A makes sense manifesto

[Nitefly]

I think they all would.

I only said them because they are in power (lib dems don't count).

 

[Gilly]

Now that 'makes sense' , but when you were saying it I assumed you were Cons because you were only mentioning them.

 

[Basher]

I think that's part of the problem, and I think that's one of the main points in that manifesto.

What is done by those in charge should not be done for the benefit of those in charge, but for the people they have been elected by and are responsible for.

So what you're suggesting really involved more of an overhaul on the political system in the country, surely? No party will be thinking long term if they're not going to be in power for that period.

 

[Gilly]

So what you're suggesting really involved more of an overhaul on the political system in the country, surely? No party will be thinking long term if they're not going to be in power for that period.

Yes, absolutely, but unless that is pushed through by those empowered by the electorate who would do it?

Besides, all parties should be thinking long term because otherwise they're thinking of solely themselves rather than the electorate that they're there to represent.

 

[meths]

I only said them because they are in power (lib dems don't count).

Fair enough.

I wasn't sticking up for any political party, it was more an observation that most politicians are struck from the same mould regardless of where their allegiance lies.

 

[Alpherah]

I would back a party that:

• Ceases to put other parties down for the sole aim of make itself look better
• Proposes long-term changes with transparency to the public
• Completely overhauls our welfare system with harsh penalties for those abusing it and the right money going to the right places
• Provide benefits on a geographic location and case-by-case basis through localisation and means testing in line with local cost of living
• Ensure that businesses that are taking money out of our country return a fair portion of that
• Consolidate local government departments - a one-stop for all public service requirements
• Introduce variation in public sector pay meaning that pay not only reflects performance and output but also cost of living
• Lays out a proper approach to immigration, without hint of xenophobia but protecting the people we already have
• Tighten tax and benefit restrictions, close the loopholes that allow people to avoid what should be paid (not currently must be paid)
• Eradicate the divide between the 'classes'. The higher income sections of society believe they are handing those on welfare a life of riley, those on welfare believe that those in higher tax bands are rolling in it and can't even find enough things to splurge their money on.
• Provides clarity to the public when one of the own has been found to have been acting in a way that is not in the interest of the public.

I can't think why they aren't doing this already. Am I alone in thinking this? Is it just pie in the sky?

The only problem I can see is political parties not wanting to lose their current membership for changing their approach. Is that it?

Have I just lost the plot?

Pretty much all of that was promised by the Tory party (with the exception of the classes thing - the Tory party thrive on class warfare), and many believed them.
They did none of the above.

 

[bazaarboy]

promising changes that can be achieved won't get enough votes

 

[Rotty]

hard to argue with much of that

 

[aln]

Like:
Ceases to put other parties down for the sole aim of make itself look better
Proposes long-term changes with transparency to the public
Completely overhauls our welfare system with harsh penalties for those abusing it and the right money going to the right places
Ensure that businesses that are taking money out of our country return a fair portion of that
Consolidate local government departments - a one-stop for all public service requirements
Lays out a proper approach to immigration, without hint of xenophobia but protecting the people we already have
Provides clarity to the public when one of the own has been found to have been acting in a way that is not in the interest of the public.

Don't like
Provide benefits on a geographic location and case-by-case basis through localisation and means testing in line with local cost of living
Introduce variation in public sector pay meaning that pay not only reflects performance and output but also cost of living

Maybe
Tighten tax and benefit restrictions, close the loopholes that allow people to avoid what should be paid (not currently must be paid)
Eradicate the divide between the 'classes'. The higher income sections of society believe they are handing those on welfare a life of riley, those on welfare believe that those in higher tax bands are rolling in it and can't even find enough things to splurge their money on.


Likes:
Mostly obvious. Transparecy is the key issue over the long term. That a better election methods.

Don't likes:
This reflects the fact that I don't think we should be giving more benefits so people can live in london or other nice areas. London has the most work of the entire country and it's a fairly important central point where people want to live in. If you find a job in the city with the most work, you simply cannot afford to live there, you should not be afforded this on the state.

