Reminds me of fools and horses were rodney said to del why do you want money, del said power rodney ,so rodney said to del what will you do with this power ,del says spend it rodney spend it
What would YOU do in power?
- Thread starter trevhagl
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Reminds me of fools and horses were rodney said to del why do you want money, del said power rodney ,so rodney said to del what will you do with this power ,del says spend it rodney spend it
Steve Booth
Bourgeois apologist
Knowing what to do is the problem
Let's face it, the people in power often don't have a clue what they are supposed to do with it.
It's like Snowy, next door's dog, who is kept in the garden all the time with a high wall around her. One day Richard left the gate open and Snowy escaped, but having got out into the street, faced with this massive choice about where to go, she didn't know which way to run next and so just ran about loosely for a bit in the road, not wandering far from the gate.
The politicians are like Snowy in the garden, and their achieveing power is like passing through the gate and escaping. The politicians, having achieved power, tend to repeat the ideas and policies which have gone before, repeating the same kind of mistakes. The security of the familiar.
One the other hand, the ones that do have some kind of programme or agenda are probably the most dangerous.
Let's face it, the people in power often don't have a clue what they are supposed to do with it.
It's like Snowy, next door's dog, who is kept in the garden all the time with a high wall around her. One day Richard left the gate open and Snowy escaped, but having got out into the street, faced with this massive choice about where to go, she didn't know which way to run next and so just ran about loosely for a bit in the road, not wandering far from the gate.
The politicians are like Snowy in the garden, and their achieveing power is like passing through the gate and escaping. The politicians, having achieved power, tend to repeat the ideas and policies which have gone before, repeating the same kind of mistakes. The security of the familiar.
One the other hand, the ones that do have some kind of programme or agenda are probably the most dangerous.
danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
:d
I'd borrow loads of money and invest it in foreign markets on behalf of the british nation.
Legalise drugs and start manufacturing and selling some of them, as well as heavily taxing the sale of the rest. After all, we have to have some firm economic base.
Allow children to leave school once they've passed reasonably stringent reading and arithmetic tests, but continue to give them vouchers that they can use for their further education or save as they see fit.
Abolish most licensing laws.
Abolish the law that stops people living on their own land more than one month of a year.
Maybe...Have a general principle in place that if you claim that a law being used against you is stupid, or being misused, your defence should be considered, and if the prosecutors can't find a justification for using the law against you, other than to enforce the law, the case should be thrown out.
Scrap the Olympics? Or maybe just don't pay for it.
Slash defence spending to nearly zero.
Attempt to start manufacturing renewable energy systems.
Build a tidal barrage across the Severn estuary.
Change the benefits system to a simple standard benefit, claimable by anyone, but taken back in tax, if you claimed it when you were already well off.
Then make rent and mortgage contracts unenforceable in law, create a residence register, so that it's effectively impossible to evict someone from where they live, so long as they're registered at that address, -- can prove they live there--
Use the income from the money invested abroad to keep the country afloat while the pound devalued and the economy readjusted.
Legalise drugs and start manufacturing and selling some of them, as well as heavily taxing the sale of the rest. After all, we have to have some firm economic base.
Allow children to leave school once they've passed reasonably stringent reading and arithmetic tests, but continue to give them vouchers that they can use for their further education or save as they see fit.
Abolish most licensing laws.
Abolish the law that stops people living on their own land more than one month of a year.
Maybe...Have a general principle in place that if you claim that a law being used against you is stupid, or being misused, your defence should be considered, and if the prosecutors can't find a justification for using the law against you, other than to enforce the law, the case should be thrown out.
Scrap the Olympics? Or maybe just don't pay for it.
Slash defence spending to nearly zero.
Attempt to start manufacturing renewable energy systems.
Build a tidal barrage across the Severn estuary.
Change the benefits system to a simple standard benefit, claimable by anyone, but taken back in tax, if you claimed it when you were already well off.
Then make rent and mortgage contracts unenforceable in law, create a residence register, so that it's effectively impossible to evict someone from where they live, so long as they're registered at that address, -- can prove they live there--
Use the income from the money invested abroad to keep the country afloat while the pound devalued and the economy readjusted.
Lol. I'd put LSD in the water supply so that they wouldn't bother.
dennisr
the acceptable face
now thats an option i hadn't thought about + plus loudspeakers with decent music on every corner.Me: abolish parliament, abolish the armed forces etc and replace it with committees based in workplaces, schools, streets etc etc etc
Ansd say - "well you all think you know better, run it all yourselves you bastards"
and then hope they begin too...
