Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Competition No 3830

Set by John O'Byrne, 3 May

You were asked for a manifesto for the Grey Liberation Party.

Report by Ms de Meaner

You divided pretty neatly down the middle into those who simply sent in lists of demands and those who wrote rather more thoughtful manifestos. This easily and possibly unfairly allowed me to pick out individual demands from the former (see the shorties at the end), who get £5 book tokens. The winners get £20 each, except Adrian Fry, who gets £10. The overall winner is John Griffiths-Colby, who also gets the Tesco vouchers.

The Grey Liberation Front has stood, with some assistance, on a platform of respect for one's elders. Put baldly, this has been short-sighted: grey pride is at an all-time low, and we have work as well as liver spots on our hands.

The campaign to "out" closet greys such as Sir Cliff and Des O'Connor was instigated by one of the party's varifocal groups and served to highlight the stigma and loss of credibility which can cause addiction to self-tanning preparations and degrading calendar appearances.

Grey-bashing must stop. Compulsory early retirement for members of the armed forces indicates entrenched fear of those whose hair colour is different. Likewise, the church has been shown to exhibit what can only be described as institutional grey schism. Grey marriages are more common than ever, so it is key that the public understands what companionship means. Remember old folk, old bike, old Zimmer! Sie Nile!

John Griffiths-Colby

Countdown back in its 4.30 time slot, state pension increases linked to fat-cat bonuses, statutory limit on the complexity of video recorders, employment of one additional railway porter for every five passengers, inauguration of tax credit for pensioners who can't understand the Pension Credit, legalisation of narcotics for care-home residents, fines for doctors who say "How are we today?" . . .

Adrian Fry

The Grey Liberation Party believes that this is no time for "gradualism". Labour and Tory leaders in their forties, or even younger, have habitually put up a smokescreen of long-term visions and ultimate strategies, as if time would stand still while their plans matured.

The party nails this lie, and its trained cadres will carry the message to the electorate as vigorously as their health permits. Always bearing in mind Lenin's maxim that true democracy can arise only where self-interest and majority interest are identical, they will tear away the layers of mystification that the ageist media have long used to divide the greys. Exposing the hidden networks of exploitation, they will challenge the pernicious myths that stigmatise age.

To anyone who is not blind, it must be clear that the oncoming crisis cannot be solved by the current regime, with its gym visits and its designer clothes and its expensive teeth. Failed and discredited, it must yield to a more dynamic presence with a commitment to speedy legislation that will restore with generous funding our NHS and welfare provision.

Basil Ransome-Davies

The seat of government moved from Westminster to Eastbourne. Opposition to get blue-striped deckchairs, government to get red-striped ones.

Josh Ekroy

The right to have all grapes seedless.

Paul McCunn

The legal right to use walking sticks to thrash vandals, layabouts and recalcitrant shop assistants.

Sid Field

Walking frames? What's wrong with five-wheel electric scooters fitted with caterpillar tracks?

John O'Byrne

No 3833 Set by Margaret Rogers

We want verses from the disaffected to mark Mrs Thatcher's 25th anniversary of becoming PM in May 1979. Max 14 lines by 3 June. E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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