United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party Newsletter

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The Ruin of Britain's Parliament - Where we stand series

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Fri, 15 May 2009 14:14:00 +0000

The Ruin of Britain’s Parliament – Where we stand series

As we all sit open mouthed at the startling audacity of MPs’ wild expense claims, people both inside and outside politics can only shake their heads in disbelief. The opinion of the man and woman in the street is far clearer; they are convinced the only second home allowance they should pay is for a very small cell in a very big prison. What on earth has happened to our previously most cherished institution, and how can it be fixed? Indeed, can it be fixed?

If we look closely and compare the reactions of the ‘man in the street’ against individual ‘guilty’ MPs and the shrieking self-righteousness of the media expose, then we can begin to analyse what’s going on. The facts are these; everyone has known for years that MPs are ‘at it’, that ‘they are only in it for themselves’, that ‘they are all the same’. Everyone knows that the national media, especially in the past, are well ‘up for it’ when it comes to enjoying perks that, let’s say, go a little beyond propriety. And everyone else, including me, has at some time or other taken the odd paperclip or other stationery item, borrowed a stapler and forgotten to give it back, taken odd bits of material laying about, expanded expense claims a little, if we’re lucky enough to have them etc. It’s human nature to try to get something for nothing. So as Jesus said; ‘let him who is without sin throw the first stone’.

In the public’s eyes, something bigger must be going on than MPs fiddling at the taxpayers’ expense. We’ve always known about that and expected it. I think the telling difference lies in MPs’ reaction to being caught. Instead of a grovelling apology or even a resignation or several, we are told by each of them that they did nothing wrong because the rules allowed it! The Speaker and others actually castigated the press, and the leaker of the information, for letting the cat out of the bag and making the cosy deals available for public gaze! In other words we were given a big raspberry by the shameless parasites and told to mind our own business. That’s what members of our Mother of Parliaments really think of the people who elected them. They almost, very nearly, got away with it and that’s what has so outraged ordinary people. Thank God for the media. Let me tell you here and now that I will never complain about the media while they continue to burst the bubble of pomposity and hypocrisy wherever it resides.

Even now, as MPs rush to write cheques and proudly wave them as testament to their contrition, most have absolutely no idea of the critical damage they have done. The street mugger who returns a purse devoid of money, credit cards and personal possessions has not suddenly paid his debt to society. It takes an awful lot more than that. It is confirmed now that our representatives in Parliament really don’t care about the rest of us at all. Suddenly we realise there’s something terribly wrong with our democratic process. There’s even a strange, very British kind of silent and sullen revolution in the air. And when the British are roused, watch out. This time the solution requires more than another game of musical chairs where one party falls while another takes up where the previous one left off.

What’s really happened is this: many of our MPs feel they have no real purpose; they can’t influence events to any great extent. It started with Thatcher and has got worse. The managing of Britain has been outsourced. Decisions are made by Whitehall mandarins, privatised public sector companies, big business, political advisers, a coterie of the most senior ministers, the EU in Brussels, and new vigorous parliaments in Scotland and Wales. Westminster MPs are just canon fodder tied to the party line. Mark my words, when clever people like these become bored, and no-one’s watching, they tend to get themselves into a lot of mischief. Westminster MPs have turned into a new breed of courtier. Their only purpose is to hang around until they’re required to agree with their prince. The British people are nowhere in this decision making process and as such we count for nothing. When things are rosy we put up with it, but when things are dire like now, where we suffer and they don’t, then the confidence trick is exposed. We are victims of a democratic sleight of hand and we don’t like it.

There is a solution that a lot of people are slowly waking up to. Anybody who follows UKpopdems or knows what we stand for is clear about the answer. Ordinary Britons should have much more power and government, whether national, regional, local, or EU come to that, should have much less. The golden rule is this: he who pays the piper calls the tune. We pay the piper alright, up to 50% of our wages, so we should call the tune. We need to turn the pyramid of power over onto its point so that ordinary people are at the top and all those self-important busy-bodies who dictate to us today sit at the bottom. They’ll learn fast how to truly serve our needs then. One day soon, I hope, the people of Britain will recognise that UKpopdems understands beyond question that successful democratic leadership can be achieved only by taking the honest, perceptive, dedicated and humble role of a servant to all the people.