(maybe I got the whole process a bit mixed up here... and may have to think this through a little bit more...)
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
I would round up BBC HYS contributors and put them in charge of scotland
dennisr
the acceptable face
You have a cruel streak
1 Increase top rate of taxation to 50% on incomes over £50,000
2 Increase Inheritance tax.
3 Ban salaries of over £70,000 in the public and voluntary sector.
4 Replace unelected judges with people voted in to the job by the general population.
5 Replace the House of lords ( and sell it off) with an elected second chamber based tup norf.
6 Increase UB and IB rates by a small amount and make it much much easier to get off benefits and earn extra money while on benefits.
7 Have referendums on abolishing or privatising the monarchy and on bringing in capital punishment.
8 Abolishing the charitable status of independent fee paying schools.
etc etc
it wouldn't really change that much
I think if you read the tbaldwin manifesto thread you will see that things would change quite a lot!
What's the point of threads like this when, in the majority of cases, there is no possibility whatsoever of any of the suggestions ever being taken up by a force likely to achieve the necessary power to implement them?
Wouldn't boards like this be put to better use in considering why the kind of politics that a majority of posters favour (whether revolutionary socialist or anarchist makes no difference) are more marginalised than ever and only seem set to decline further? Or failing that to slagging each other off?
Wouldn't boards like this be put to better use in considering why the kind of politics that a majority of posters favour (whether revolutionary socialist or anarchist makes no difference) are more marginalised than ever and only seem set to decline further? Or failing that to slagging each other off?
Well, it's really just there to answer the question that's often put by reactionary gits,
"What's your alternative.?"
hey balders, would your manifest make much difference? Well, maybe I've missed the point, but when I imagine a society with those changes, it still seems more or less like how things are now, most people have to work full time, very little freedom, general conservatism, and money chasing, not a lot of fun.
Anyway, here's the truth about the british economy.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2006/aug/26/moneysupplement.economicpolicy
I think it would make a huge difference. Here it is again in case you missed some of it.
1 Cut Income Tax for lower paid...Starting rate of 10% on first £10,000 of somebodys wages. 20% on anything over £20,000. 30% on anything over £30,000. 40% on anything over £40,000. 50% on anything over £50,000.
60% on anything over £60,000.
2 Renationalise the public transport system.
Cut fares and increase capacity.
3 Introduce a maximum wage in the Public and Voluntary sector £70,000.
( For a time limited period doctors would have to be exempt.
4 50% super tax on all advertising.
5 Increase road taxes and petrol.
6 Replace the House of Lords with a second chamber diorectly elected by proportional representation.
7 Stop the recruitment of skilled workers from poorer nations unless companies pay reparations to those nations.
8 Support International Labour rules to ensure that multinationals are obliged to improve the wages and conditions of workers in poorer countries.
9 Bring in a National Labour Scheme. 50% of people presently languishing in UK prison cells would instead be asked if they would prefer to work.
Young unemployed people and those who come in early contact with the Criminal justice system would also be obliged to become part of the NLS..
10 Improve food in schools and hospitals.
11 Referendum of privatising the monarchy.
12 Referendum on Capital punishment.
13 Reform of the Benefits system increasing benefits that dont stop people from working and allowing people on JSA,IB etc to gradually move into work without immediately losing benefits.
14 Increasing the minimum wage for all larger companies who employ over 100 people.
15 Shoot 100 top celebrities voted for by the great british public.
16 Tougher Punishments for all anti social criminals.
17 Major House building programme and knock down more shit housing.
18 Limit on amount of properties that any one person can own.
19 Increase inheritance tax to 50% on all estates of over £500,000
20 Replace the unelected Judiciary with Judges directly elected by people in the areas that they serve.
21 Legalise Cannabis but only allowed to be sold in the renationalised post offices.
22 Cut Charitable Status to private schools.
23 End any subsidy for people from private schools in the UK university system.
24 Renationalise energy and telecoms.
25 Cut the workking week and increase the minimum wage.
Biglittlefish
Active Member
Well if people are paying the full cost of their courses they should of course be free to learn whatever they want but I see the university system as a system to provide workers for the economy. As such it needs to provide workers that the economy demands and an employment measure would be a good angle to make education become linked to the demands of the economy.
