- The country was made by monarchy and run by them for hundred of years, its because of them we are still around, there should be a level of respect we maintain. This isn't even a justification. Please try harder.
- Narcotics should not be legalised because it would be a bad message to send to our children they will grow up thinking at 21 they can do all the drugs they want. Yes, that's kind of the point. If it's not harmful it should be legal, and the tax reveneue that could be brought in would be very useful.
-We should not abolish faith schools or the church of england because this is a multi racial country with many faiths and it would be politcally incorrect to do such a thing and the church of england was founded by one our best kings. Yes, people should be able to practice their faiths, but education provided by the state should be secular, to be fair to those of all (and no) faith. Faith schools will always try and imprint their faith, which as it has no basis is scientific fact should not be the case. Your last sentence is, again, no justification.
- We should not have consitution because it would seem like we arent capable of running a democracy like we have for years without a piece of paper telling us what to do and being amended time and time again by greedy politicians. Again, this isn't a justification. We've been running a democracy for quite a while now, and having rules for doing so can only be a good idea.
- Private students have a higher chance of passing a degree therefore you dont want tax payers money going to waste on other students. So your reason is simple elitism.
- I feel as though things such as health care and public transport should be in the hands of the state and be tightly controlled with a defined hierachy.So are you in favour or against? I don't understand, you seem to have contradicted your previous statement.
No. I dislike the idea of Head of State as a political position. I like the idea of our HofS being a merely ceremonial rubberstamper, and I like the tradition that surrounds it. I certainly dislike the idea of a HofS 'introducing bills into parliament'.
Fair enough. I prefer a mixture of the American/French brand of presidency, but a German one (purely a figurehead) would be fine also. I just object to the hereditary nature the HofS has at present.
No. There is a value to non-elected members. There are people like Robert Winston and Alan Sugar, well known experts in their field who can advise the government on legislation without having to go to the public - not only would this put many of them off, but it would let the wrong sorts of people through. A lot of legislative experts aren't slick media machines. Of course it's important that MOST of our lawmakers are directly elected, but our small quota of non-elected lawmakers is a great thing.
It'd be impossible to make voters well-informed enough to make valid decisions about so many independent candidates. Parties exist in both houses for a lot of good reasons.
Here you lose the voter-MP link and the MP-constituency link. I believe that this link should be loosened slightly; some MPs have turned into glamourised social workers. But not to this extent. There needs to be a degree of direct election of actual NAMES rather than parties for a region.
For the first point, such people could still be brought in as 'special advisors' in some sort of role, but it would have to be clear they have no executive power. This way, they could be closely kept to their remit.
As for the second, the existing constituences would move to the upper house, so names would be on ballot papers. I suppose a candidate could make public their 'affiliation' to a party, that that party is the one with whom their views would agree. But as there'd be no whipped votes, which party you supported wouldn't matter. This would also bring people closer to their MP, as they would likely have to do a lot more door-to-door than rely on people voting for a party.
Hmm, this is an OK idea, but city mayors have often been embroiled in corruption and incompetence scandals (see Stoke-on-Trent).
As for your second suggestion, I'm very reluctant about the idea of referenda. Tyranny of the majority n'all that. 5% is certainly too low, any crackpot Clarkson type could whip up a referendum about fuel tax or something dumb.
yes, but Stoke's mayor is not an executive on the level we're talking about-more like the Mayor of New York or Mayor of London, which so far seem to have worked quite well.
I do support this in theory, but is it actually necessary? I'm unsure. I'd certainly regard faith schools as more of a problem than the CofE, anyway.
I'd say yes. It's hard to talk about the dangers of faith in public (mainly islam) when Bishops can vote in the House of Lords. This way, we make clear that all faiths are equally unimportant to the state.
No. Fees should be the same for everything; otherwise people from poor homes would be pressured by their family into doing things that they want to do less. ALso, just because something is 'required' when a kid is applying to university doesn't mean it still will be when the person enters the work force.