MPs should always be the peoples’ servants; running the estate (our nation) on their masters’ behalf and making it prosper. Stealthily, over the years, the servants have taken over the estate for their own purposes and enslaved their proper masters. They have drunk all the best Port, eaten all the caviar, gambled away the masters’ fortune and failed to repair and maintain the estate so it is now crumbling. We have to find the strength to round them up and force them back into the servants’ hall, whipping them soundly until they understand this must never happen again. It can happen if we’re brave enough.

Back from the economic brink - where we stand

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:29:00 +0000

In these potentially disastrous recessionary times it’s fair that all parties, big and small, honestly review their most cherished policies based on today’s conditions rather than the ideal or ‘normal’ conditions parties expect to find in government. UKpopdems is no exception and this addition to the party’s WHERE WE STAND SERIES, aims to do this.

First, I believe there is no totally new kind of recession; we have been here before. Because the banks seem at the forefront of current problems many pundits – the same pundits who failed to see the recession coming in the first place – think we are back in the great depression years of the early thirties. I don’t think so. Chancellor Darling is on record as saying that Britain is suffering the worst downturn for 60 years and I think he is right: this is a repeat of the 1946-52 ‘austerity recession’. Overwhelming debt was the problem then and it is the main problem today. The pound suffered greatly, there was threat of deflation, house prices tumbled, individual spending ground to a halt and Labour were in government – just like today.

Then, it was the private health sector that collapsed and this prompted its nationalisation and renewal as the National Health Service. Today it’s the collapse of the banking sector and, look, the start of an effectively nationalised bank service. Although the recession then was long, as this one will be, the bright side is that the subsequent upswing burst into life in 1952 and continued steadily to benefit living standards for over twenty years. Brown thinks he is ahead of the world with economic solutions but really he is just following the same path as the US money men, pouring cash into the banks and probably industry as well. This is the right thing to do; there is no such thing as a ‘free world’ without thriving banks and industry. But, just like the US, Brown has bottled out of the next logical step of nationalisation, and this is a big mistake.

UKpopdems are pressing for a fully nationalise RBS which, together with already nationalised Northern Rock, and possibly together with Lloyds and The Post Office would create a taxpayer backed Mortgage Bank, Lending Bank, Savings Bank, Investment Bank and Social Bank, giving preferential terms to all British taxpayers and British based businesses; terms that are significantly better than any other bank. This is fair. It is quite acceptable that owners and shareholders should get preferential terms. In addition, as shareholders, tax-payers must have the opportunity to elect the bank’s executive directors, not government bureaucrats and hacks. Just like the creation of the National Health Service in the ‘Austerity’ recession, the creation of the national bank really would be a legacy of equal standing Britain could be proud of. Boosting responsible business, mortgage and even personal lending will put a base line under asset values that everyone is looking for, creating the confidence we need to slowly move up and out of the recession.

The national bank won’t be the most efficient or profitable, but when people need support, they can be confident in getting it. This step is not so radical and could have knock-on benefits too: the restoration of village branches via an expanded post office network, for example; the statutory and safe home for government, local authority, community and state business savings; a ring-fenced hub for community capital projects, social lending and flexible benefit payments: and a centre for financial advice of all kinds.

