As I drove to a gig the other night I was forced to listen to Radio 4. Not at gunpoint or anything like that (although I imagine anyone choosing to do such a stick-up would use an antique musket), merely because my phone was out of battery and it meant no regular pre-show playlist and a choice of Radio 1 (I'm 34, for gods sake), Radio 2 (I'm 34, for gods sake), commercial radio (I can't bear how every single presenter sounds the same) or the eventual winner.
I heard talk of the current session of parliament ending ready for party conference season, making me think back to when I worked in an office and the three weeks leading up to our Christmas shindig was a nightmare of people preparing for our get together like it was the only time they'd ever been to a party. I'm fairly sure that's what the political party conferences are like: Cameron and Osborne doing shots in their own VIP area; The Millibands fighting over a lapdancer; Clegg sat at a bar on his own as his colleagues gossip about him.
I've seen these conferences on the television, and I reckon that I could make them a whole lot better. I've thought of a few things to make them more appealing to the public and more fun for the participants. I'm fairly sure that next year some of these ideas will be used, as they're ratings winners.
ONE: TRICKIER LOCATIONS
No more polite seaside venues, heck no. If Barack Obama can hold the Democratic Party convention in the in-theory-difficult Carolinas, then our political leaders should man up and go somewhere aggressive towards their policies. The Labour Party should rock up to a village in Surrey. The Conservatives could hold theirs in Glasgow. And the Liberal Democrats could have theirs on a university campus anywhere in the UK.
TWO: THREE DRINK MINIMUM
I've performed in the USA where comedy clubs have this rule for the audience, I say we do that for both the audience AND the keynote speakers. Would you pay as much attention to the nasal twang of Ed Milliband if he was slightly hammered? I'd forgive Nick Clegg for a lot of his mistakes if he went into a drunken monologue about the lack of parking at Westminster before calling Theresa May something rhyming with "clucking hitch" whilst falling off the podium and screaming at everyone to leave him alone.
THREE: WRESTLING PROMOS INSTEAD OF SPEECHES
Every time David Cameron speaks it makes me want to pull off my ears and feed them to a Labrador. I'm all for jazzing up those ridiculously long speeches by a) limiting them to a maximum of five minutes and b) making them a huskily voiced tirade of threats and catchphrases. With 1980s WWE Superstar "The Ultimate Warrior" being so well know for his conservative stance, maybe he could write some promos for Dave? Even better, get him pumped up on steroids and angry at the universe. Then I'd be able to take him a tiny bit more seriously. But only a tiny bit. Only if he could lift more weight than me and beat me in an arm wrestle.
FOUR: LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS
Whenever a delegate says the pre determined "mystery word" then any of the above carnivorous predators is released into the auditorium and it's every party member for themselves. Suggestions for the keywords could be fiscal, economy, or for the Conservatives, any time they blame anything that they can't fix on the previous Labour government.
If we can action all of these changes then we can look forward to seeing our Prime Minister wearing face paint, shirtless, screaming abuse at a Scottish audience whilst obliterated on schnapps and the audience runs screaming from a Siberian Tiger. Because it's the whitest of the tigers.
If you're a member of a political party then I'd like you to forward on these ideas to your local MP. We can make this happen, just like I think I may have convinced Aviva to employ only Mexican people at their call centres.