I don’t claim to have all the answers but that’s not my job. I’m only commenting; asking questions and offering opinions. Here are some of the ideas which have occurred to me over the last 12 months or so posting on assorted news boards.
This is blue-sky thinking; I think everything on this list is “do-able”; I don’t think it would break any international law or breach any treaties (with one possible exception which is the one that’ll send the HateMail demographic ballistic anyway). I’ve largely left foreign policy alone; global issues need global solutions and I don’t want to bog everything down with Israel/Palestine or the ECHR.
Every action has a consequence; every right has a responsibility. You have the right to do anything you like as long as it does not adversely impact someone else. I remind the reader that lowering the voting age to 18, all-day pub opening and pet passports were all originally proposed by the Monster Raving Loonies (who also, incidentally, proposed scrapping MPs’ expenses and “letting the poor waste them instead” five years ago).
I present The Degenerate Manifesto - who dares offer it?
- * Enforce existing laws. Tolerance of “low-level” disorder leads to more serious crime becoming normalised. If a law isn’t worth enforcing then repeal it.
* Cancel all national ID card plans (or at least stop pretending they’ll do anything to reduce terrorism).
* EITHER remove all innocent persons from the national DNA database and, in future, do not add people to the database until they have been convicted. OR put absolutely everyone onto the database, including all visitors, tourists, foreign forces stationed here etc. (No, Mr Obama, no exceptions. Nor for you Pope Benedict.)
* Guarantee in perpetuum “no commercial access” to the database.
* Disband the House of Lords immediately. Replace it in the short-term with a second house of the same number of seats as the commons elected by straight proportional representation based on the results of the next general election. Longer-term structure to then be debated by both houses.
* Immediate cancellation of Westminster voting rights on devolved issues of members for Scottish and Irish constituencies. Explore the implementation of the Scottish parliament model to a network of regional assemblies.
* Formulate long-term energy strategy for the country. Do not assume that current alliances will remain strong; suggesting thirty years ago that we’d be getting gas from Russia would have had you locked in a padded room. Who knows who our “friends” will be in another thirty?
* Explore all options to physically decentralise government. Think the unthinkable; move whole departments to different areas of the country (at a stroke easing pressure on the south east and revitalising the provinces). Why on earth is DEFRA based in the middle of London? Sell off the real estate.
* Revoke all “parental right to choose” legislation; allocate state school places on a catchment area basis only.
* Prioritise curative and palliative treatments over those which merely extend life with no prospect of improved quality of life.
* Require all newly-qualified doctors and dentists to work exclusively for the NHS for a minimum of 10 years.
* Cancel all nuclear weapons renewal and replacement plans. Invest the money in conventional forces.
* Impose immediate ban on new green-belt developments. Allow new green-belt developments to recommence in a particular area only when 75% of existing brown-field sites have been fully developed.
* Abolish all public funding for faith schools.
* Contractual obligation on teachers to be in class except in case of personal illness. School closures have a massive knock-on effect on the economy with parents being forced to miss work. Snow is not an acceptable reason for schools to close.
* Introduce “no stopping” areas within 200m of any school property between 8.00am and 9.00am and 3.00pm and 5.00pm.
* Purchase and maintain 700 two bedroom flats in central London to provide accommodation for MPs.
* MPs expenses to be judged by the same rules used by a “typical” company such as Tesco. Weekly shopping, decorating, gardening and cleaning are NOT “expenses”; that’s what you spend your salary on. Nights away on business can be spent in Travelodges or equivalent and you can have £20 for a meal in the Berni Inn.
* Individual MPs' salaries to be set at their earnings in the year immediately before they enter parliament. That figure to be published for every candidate before the election so that the electorate knows what they will be paying. Annual raise tied to inflation alone.
* Index-link the minimum wage and state benefits to the same inflation index as MPs’ salary.
* Guaranteed public funding and commercial-free future for the BBC.
* Overhaul BBC Trust to better reflect the community at large.
* Ban the sale of alcohol in supermarkets and convenience stores. Allow off-licence sales only on premises where alcohol sales are the primary trade.
* Regulate private house rental to protect tenants; guarantee tenancies, legally limit rent rises to cost of living index NOT interest rates.
* Limit employment agencies' "cut" to 10% of the total contract value for placement of temp workers.