What about UKpopdems many cherished policies that promise financial and social wealth; real power and a strong voice for all Britons; as well as pride in Briton and our place in the world. First, let’s remember this is a recession caused by debt; government debt especially. If Brown really had been a competent and prudent Chancellor then instead of wasting our money in mad excess, he would have saved it to ensure Britain possessed a cushion of cash surplus for recessions such as this, just like many other countries. Instead he played the role of the foolish virgin who wasted her lamp oil and had none left when it was truly needed to light the way forward. Countries that have cash surpluses now will weather this storm far better than Britain, and Britons will suffer for that. It means that whatever the government does, whatever opposition parties want to do, whatever UKpopdems wants to do to correct the vast failures of the past, they will all have to be financed by more debt. Every pound sterling of debt now will have to be paid back later, either by taxpayers or in some other way such as the disastrous spectre of high inflation. So using debt wisely is imperative.

Priority one is to protect jobs where practically possible and this includes public sector jobs, too. A national bank would underpin lending for individuals and companies but more will have to be done to avoid creating unemployment needlessly. Our cherished policy of eliminating waste will have to wait for better times. You see, one person’s waste is another person’s job. It would be madness to spend money saved by eliminating waste only to spend it on supporting new jobless Britons. We won’t do it. Nor can we expect business to take on full employee health responsibilities and better pension payments in exchange for a zero corporation tax: corporate profits just aren’t up to it and won’t be until the recession is over.

What I do want to do is use debt for three key purposes in the short term:
1. To broaden and deepen democracy by empowering individuals and communities. This means gradually strengthening Parish and Community Councils by moving existing professional support and resources out to those communities able to accept it; and giving those communities who are ready an overriding say over local authority decisions.
2. To strengthen front-line services through the genuine natural staff turnover of back-line public service personnel such as administrative, managerial, control centre and bureaucratic staff. Generally, as one back-office public sector person leaves, a new front-line delivery person will be employed where they can best be used and are most needed.
3. To put real money back into the pockets of individuals and families. Billions have been given to banks; billions will be given to businesses and corporations; yet Brown has been incredibly tight-fisted with those who really matter, ordinary people. The fiddling with VAT has been a dismal failure and should be reversed. I want to rebalance the equation in favour of people and give each household over a thousand pounds of real extra money to spend each year. This would be done by completely abolishing Council Tax; the worst, most unfair and divisive tax ever invented. That would pump more than £25billion of spending power straight into the economy every year, doing its bit to save shops and the High Street.

The government also needs to demonstrate new and daring strategies. For example, there are many countries with cash surpluses but potentially dire declining trading performance. Britain should be working directly with those countries – Japan, China and others to find win, win solutions. One approach could be to negotiate the provision of money-off or free vouchers to consumers who purchase products of that country, keeping goods and trade flowing. Both Britain and those other countries benefit through maintained jobs and skills. Now that would be a world leading first.

Any of UKpopdems policies that can be implemented without creating needless debt we’ll try to move forward with. We will especially push for anything we can do to repair Britain’s broken social infrastructure and weakening democracy because this is what our country and people sorely need more than anything else. When conditions improve this time we want to see the beginnings of a new age of wealth matched by social well-being, confidence and pride in a strong and truly democratic Britain. That’s what UKpopdems is working for.

Breaking Britain’s Bureaucratic Dictatorship – Key Issue Series

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:09:00 +0000

We go behind the published policy summaries to explain in some detail how UKpopdem goals and policies work together on one of today’s major issues.

5. Breaking Britain’s Bureaucratic Dictatorship

Past union power
In Britain in the 1970s, conditions were dire and this country was heading towards becoming a banana republic, a third world nation. What was the cause of this nightmare? It was due primarily to the unions but fuelled by poor government. Long beforehand, these organisations (unions) were set up with the best intentions of protecting workers from bad employers who abused them in terms of low pay, long hours, unsafe working conditions, minimal breaks and bullying, overbearing attitudes. Unions were very successful, but in the 50s and 60s something happened: government mismanagement led to higher inflation and as a result union bosses started to make outrageous demands. They began to flex their muscles and abuse their own position of power with regard to ordinary people. Instead of fair pay for fair work they wanted more pay for less work. It was a sort of revolutionary coup attempt where unions had the means to stop up the system; and they did it. Eventually, the Labour government of the time was brought down and Thatcher won by a landslide. Ordinary people were suffering. They wanted the problem fixed and they knew Labour couldn’t hack it.