On the other hand you don't want to hold money back from econmically deprived areas. People who live on benefits in these areas, still go out to spend money and keep people in work. We shouldn't make the area even less of a finacial force as we'll just cause further problems with more people being forced to either move away or end up on benefits themselves.

Benefits should reflect living at the national average. You should move if you can't afford it, and if people decide to move to cheaper areas to benefits themselves, then hopefully that'll keep a cheap population base that industrys would be interested in in the future. I think making rates vaiable is very short sighted.

Same goes for Government employees wages. They shouldn't be afforded extra to live in the best cities, thats silly. If anything we should move as many of the jobs as possible into the cheaper areas as we already have a huge problem with overcrowding in the South East.

Maybe:
I wanna see the tax system tightened up, but I don't want to be forever beholdend to paying well over 50% of my wage to taxes and being forever working/middle class because people who got rich before the tightening up have such a big advantage already. Close all loop holes, simplify the system. Lower the overall burden.

With regards to the divide, not even sure you you'd go about that. Are you gonna rob the rich to give it to the poor so we have a massive middle class?

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Funny but whilst I agree with the "better" manifesto idea other issues would have to be tackled IMO. Note the same fact manipultion happens no matter who is in power, the race to the bottom (of not acting like 3 year olds) happened in politic hundreds of years ago.

I think they fundamental governing thing needs to be turned on its head. Really when you thnk about it, the goverment "of the people" is far from that, and never was of the people really.

Baring a few small issues (none of which are insurmountable) we should be moving to a more real time democracy. There is really nothing standing in its way bar the politicians themselves.

E.g I mean, election manifestos, really?
My belief is that we should move to a system where the government HAVE to seek public opinion, so maybe a monthly fact and opinion gathering system. Technology could easily be put to work here, (so lets assume this could be done, securely and safely from either a pc at home, the library, the job centre and car test centres).
So monthly you get to (and its optional just like voting) cast your view on a number of issues these become semi binding on the government, I mean semi binding to allow some tweaking to be done should something seem a little reactionary.
Things such as pension rises, increasing/decreasing tax rates, scrapping child benefit etc would be voted for directly by us, all 60 million of us, not 600 people who based on a slightly dodgy manifesto upto 4 years ago get to decide, and when I say decide when in fact they are not just following the whip.

So its more of a framework of government who are empowered to react to say national security issues, tax evasion etc than themselves decide it would be a good idea to change tax rates. So they would not directly influence the policy making by anything other than trying to garner the public to make a certain decision.
Things such as say the drop from 50P to 45p higher tax rate. The options to select would be 1) the tory view 2) the labour view 3) the lib dem view 4) some mid point views

This would move us to actually having a say and over time crafting the real view of the people. There would have to be some limited tinkering allowed, but equally we would be miles away from failed election pledges etc they we suffer from with the current system.

The sorts of debate we have on here in GD can often be summed up into a few choices (we often stray well off topic and into other areas rather than debating over and over the actual initial question), its those sorts of thing the whole population should be able to vote on, directly and regularly.
E.g 1) Keep winter fuel payment as is
2) means test winter fuel payment for same recipients as today
3) Extent winter fuel payment to families with kids under 5
4) More detailed winter fuel options to all areas of society by further votes so keep 1 for now and allow options for all demographics and age groups.
....those sorts of questions

The population that genuinely care about them would take the time once a month to record their views, most would be able to do it from their own home. Whilst I would disagree very strongly with the views of some on here for some subjects, I value their opinion 1,000,000 times more than I value Ed balls opinion.

There really is little to stop us becoming a much more democratic society. Look at the early stages of democracy, it was mich more the people deciding something than a few people being chosen once every 5 years to make all the decisions from that point onwards.