Well I'd like to abolish fees for those from low income homes as well as increasing the amount of grant support available, so this would be less of a problem, though a valid point-possibly the government could agree to cancel the debts when the person gained a job in a sector where there was a shortage?
I think pretty much everyone agrees with this in theory. However, the bureaucracy costs of means-testing EVERYONE who gets something like child benefit (tens of millions) would far exceed the amount saved by not giving the benefits to a small number of rich people.
Just say that all those with a household income above 55k will not recieve it? Clean cut, and solves means testing problems.
You're going to have to be much more specific than that...
Detention without trial, police powers to record people, ordering people to disperse, reduced DNA use, prohibitin taking pictures of or inside 'targets', retention of data, allowing MOD police to operate in public, control orders. All scrapped.
Any form of tax breaks to encourage institutions to move to where the market doesn't want them is bad news and unsustainable. 'Taxing financial transacations' needs a LOT more detail and explanation; if you mean all financial transactions then that's a pretty regressive policy which would probably lose the govt revenue. Making this country anti-business and anti-finance would simply drive the multinationals out. Sledgehammer, nut, yeah yeah.
Well it would be more a 'special financial zone'-new banks or existing ones moving would gain a fixed-term tax break. This has worked in china for moving businesses, and IMO could work here. This would purely be to reinforce the idea of retail/investment separation, and i think would be popular due to the lower cost of living. It would also drive the economy of the north and reduce London's dependence on the financial sector.
Taxing financial transactions i.e. a Tobin tax, would not be on all transactions, and would not make the country anti-business or anti-finance. It would be a 1% levy that would seek to discourage quick speculation on currency, and would raise £400bn a year. It would also prevent smaller countries being hurt by this speculation, and the rapid adjustments in interest rates this causes. This would also help as a set of buffers to financial crises spreading rapidly through speculation.
This would stifle banking innovation
Depends what you mean. If you mean high-risk, unsustainable practices of moneymaking then yes, it would suppress. But it would protect depositors, give the government greater control over the financial sector (instead of the other way round) and would prevent us ever having to bail out banks in this manner again.
The problem with this is that with the part in bold, Blair would still have managed to justify Afghanistan and Iraq (to himself at least). You'd need specific wording as to what constitutes a 'threat' if you want to make this into a law, too.
I agree. An 'immediate and present danger to national security, entailing the stability of british society and the lives of its citizens'. So if, say, Ireland were about to invade across the border, it would be justified. If there were a regime in South America we didn't particularly like, then it wouldn't be.
They're not entirely under public ownership in Europe - EDF for instance was partly sold off a few years back. But anyway, no. There simply isn't enough money in the public purse for the number of power stations we need. Incentivise private companies to build 'em. With stringent safety regulations etc etc. Centralised PLANNING? No thanks. Regulation, yes.
No, not entirely, but mostly. A nationalised company could offer better rates to customers (as it would accept a lower profit margin). It would also allow a rolling strategy of replacement, and investment in technology that we wish to grow e.g. renewables, nuclear Fusion. At the moment, most energy companies would wish to build coal or gas fired power stations, as they are off-the-shelf designs and are the cheapest to build/maintain. Utilities would be included in this, since at the moment they are franchised, just as the railways are, and this is inefficient.
Why do you want to do this? I'm genuinely interested. You haven't outlined any of the benefits of this move. I want to know what good it would do other than driving up the tax burden and reducing efficiency and competetiveness.
Ok, turns off cool music and puts on 'Train Geek' hat. I'll assume you're not familiar with the present system, if you are my apologies and please skip ahead. It is rather complicated...
The government funds Network Rail, which owns and maintains the tracks and infrastructure, as well as being responsible for upgrades etc.
Network Rail then charges for access to their tracks to TOC's (Train Operating Companies) who bid every so often to the government for the right to run trains over certain lines. They are responsible for running services, staffing trains & stations, painting the trains etc. Some TOCs turn a profit, but most make a small loss. Because of this they recieve 'Revenue support' from the government, which is a sweetener to bring the private sector in. Effectively, network rail charges the government, and the government owns network rail...one long circle of inefficiency.