The beginnings of bureaucratic power
Everyone knows that Thatcher broke the unions. But she did it in a way that, ever since, created a divide in Britain. Instead of targeting union big bosses and their organisation she used the police to crack the heads of strikers; the foot soldiers of the unions. That was like punishing drug addicts while letting the big dealers go unmolested. But break the unions she did. What is not so well known is that Thatcher sowed the seeds for the bureaucratic situation Britain is in today. She instigated the process of introducing big business into government and growing a bureaucracy to control and monitor the delivery of public services. New Labour continued this bureaucratic growth, adding layers and layers of processing, controls and targets and deeper and yet deeper insertion of profit making enterprises. You won’t find this in government statistics but UKpopdems estimate that for every real public sector delivery person, like a nurse, porter, teacher, home help, prison warder, there are as many as two bureaucrats: that is, perhaps two million real front-line deliverers and up to four million bureaucrats and managers to control them. Taking private sector resources into the equation the situation could be much worse than this. It is indeed dire.

A bureaucratic dictatorship – really?
Ok, you might say, things are not so good: but a bureaucratic dictatorship? Yes. First let’s look at reality and define bureaucracy. Bureaucrats in this context are not suave people with bowler hats; they are ordinary people who mistakenly have been put into positions to create and administer processes and rules to stop things happening or slow them down. It’s not deliberate, just wrong-headed. Collins dictionary defines ‘bureaucrat’ as: ‘an official who follows rules rigidly, so creating delays and difficulties’; and ‘bureaucracy’ is likewise defined as: ‘any system of administration in which matters are complicated by minor rules and take longer than they need to’. In the old days of British Public Service, bureaucrats existed as vocational career specialists but there were far fewer of them, many less than the everyday workers who delivered services to people who needed them. In those days delivery resources such as police, health workers, road sweepers, even, were expected to do the right things, to the best of their ability for the individuals, families and communities they served, working mostly on their own initiative to complete the job. Now centralised bureaucracies have grown to such levels that no public servant can deliver what ordinary people need without a maze of rules, checks, processes and targets. Everyone knows that the public sector is costing more and seemingly delivering less. As bureaucracy grows, new super bureaucracies make rules and processes for lesser bureaucrats and they in turn need yet greater bureaucracies to monitor and control them in turn. The system is stopped up just as in the days of union power; now it is bureaucratic power that is abusing its position.

Visioning bloated bureaucracy
The result is dire because not only do people who need help fail to get the support they want, but increasing billions of pounds are wasted on bureaucrats that could be spent better on front-line delivery. Much worse, hundreds, maybe thousands of companies and individuals supplying resources, systems and consultancy to support the bureaucracy business are getting rich on tax-payers’ money. This means, bizarrely, that ordinary citizens like you and me are handing over more of our hard-earned money to get a worsening service; the money being sucked up by increasing numbers of bureaucrats whose job is to stop the things we want from happening in the first place! The business is now so big and so complex and so controlling, that government itself seems powerless in its grasp. The picture comes to mind of a huge, obscenely bloated body, so burdened by its own weight it is unable to move except for one hand which, seemingly of its own volition, shovels cash into its gaping maw from a pile of money continuously replenished by the turned-out pockets and purses of ordinary working families. The government brain may want movement but is powerless. The picture is made worse because it is the private sector which is supplying the scaffolding to prop up the body; providing the mechanics to assist the arm in moving to grab the cash, and contracting the earth mover to push the money-pile into the hand’s path!