I don't know of anyone who supports a political party who agrees 100% with their policies. You get die hard labour supporters who think their poliices are too centre, toreis who think the tory party is too centre, and all variations you can possibly think.
Labour voters who think wlefare is to high and tories who think its too low. To think one party has a perfect blend of policy is plain bonkers. What the political parties would have with this system would be the opportunity to convince the public regularly that they in general are going the right way so they would get an opportunity every so often to try to lead us in a direction. But as soon as they strayed off piste of public opinion they would fail to convince enough support and their proposals would not get the support needed.

There would have to be some overall safeguards such as not allowing the country to bankrupt itself so a maximum debt/defecit surplus which automaticlaly created a reaction, but in general a lot of areas the government rule on are non financial and really the whole population should be able to vote on. Some examples that would fall under this that why wouldn't a public system give a much fairer result..
1) fracking
2) fox hunting
3) road building
4) social housing building programme (government funded)
5) immigration levels
6) applying rigorous UK based tax on companies trading in the UK
7) Scotlands independance
8) Wind farms
9) Nuclear energy generation
10) Heathrow airport expansion

Straight off 10 things I would be interested in making my views known to goverment. I mean if 85% of the population support fox hunting shouldn't that then be allowed? (not that I believe 85% even care about fox hunting but if they did they would vote)

 

[jas72]

It is just pie in the sky.

Most of these points are outwith human nature in a group situation.

 

[Name]

Gilly for Prime Minister!

Wow really doesnt have the same ring to it as President

As great of an idea it is, i dont think it would be possible to impliment such actions without bringing around some form of war.

 

[semi-pro waster]

Don't likes:
This reflects the fact that I don't think we should be giving more benefits so people can live in london or other nice areas. London has the most work of the entire country and it's a fairly important central point where people want to live in. If you find a job in the city with the most work, you simply cannot afford to live there, you should not be afforded this on the state.

On the other hand you don't want to hold money back from econmically deprived areas. People who live on benefits in these areas, still go out to spend money and keep people in work. We shouldn't make the area even less of a finacial force as we'll just cause further problems with more people being forced to either move away or end up on benefits themselves.

Benefits should reflect living at the national average. You should move if you can't afford it, and if people decide to move to cheaper areas to benefits themselves, then hopefully that'll keep a cheap population base that industrys would be interested in in the future. I think making rates vaiable is very short sighted.

Not all benefits are for the unemployed, some are for those with children or on a low income etc. If you don't allow benefits to top up people on low wages in say London then a number of what are perceived as less desirable jobs e.g. cleaners, some shop workers etc will simply not be able to afford to live near where they work, if they can't do that then they're unlikely to continue in those jobs and suddenly you've either got a shortage of workers for those roles or potentially you exacerbate the wage disparity as wages have to rise for those roles in comparison to elsewhere in the country - this could have the perverse result of increasing competition for those roles, increasing the numbers in London and reducing the labour pool elsewhere in the country. Neither of those scenarios are desirable generally which is why a soundbite might be great but it's the implementation that is the really important part.

 

[sigma]

There would have to be some overall safeguards such as not allowing the country to bankrupt itself so a maximum debt/defecit surplus which automaticlaly created a reaction, but in general a lot of areas the government rule on are non financial and really the whole population should be able to vote on. Some examples that would fall under this that why wouldn't a public system give a much fairer result..
1) fracking
2) fox hunting
3) road building
4) social housing building programme (government funded)
5) immigration levels
6) applying rigorous UK based tax on companies trading in the UK
7) Scotlands independance
8) Wind farms
9) Nuclear energy generation
10) Heathrow airport expansion

Whilst I agree that the political system needs an overhaul I do not agree that the public needs more power.

By and large, the general population is pretty dumb - how could you trust people to make an informed decision on very important topics? People are way too easily swayed by the media and we'd end up with a load of wrong decisions.

What we need are laws based on evidence and experience (as well as public opinion, to some extent) rather than what pleases voters.