Yeah then they could graduate build robots to serve the 'demands of the economy' and would have no need to be alive at all
Yeah then they could graduate build robots to serve the 'demands of the economy' and would have no need to be alive at all
tbaldwin's manifesto
Well there's some ideas I quite like there, that I think the labour party could reasonably introduce and that would marginally make tings better.
Not sure I like the idea of increasing income tax though, -- not that it affects me.
It's just, I think it's quite good that people can earn a lot of money fast.
What I think's stupid is people being absurdly rich. But there are plenty of people with incomes in the 70,000 region who still aren't particularly rich, and are busy paying a mortgage of a few hundred thousand off.
I think if taxation's your thing, it makes more sense to think of taxing people on the basis of their net wealth, -- actually taking a percentage of people's net wealth off them each year, - if they've got say, more than a million in assets.
I like most of them though, specially number 25, don't like 3 5 and 20, though.
Well there's some ideas I quite like there, that I think the labour party could reasonably introduce and that would marginally make tings better.
Not sure I like the idea of increasing income tax though, -- not that it affects me.
It's just, I think it's quite good that people can earn a lot of money fast.
What I think's stupid is people being absurdly rich. But there are plenty of people with incomes in the 70,000 region who still aren't particularly rich, and are busy paying a mortgage of a few hundred thousand off.
I think if taxation's your thing, it makes more sense to think of taxing people on the basis of their net wealth, -- actually taking a percentage of people's net wealth off them each year, - if they've got say, more than a million in assets.
I like most of them though, specially number 25, don't like 3 5 and 20, though.
When there's no means of putting your ideas into practice it isn't an alternative at all.
Well, everything that's been suggested in this thread could be put into practice by putting the necessary legislation through in parliament.
So I don't really see your point.
So I don't really see your point.
Not it couldn't, as there is nobody who would do it.
And even if they would, half of it wouldn't be tolerated by the establishment and vested interests who would therefore wreck it.
It's a bit some soldier who's been employed to murder a bunch of civilians, when they complain, he says
-well what's your alternative.
And they say, let us go, and don't shoot us.
And he says:
-look when I say alternative, I'm talking about practical alternatives, i.e. things I can actually do.
- I can't let you go, and I am going to shoot you, so basically you haven't got any alternatives to offer, have you.?
In these kind of discussions, you do frequently get people saying, well, we have to stick with the status quo, because there's no alternative.
If alternatives are then presented, to deny that they are even alternatives on the grounds that they're not actually happening, in order to support the view that there is no alternative seems to me like begging the question.
Posting on a message board isn't a bit like shooting somebody. Other than that you're entirely correct in your analogy.
And I never said that 'we have to stick with the staus quo', just that no alternative exists that could possibly be implemented any time soon. Shopping lists of 'my favourite things' on messageboards, often containing contradictory 'demands' don't alter that one little bit.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Scarily, I agree with pretty much all of that, especially the bit on taxation, altho my plan would be to make it 1p for every £1k you earn from a national minimum 'workers wage' of £15K p.a. Haven't done any sums on how much it would cost...also, I'd reserve the 60% band for bonuses. I just have a basic issue with taking 50% of someone's salary off them.
I also think your labour plans would be problematic - they make the presumption that even with decent financial incentives that people want to work and that work is a good thing...
I like this model...
Link was posted up in a (housing) thread by another urbanite.
There is no easy solution to taxation but it is so wrong now that any movement is a good thing.
CyberRose
أرفع الشفرات
Euthanasia would be compulsory in some cases in my Britain
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obanite
Kroketten
* Legalise drugs
* Decommission trident
* Ban plastic bags, institute a big tax on excessive plastic packaging
* Devolve and increase citizen participation in democracy via new technologies such as internet discussions & voting on issues. (i.e. make a real Public Forum)
* Educate kids more on politics and spotting propaganda
* Progressive taxation on households with more than one vehicle (or a single vehicle discount a la council tax)
* Introduce another tax band for salaries greater than 100k, something around the 60-70% mark
* Decommission trident
* Ban plastic bags, institute a big tax on excessive plastic packaging
* Devolve and increase citizen participation in democracy via new technologies such as internet discussions & voting on issues. (i.e. make a real Public Forum)
* Educate kids more on politics and spotting propaganda
* Progressive taxation on households with more than one vehicle (or a single vehicle discount a la council tax)
* Introduce another tax band for salaries greater than 100k, something around the 60-70% mark
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