Fixing the problem
Britain, truly, is in the grip of a bureaucratic dictatorship and it needs to be broken: not in the Thatcher way by cracking the heads of front-line deliverers but by turning the public sector upside down in the UKpopdems way. Instead of service delivery heading up through layers of bureaucracy ultimately to the controlling and unelected elite of senior Whitehall mandarins, UKpopdems will make sure public services operate under the democratic control of the individuals, families and communities who pay for them and need the services. The job of government is then to enable rather than control and make sure public services look outwards to the people they serve rather than inwards to their controllers. Achieving this is not a five minute job but a defining, systematic process that demands focussed effort over the long-term to completely eradicate the bureaucratic blight. Then Britain once again can be proud of a public sector that focuses on doing the right things in the right way as measured by individuals and communities; not remote central departments or government. How can it be done and what is the UKpopdems way?

Moving resources to the front-line
First we must remember that bureaucrats are people, too. It is not their fault. Private industry consultants and suppliers employ people as well and it is not their fault either. UKpopdems, when in government, has promised to put the people first. We are guaranteeing this by turning over the pyramid of power so that ordinary people are at the top and government at the bottom looking up, which is how it should be. What we are confident of is that back-office workers do not really want to be bureaucrats who control, target and process peoples’ needs remotely. High back-office staff turnover demonstrates the truth of it. What they want is what every public servant wants and that is to do the right thing in the right way to directly and rapidly serve the needs of the people – and be appreciated for doing it. We’ll make sure that no bureaucrat or back-office worker is forced out of a job. What we will do is to gradually move centralised staff to the front-line by prioritising public-facing roles, and reduce bureaucracy by natural turnover. Our ultimate aim is to increase numbers of front-line delivery specialists working directly in communities by 500,000 or even 1,000,000. We’ll do whatever it takes to deliver the right services in the right way to the right people; there is no place in the delivery system for bureaucrats who stop or slow down progress. We also need to ensure numbers of administrators and managers are not excessive as a proportion of front-line deliverers either; and we’ll set this ratio at no more than 30% of the total of front-line delivery resources. It can be done and people will not be forced out of their jobs.

Creating new real jobs
You can see by looking at UKpopdems big policy initiatives that we are creating millions of additional jobs elsewhere in the public and private sector so no-one need be in fear of losing employment. Look at UKpopdems ‘Right to Work’ initiative; or ‘Very High Earners Discretionary Contribution’; or our plan to eliminate corporation tax etc. and you can see we are planning millions of real new jobs. In addition, we’ll be offering front-line resources considerable wage increases when they agree to the new working conditions necessary to meet the high expectations of their local communities. In a document such as this it is not possible to explain fully how UKpopdems new front-line working procedures will operate in every circumstance but the general is explained here in a way that will give a clear route to the particular. In our published goals we have promised the people that when they really need help it will be given simply and thoughtfully. That promise is the backbone of our front-line service delivery policy.

Services working directly for you
Apart from teachers in schools and health workers in hospitals, clinics etc, we expect most front-line services will be delivered right there in the community that needs them. When UKpopdems define community, we are talking about small communities; Parish and Community Councils. And there will be many more resources – at least an extra 500,000 and up to 1,000,000 more than there are today. 250,000 of these will be additional policemen and women and they will have a dual role: 1. to reduce crime, especially violent and other serious crime, and to work with the justice system to remove violent and serious offenders from the society they are harming: 2. To play a social role in the community, to get to know the people in the community and ensure that anyone who needs help of whatever nature can get it. This means that there will always be someone easily accessible to turn to in your community when you or someone else needs help. Public services will be delivered by people who come to your door or reside in a small office or house nearby. They will work in small teams that can get to know individuals and the requirements of the community and determine needs quickly, simply and thoughtfully. Sometimes, additional expertise from outside will be necessary, but those specialists will still come to you rather than you going to them, unless you prefer to do that. Effectively, all these resources work for the community through the Parish and Community Councillors you elect; so in a real sense they operate for you and therefore will have your best interests in mind when they are addressing your business.