* Increased scrutiny and tighter regulation of (in particular) the print media.
* ALL communication between media outlets and politicians – however trivial – to be made a matter of public record.
* Abolish contracting-out of support services in the NHS. Take back control of cleaning and catering.
* Give GP Surgeries greater powers to strike off patients who persistently fail to turn up for appointments or otherwise abuse the system.
* Overhaul the prescription system. Maybe abolish charges completely (only about 1 in 10 is paid for anyway) or reconsider what can be prescribed. The current situation where GP appointments are taken up because Joe Bloggs wants the free prescription for paracetamol he’s “entitled” to is totally unacceptable.
* Fix public transport. We are pumping more public money into the bus and rail companies now than we ever did when we owned them. Either stop all subsidies and let them stand or fall, or renationalise them.
* Allow train companies to operate like airlines if that’s what they want, but prevent them from selling more tickets than they have available seats.
* Abolish road tax and increase fuel duty; the more you drive, the more you pay.
* Introduce separate window-displayed insurance certificate for all motor vehicles. Crush any uninsured vehicle identified on the public highway.
* Remove all spot-speed cameras and replace them with average speed systems on all major routes. Introduce progressive penalty system (increasing fine/points) for repeat offenders. Confiscate all vehicles registered to a driver when a ban is incurred; crush any older than 3 years, auction newer ones and use the money to fund school buses.
* Cross-check ANPR data from the average speed cameras to identify uninsured vehicles.
* Reduce permitted blood alcohol level for driving by 75% (basically, if you’ve had a drink, or more than a couple the night before, you can’t drive). Six point penalty and £1000 fine for those failing against the new standard but below the current limit, immediate 2 year ban for anyone failing above the current limit. Automatic imprisonment for anyone involved in an accident while under the influence. Confiscate all vehicles registered to a driver when a ban is incurred; crush any older than 3 years, auction newer ones and use the money to fund rehabilitation centres.
- * Review the criminal appeal process such that penalties are increased in the event of a failed appeal. The situation where appeals are the default position because a convict has “nothing to lose” is wasteful in the extreme.
* Require planning permission for the display of advertising banners. Automatic 12 month ban on the issue of such permission in event of the banner being displayed before permission is granted.
* Decriminalise all recreational drugs. Establish a legal, quality-controlled and taxed supply chain. Face it, alcohol and tobacco have and continue to destroy or end more lives that all the controlled substances put together and a century of prohibition has done nothing but create a lucrative illegal trade. Educate the public as to the hazards and risks associated with drug use.
* Close public sector final salary pension schemes to new members with immediate effect. Honour pensions for existing members. Establish investment scheme for future employees.
* Separate retail and investment banking. Legislate to prohibit any individual or organisation holding joint interests.
* Impose a litter tax on fast-food premises to cover the cost of early morning clean-up crews.
* Reform the smoking ban to allow members-only "smoking clubs" to be created. Ban smoking in all open spaces; public or private.
* Ban consumption of alcohol in public spaces (beer gardens and house gardens are not "public"; parks and streets are).
* Legislate to eliminate “land banking” by property developers.
* Legislate to eliminate paving over of gardens to provide parking.
* Introduce right to buy freehold for owner occupiers on leasehold estates.
* Eliminate council tax discounts on second homes
* Set up a thinktank where law and economics students can identify and analyse loopholes in tax law. Close those loopholes.
* All police officers up to and including inspectors to spend at least a half day every week on traffic duty; stopping and charging motorists for dangerous driving, using mobiles etc – all the offences cameras don’t pick up.
* Redraw parliamentary constituencies from scratch with equal numbers of voters in each.
* Elect members by single transferable vote system (ensures returned member has a degree of support from the majority of voters and maintains constituency-centric system).
* At any election, all candidates must be resident in the constituency and must have been so since before the previous election.
* Introduce a "right to recall"; a mechanism for constituents to call sitting MPs to account.
* Introduce an "Electoral IQ test"; fail to demonstrate basic understanding of the issues of the day and your vote is discounted.
* Prohibit MPs from holding second jobs.
* Permit MPs to employ spouse/partner (but no other family member) in an admin capacity at a pay grade equivalent to an appropriate civil servant, but only if this is that person’s only employment.