 

[drunkenmaster]

They constantly knock labour, they don't have transparency in their dealings or their workings. They don't appear to wish to improve the disillusionment regarding benefits and those claiming them, they don't do across the board means testing, they aren't selling the fact that they're being proactive to close the loopholes big businesses have told us exist for them to exploit and pay less or no tax... I'm struggling to see any they are doing.

If they are they're extraordinarily bad at selling that fact.

Are you cons?

First Labour had a lot longer and never closed the tax loops(if they didn't infact create them), second neither party wants to, because all of them have their dirty hands in big business who are all very happy to pay them to not change it and thirdly they really can't. If company X had to pay 20% more tax without a loophole, the likelyhood is they'd leave the UK and go elsewhere, so lets say a company should be paying 2billion in tax, and is only paying 200million, in trying to get the 1.8billion back we actually just make them leave and lose the 200million.

Other policies, consolidate government services in the local area to save money... well, that money is saved in having less buildings and less duplication. But that means its a policy that will lose jobs... which is a non starter, everything from cleaners and plumbers, to secretaries and managers, removing duplication costs jobs.

These are all fine ideals, but parties hit each other over the head with the negative of every plan even if its the right thing for the country.

Is closing tax loopholes going to bring in billions, it would if and ONLY IF the entire EU, including tax haven Ireland, did the same thing.... they won't either.

The chances of this many countries getting together, agree'ing on something that will cost companies 10's of billions across Europe, to enact on the same day, is non existant, and you know what would happen in the extremely unlikely situation they could agree to do it, someone would screw up, and there would be another loophole, and it would screw us somehow.

The reality is after decades and decades of government, you have SO many policies, so many overlapping, contrived, counter intuative, unreadable and poorly writen legislation that mistakes are inevitable, real change is almost completely impossible and the best way to do it right is to start completely fresh, ground up, losing 100k's of jobs, if not millions, in the public sector.


The fundamental fact is beyond all the crap, there are less jobs today than there were(for a given population), there is an economy that is completely based in continued growth, in population, jobs, demand, production, and its completely unsustainable. The car industry is suffering because most people who want cars, have cars, and those cars are lasting too well, and are too cheap to build, and can be built too quickly, by too few people.

The economys are sucking worldwide, because the economy is based on a completely unsustainable model and can't possible continue forever.

In terms of why can't both parties get along, not lie and not attack each other, greed, simple really. Blair posted a 16million turn over, and can give talks being paid 100k's, and is now essentially a highly paid lobbyist. Who is paying him, who did he help while he was in power? What illegal war did he start, and what did that war lead to(production of weapons, ammunition) and who profitted and who now pays for his input and influence.

Now, would it be great to outlaw lobbying, paying MP's big money, yes, could be pass legislation to do it... no because the people voting are those who would stand to lose out, so they won't. There are a handfull of people involved in politics for the good of man kind, the majority are in it for power, money, status, and many of the people who get into it for the right reasons will be influenced by the money/power anyway. Blair should be in jail for warcrimes basically, and is instead leading a luxury lifestyle, bringing in millions a year for being a completely bent politician who helped start illegal wars which have led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people.

 

[aln]

Not all benefits are for the unemployed, some are for those with children or on a low income etc.

I see what you're saying but I honestly don't think those benefits should stand over the longer term. We should pull the rug out from under people tomorrow, but we should forewarn them and move towards it. If you want to give something back to lower earners make it a tax free allowance, or don't bother. Either way I'm well aware that not all benefits are for the unemployed. One needs to recognise that welfare is our biggest bill, we can't afford it currently, yet very little of it has to do with people on actual JSA.

If you don't allow benefits to top up people on low wages in say London then a number of what are perceived as less desirable jobs e.g. cleaners, some shop workers etc will simply not be able to afford to live near where they work,

They should move. I know it sounds harsh and part of me hate saying it, but the reality is you shouldn't expect to live in a nicer area if your work doesn't support that. Its not that I don't have sympathy for these people, but they made their own choices in life and whilst I'd stop short of letting them die on the streets, I see no need to subside them living in london.

if they can't do that then they're unlikely to continue in those jobs and suddenly you've either got a shortage of workers for those roles or potentially you exacerbate the wage disparity as wages have to rise for those roles in comparison to elsewhere in the country -

Thats actually the natural order of things. You get paid dependant on what you offer and much of that is based on the amount of competition. There is nothing specifically wrong with this situation.

this could have the perverse result of increasing competition for those roles, increasing the numbers in London and reducing the labour pool elsewhere in the country.