An end to central targets, controls and processes
There will be no need for bureaucratic processing, controls or systems beyond what the delivery resources themselves need to do their jobs. Of course there is a very real role for civil service departments, but it is not one of control, delay or veto. The central role will include two things: 1. setting the national and regional standards by which front-line resources operate: and 2. Collecting and managing information that needs to be reported, such as costs etc. None of these will force extra reporting or control criteria on front-line resources, but be collected naturally from the events of the work or from community administration. Schools and hospitals will work differently because of their locational needs, but will put the patient or pupil at the centre of their service in the same way. In the health service clear roles will mean that doctors and surgeons are responsible for treatment and nurses responsible for care, with all ancillary resources brought back in-house under the appropriate control of nurses or doctors/surgeons. In schools the basis of teaching will revolve around the best learning needs of the pupil so that his or her maximum potential can be realised. These are both very complex services and separate UKpopdem policies have already been published for each of them. But you can imagine that a public service like NICE for example, so much in the news recently, would be changed to promote and enable rather than control, delay and stop the right things from happening.

A return to public service vocation
Our goal is to all but eliminate bureaucracy over ten years and to do this in a way that does not disrupt services, but improves them to the satisfaction of every man, woman and child in Britain; for it is you who should be the measure of success in delivery. Public service is not about ultimate efficiency and the complete eradication of all waste. But it is about quality and vocation and that’s what we and we know most people want to return to; doing the right things for the right people in the right way.

Governing for Success in a Downturn – Key Issue Series

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:10:00 +0000

We go behind UKpopdems published policy summaries to explain in some detail how UKpopdem goals and policies work together on one of today’s major issues.

4. Governing for Success in a Downturn
How to come out stronger than going in

The Problem
This downturn is going to be tough for everyone and ‘austerity’, a word we haven’t been used to in modern times, could be everyday life for ordinary people. The key test for government is this: is Britain going to come out weaker than we went in or stronger? What happens in this downturn will create the foundation for Britain’s place in the world for years or even decades to come. Will an incompetent Labour or Tory government destroy Britain’s economic wealth, social cohesion and international standing; or will new energies drive for novel and dramatic opportunities that give our country two, three or even five times the economic, social and international strength we have today? It’s depressing that neither of those two parties have anything to offer apart from tinkering around the edges of the status quo. They are burying their heads in the sands of political dogma and they’d better pull them out fast or hand the torch on.

Involving the People
Actually, implementing strategies to make sure Britain comes out much stronger is not that difficult. Just ask the millions of ordinary people, and in their own way they’ll tell you, that’s what UKpopdems has always believed. The reason Britain is in this state now is because big government has turned its back on the people and sees us as a series of problems needing to be managed. Government may blame external pressures for the downturn, but it’s the rot inside that allows those pressures to hurt. So the first solution is for government to get a grip and really understand what it’s there for; the one job it must not fail on: that is, to protect and benefit Britain and the British people. Everything else is just the intellectual pretentiousness of political dogma, which in a downturn is about as much use as a chocolate teapot and we can’t afford it.

Must do Things for Success
Jump over that hurdle and everything starts to become clear. There are seven key elements that, when addressed properly, will set firm foundations for future success during the lean years of the downturn: 1, preserving and building British jobs for British people; 2, encouraging the wealthy to come to Britain and spend in Britain; 3, supporting profitable companies and business sectors that can become dominant world players in the upturn; 4, empowering people to build resilience and encouraging them to participate in community decision making; 5, fixing the social problems of ‘Broken Britain’; 6, gaining control of our energy and food sources; 7, investing to present a strong, stable, confident and compassionate face to the outside world. Neither Brown nor Cameron is looking in the right place to even get a perception of these essentials because success demands that Britain and the British people must come first. All these things can be done with strong resolve, and once started will get easier. The vital strategy is to put forward simple but beneficial policies that everyone can understand and buy into.