The TOCs then lease (not own) trains from ROSCOs (Rolling Stock Leasing Companies) who are reponsible for building and maintaining the trains. Or rather, they do a deal with a maintenance company to provide maintenance to the leaser-like getting accident cover with a new car.
The DfT provide the money, decide which TOC gets to run trains in certain areas, is responsible for the planning of the network in the long term, and can operate trains as an 'operator of last resort' should a TOC go bust, while they arrrange for a new bidding contest to be held.
The problem with this system is:
1) it is staggeringly inefficient. We do not truly have a private railway, we have a publicly funded one which the government pays private companies to run. So taxpayers are effectively funding the coffers of private companies (mostly foreign nationalised rail providers)
2) It suffers crippling short-termism. As franchises are mostly only 7 years long, no TOC will invest in new rolling stock, as it is unlikely to have the franchise long enough to make any significant reward from doing so. This is also true of line reopenings, station upgrades etc.
3) It's dreadfully complicated, as you've no doubt worked out from the above. Fining NR, as happened last winter, just put money back into the DfT and stretched NR's budget even further. NR also recently took the DfT to court over the amount of money it was getting, and lost. Cost the taxpayer £5m in costs.
By creating a publicly funded, independent body to run the railways (effectively in the same way the BBC is organised), the DfT (which is notorious for being crap at running the railways) would be kept out of doing so, the cost to the taxpayer would actually be less as the whole system would be more efficient, and all the major stakeholders (union bosses, head of NR, government, operators) could be brought onto a single executive board to work together, rather than against each other.
'Reducing administration' is up there with 'cutting red tape' and 'reducing waste' in the unenforceable motherhood-and-apple-pies of political discource
When John Major introduced it in 1991, admin costs as a % of NHS spending leaped from 6% to 12%. A similar drop could see savings of around £4bn
Yes. As long as the costs aren't prohibitive, and would offset future road upkeep costs etc.
Connecting london, West Midlands, Nottingham, West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, the Northeast, South Wales and the South West will probably cost about £100bn. However, this would be spread over 20-30 years, and the economic benefits (as seen in Japan, France, Germany and Spain) would massively exceed this.
NO. You expect ministers to be bombing around between London, their constituency, and whichever-hard-up-area-central-government-has-decided-needs-some-charity-this-week? Westminster is a hub of government knowledge and ingenuity. There's a lot of comparative advantage to be had by locating businesses outside London; use that rather than a ridiculous suggestion such as this.
I think it's a good idea. Health & Social security already have a massive office in Leeds, and the sale of key Whitehall real estate would bring in huge amounts of money. There's no need to have hundreds of civil servants all commute into London when they could just as easily be commuting into Manchester, Newcaste or Bristol.
And Major ministers would no longer be in the constituency system due to earlier proposals, so would not be affected. They would simply commute from their offices to Westminster, and be expected to hold regular surgeries in whichever region they were appointed to represent.
This is interesting. I don't know much about how coastguards/RNLI are funded. If, as you imply, the coastguards don't have enough money to do their job properly, then this is a good idea. Thinking about it, it does seem a bit odd that we even need an RNLI charity.
RNLI are the national at-sea rescue service. As our 'emergency service of the sea' i think it only proper they should recieve funding from the public purse, but this should not compromise their status as a charity. One possible use of the money could be to reimburse crews, who, at the moment, are all volunteers.
Which media ownership laws?
And, NO. Government by picket? NOTHX. Thatcher did what was necessary in the mid-80s, and we live in a much better, less subsidised, more affluent country because of it.
Basically it would prevent corporations from owning too many of the media outlets, as well as preventing TV corporations buying newspapers and vice versa.
Debate issues related to the politics of the UK, such as the actions of any MP, any current or potential law, or any other factor affecting the British political system.
Would you Support this manifesto (Socialist/Liberal)