This is also the natural order of things. Further to that, the shortage around the rest of the country will cause wages to rise, and people will migrate back. In reality it'd probably not get that far, I suspect you'd eventually just get payrates based on market value from companies without government intervention.

What doesn't work is the constant migration of people towards london. It's a drain on the rest of the country and if it's thats truly supported by tax-credits then the quicker we pull the plug on it, the better.

Neither of those scenarios are desirable generally which is why a soundbite might be great but it's the implementation that is the really important part.

This is always the case. But generally the system isn't ****** up because of a lack of help, it's because of all the pet exceptions.

If we just went to a flat taxrate seemed fair to all, no loopholes and a min wage, we'd have some short term pain, but in the longer term we'd probably just have a better system as wages adjusted towards living costs. More importantly we'd have a much easier system to administer as both ends of the stick.

The magc of course, would be trying to get there without a) making things a lot worse and b) the poor complaining about headline tax rate drops for the rich, failing to recognise the rich aren't stupid enough to actually pay them.

P.S. I'm not a die hard liberal nut either. I totally believe in the health, welfare (as a safety net), justice, education and infrastructure should be under the remit of the government and paid for by taxes, I just don't think the sort of manipulation we're talking about works for anything other than a shorter term.

 

[Something Else]

dont like any of the major political parties and as a result when i vote i do a spoiled vote

 

[SheepBeast]

Seems to me a system more akin to China's certainly has it's advantages .

Personally I think the national government should be made up of a parliament of people, like now. But these would be pooled from different professions - a certain number would be CEOs/business interests, others would be professors/scientists, then you'd have doctors, lawyers etc etc. The quotas would be made such that the parliament is properly representative of the interests of our society as a whole and would include working-class "commoners" too. There would be no political parties - all specific policy decisions would be debated and decided by a majority vote from the parliament. In addition, there would be a number of empty seats in the parliament equal to the number of MPs, and these will be filled by members of the public who put themselves forward to debate/listen in on that specific issue. While they are in the chamber they have the same right to voice their opinion as the MPs around them. Thus there would be a significant element of true democracy. The MPs themselves would not be voted in by the general public, they would be voted in by their peers within their profession in elections held every year or two.

Local government would be run by councils and each council will have 1 MP assigned to them who has the extra task of representing local issues in parliament, similar to how it works now.

My system has the advantage of eliminating all parties, expensive national elections, and stupid point-scoring and focusing on making proper, democratic and informed decisions. Joe Bloggs who knows nothing of politics doesn't get much of a say in who makes decisions but if he has something he wants to say he can apply to voice it in parliament. Btw our national leader (president/prime minister/whatever) would be elected by the MPs once a year and would have little actual power. Their main duty would simply be to represent our country at international meetings/conferences and raise issues determined important by parliament.

Clearly I haven't worked out all the details of my system but I'm pretty sure something of this format could work.

 

[SheepBeast]

They should move. I know it sounds harsh and part of me hate saying it, but the reality is you shouldn't expect to live in a nicer area if your work doesn't support that. Its not that I don't have sympathy for these people, but they made their own choices in life and whilst I'd stop short of letting them die on the streets, I see no need to subside them living in london

So you think london will get by ok when all the cleaners and retail workers have left?

Good joke.

 

[aln]

So you think london will get by ok when all the cleaners and retail workers have left?

Good joke.

Nope, I don't. That was my point. They'll either need to adjust accordingly or somewhere willing to compete with reasonable living costs vs wages will take away their toys.

The only people who really benefit from london being london is london and the south east property owners.