Strengthening Business and Jobs
The first action is to support business and jobs by taking an action that should have been done a long time ago: that is eliminating corporation tax! This would reward profitable British companies, attract hundreds of new, highly profitable corporations into Britain and create tens of thousands of jobs. In return, UKpopdems would make employers take responsibility for funding employee health and implement proper pensions at 50% of final salary. This simple action is not only tax neutral but has multiple far reaching benefits. Eliminating corporation tax ends business tax complexity and the hundreds of millions spent on finding and closing tax loopholes. Declared profits and company values would rise because there is nothing to hide: highly paid and skilled staff would move their residence to Britain. Employers would not only be brought fully into the health system and help make the NHS more efficient, but also address the key social health issues and innovative preventative measures where government has failed. 50% defined benefit pensions are affordable, and making a return to final salary linked pensions is the perfect answer to the looming prospect of widespread pensioner poverty. Of course, the more profitable a company the more it gains by this measure, but all corporations should be driving for efficiency and increased shareholder value. Those that do it best will want to be in Britain, boosting this nations long term economic strength come the upturn.

Energy and Food
Making sure that Britain has the food and energy we need now and for the future is essential. For food guarantees this means making sure British farmers are rewarded fairly for growing affordable food of good quality in the most efficient manner; and opening up direct food channels from foreign sources, whatever the EU might say differently. Britons must eat and eat properly. This may mean investment in third world farming efficiency so that poor countries that feed us cheaply can also feed themselves cheaply, too. With energy, we can no longer accept very high profits being made by Britain’s utilities, especially when end prices to ordinary people are too costly, and the fact that most are foreign owned so that profits and dividends from British base assets go abroad. These privatised companies should be seen as public services and profits generated out of their British activities must be shared equally with their customers in order to reduce prices. In the medium term with threatening gas shortages and increasing prices, energy needs must be met by more coal fired stations where Britain still has a wealth of resource, with renewables and possibly nuclear (if the people agree in a referendum) taking up the demand as they come increasingly on stream. Once firm plans to guarantee low cost energy and food sources begin implementation and long-term stability is assured, we can move on to strengthening Britain’s social fabric.

Turning Government Waste into Social Solutions
To do this we must first ruthlessly find and eliminate as much government waste as we can and use the money released for the creation of true social wealth that will bring long term resilience and stability when the upswing comes. Over ten years, New Labour’s centralising state has created an obscene, bloated bureaucracy that can hardly carry its own weight. By some estimates its prodigious appetite for tax payers’ money produces £150billion of pure waste every year. For a fraction of that money we could eradicate violence by putting tens of thousands of extra police on community streets and building an adequate prison and rehabilitation infrastructure. We could support children and families with an education system that best suits individual learning needs; more special schools, more specialist teachers, more parental support, more early involvement and a curriculum that creates healthy, confident, well-educated adults. We could make sure those who need work get real jobs via UKpopdems ‘right to work’ initiative so giving self-worth to the many who feel left out of society. We could double the peacekeeping and reconstruction capability of our armed forces and thus react more quickly to the needs of innocent people suffering from natural disasters and evil in many guises. Addressing these and similar issues will give Britain the social stability and strength to be able to gain when the downturn ends.

Individual Empowerment
In a parallel activity, we’ll begin to increase individual family and community resilience by gradually taking power away from the political centre and the unelected elite, and giving more democratic power and responsibility to individuals and communities. The old socialist idea of a welfare state has turned into a nightmare where everyday decisions are increasingly made by local, regional and national authorities. The state has taken over the role of both mother and father, creating a nation of growing dependents. For the sake of Britain’s future survival this situation must be overturned. UKpopdems will implement an empowered, participative democracy focusing on individuals and small communities. This means that the combined democratic voice of ordinary people carries more weight than the power of government. It means individuals participating in local and national decision making on issues that concern them and at a time of their own choosing. The result of this reversal of the old order of democratic power implies strongly that politicians had better work hard to do the right things in the right way because, if they get it wrong, people can act together at their own discretion to override bad decision making. The social role of government is to implement solutions that maximise individual opportunity, and to make sure people get support readily when they really need it. Strong, confident, individual resilience is exactly what Britain needs to take advantage of the next upswing.

