If I were prime minister for a day, daily singing in public would be mandatory
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Version 0 of 1. It would be too tempting (and perhaps excessively obvious) to legislate to dissolve the Treaty of Union and, in the concomitant constitutional vacuum, form the People’s Republic of Caledonia. While an elegant and egalitarian endeavour, it would lead to the already shortest prime ministerial career in history being dramatically cut even shorter. That said, in my solitary day, I would have achieved more genuine change than Big Gordy Brown did after he became prime minister. Instantly in an independent Scotland oil prices would rocket, people would get better looking, and champagne would gush from fountains. And a genuinely socially just new country could be formed. (Madness, I know.) But in the absence of such things, my prime ministerial ruling would be simple and sweet. It would engender unparalleled community cohesion; it would immeasurably improve the health of the nation; it would beckon change so profound that the ramifications would be more far reaching than Bevan, Thatcher or Cowell. As prime minister for I would legislate for daily singing. I have a vision of communal choirs, citizen-subjects randomly brought together and compelled to join voices in a public performance of live music, every day, every week for the rest of their natural, , vocal lives. I know what you’re thinking. It’s bizarre. It’s exhibitionist. It’s wholly un-British, particularly for a people who 1) apologise for no good reason, 2) employ their internal dialogue to mutter disapproval at non-queue abiders and 3) ignore any events that may lead to even low-level confrontation. But that’s the point: we should all embrace the bizarre, extol exhibitionism, be un-British. We have a warped sense of social moraes. We care not a jot if a man walks down a street engrossed in compelling conversation, talking forcefully into a piece of Tawainese crafted plastic, which is plugged into a Korean phone, connected to a businesswoman in Hyderabad via a Spanish-owned telecoms multinational and bouncing between Chinese and US satellites. That, somehow is fine. But what of the looks the same man would garner should he begin to vocalise in verse? We’d think him strange. My plan is simple. Each member of this kingdom with a national insurance number would receive a “choral clan name”. Each clan, each musical family, would be connected by this name. (Yes, I did read too much Kurt Vonnegut when I was a teenager.) You would receive a song a week to learn. An algorithm would track fellow clan members and generate the best time and location to meet and sing. Singing would be akin to jury service – compulsory.You’d have no choice; there is much to be said for elements of benign dictatorship in a mixed political portfolio. What if I can’t sing, you ask. Irrelevant: everyone can sing. You’ve seen enough Saturday-night television to realise that. There is no such thing as an inability to sing; there are merely degrees of expertise. A nation that sings together, wins together. Trust me. |