, part investigative documentary: Michael Palin meets Michael Moore

By far the most entertaining left-wing polemicist currently operating, as well as one of the smartest and most effective

Thomas's strengths are his honesty and ability to fairly present both sides of an argument

Coca-Cola and its logo are everywhere. In our homes, our workplaces, even our schools. It is a company that sponsors the Olympics, backs US presidents and even re-brands Santa Claus. A truly universal product, it has even been served in space. 
 
From Istanbul to Mexico City, Mark travels the globe investigating the stories and people Coca-Cola's iconic advertising campaigns don't mention. Child labourers in the sugar cane fields of El Salvador. Indian workers exposed to toxic chemicals. Colombian union leaders falsely accused of terrorism and jailed alongside the paramilitaries who want to kill them. And many more... 
 
Provocative, funny and stirring, Belching Out the Devil investigates the truth behind one of the planet's biggest brands.

Underground Adventures in the Arms and Torture Trade

As Used On the Famous Nelson Mandela

Taking up the baton from Michael Moore, the UK's foremost political comedian has written a corruscatingly funny expose of the arms trade

Thomas, in essence, is a brilliant investigative journalist disguised as an angry, shouty comedian ... very funny indeed

Courageous book ... A humorous yet heartfelt polemic ... Thomas' revelations are riveting

His outrage translates brilliantly on the page ... Profoundly disturbing, even moving but ultimately the main thing is it's a hugely entertaining read

Deeply funny, deeply disturbing ... a shockingly entertaining read

His self deprecating humour laces a blistering criticism of the network of government fibs and gaping legal loopholes facilitating horrific acts

An entertaining and shocking investigation

Mark Thomas is one of the UK's most effective and best-known political activists, as well as being a highly successful stand-up comedian. His show, The Mark Thomas Product, ran for six highly acclaimed series on Channel Four. Amazingly, this is his first book. 
 
As Used On the Famous Nelson Mandela is a deeply funny, deeply disturbing account of Mark's rampage through the arms trade. Under a fairly flimsy disguise and with the use of some worryingly poor accents, Mark set off on a journey of discovery in the company of arms dealers, torture victims, politicians, cops, crusties and geeks. The result is a shockingly entertaining read. 
 
Embedded within the sharpness of his humour is the truth of an industry fraught with loopholes, complacency and greed; that allows corrupt regimes to kill, maim and displace, but whose deals are often subsidised by the British taxpayer. 
 
Hard-hitting, laugh-out-loud funny and extremely unsettling, As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela is never anything less than compulsive.

Mark Thomas

Walking Israel's Separation Barrier. For Fun.

'Good fences make good neighbours, but what about bad ones?' 
 
The Israeli separation barrier is probably the most iconic divider of land since the Berlin Wall. It has been declared illegal under international law and its impact on life in the West Bank has been enormous. 
 
Mark Thomas - as only he could - decided the only way to really get to grips with this huge divide was to use the barrier as a route map, to 'walk the wall', covering the entire distance with little more in his armoury than Kendal Mint Cake and a box of blister plasters. 
 
In the course of his ramble he was tear-gassed, stoned, sunburned, rained on and hailed on and even lost the wall a couple of times. But thankfully he was also welcomed and looked after by Israelis and Palestinians - from farmers and soldiers to smugglers and zookeepers - and finally earned a unique insight of the real Middle East in all its entrenched and yet life-affirming glory. And all without hardly ever getting arrested!

Mark Thomas

Praise for Extreme Rambling

John Pilger with laughs

A terrific, funny read

Horrifying and hilarious

John Pilger with laughs

A terrific, funny read

Horrifying and hilarious

John Pilger with laughs

A terrific, funny read

Horrifying and hilarious

Books by Mark Thomas

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