Investing to Win the Future
While that’s being done UKpopdems will begin to partner with key business sectors to capture dominant global positions in future markets through massive investments in development, quality, marketing and supply. Targets include high value-added areas such as finance, areas of defence like armour and aerospace, medicine, entertainment, engineering, sport technologies etc. Something like this requires not only single-mindedness but total commitment in identifying and nurturing talent. Britain has been a dominant world supplier before and we can do it again. Lastly we need to bring back the philanthropic spirit of old by ensuring that the very wealthy contribute more to Britain and the poorest in society and are happy doing it. People receiving more the ten times national average earnings will be asked to contribute directly towards alleviating child poverty. High earning employers and directors can limit their contribution by employing more people; especially the long-term unemployed, disadvantaged and disabled; or for making real investments in Britain, for example: British bonds and equities, approved charities, British goods (or that part which is British), and approved environmental measures. These measures encourage the wealthy to be seen as positive benefactors of Britain and society rather than in a negative light. This is so important because, in the next upswing, opportunities for national and individual wealth, growth and stability will be the engines of a resurgent, strong and proud Britain.

The International Vision - When in Government Series

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:13:00 +0000

A series of papers illustrating how UKpopdems will manage government for the benefit of Britain and the British people.

2. Implementing the Vision – we can govern for the pitfalls and problems of everyday life and deliver the promises we have made to Britain and the British people.

e). The International Vision – raising Britain’s international standing.

Summary

The United Kingdom is a very great nation which, through the talents of its peoples, has been at the forefront of progress throughout the world. Not everything that Britain has done in its history has been good, but what has been good has changed the whole world for the better. UKpopdems believes the United Kingdom still has so much to give that is of value. Our national strengths that include honour, order, democracy, compassion, freedom, ingenuity and energy are as globally valuable today as they always have been.

With UKpopdems’ international vision we are setting out to implement policies that reclaim Britain’s standing in the first rank of nations, with a unique offering to reach out in compassion and mediation for peace and a better world, both with our partners and alone.

This paper; ‘raising Britain’s international standing’, completes UKpopdems series of documents explaining how our policies can be implemented for the benefit of Britain, the British people and our neighbours across the globe. Six policy areas are covered as follows:

1. Environment – solutions to protect the Earth without damaging lifestyles
2. Immigration – accepting the fact of immigration, but reducing and controlling it
3. Defence and Foreign Policy – a safer, freer and more compassionate world
4. Britain – pride in Britain and our place in the world
5. Europe – an early referendum on EU membership and the result acted upon
6. Poverty and Aid – directly helping those suffering poverty, fear and natural disasters

1. Environment – solutions to protect the Earth without damaging lifestyles

It is said that, after world terrorism, global warming is the most serious threat to future civilisation and, by attachment, Britain’s future, too. Some claim the threat is greater than world terrorism. Most people are prepared to accept now that the earth is warming and yet uncertainties still exist about its real impact on everyday life, with estimates varying wildly. There are other immediate concerns that need to be addressed, such as guaranteeing energy sources and food in a world where developing nations increasingly and rightly demand their share of ‘civilised’ living. The effects of these problems will hit hardest those who are least able to cope with them and Britain must solve these anxieties at home as well as play a leading role to alleviate suffering, yet still protect the environment, on the world stage. The British people are environmentally aware and increasingly demanding ‘clean’ solutions that reduce CO2 emissions, but they have made it clear that their lifestyles and what they have strived to achieve for themselves and their families must be maintained and continue to improve. This is our task, to protect the Earth without damaging lifestyles.

Understanding and Reducing Environmental Impacts

There is much that can be done. One of the early things that we can do is make the true environmental and carbon cost of everyday living visible. That is, the actual carbon cost of manufacture, distribution and disposal. This way, people can make real choices because the facts they trust will be available to them. The work to make these costs visible has started in a small way and UKpopdems will support this effort and invest to complete it as rapidly and precisely as possible. We’ll also make Britain’s total man-made greenhouse emissions accurately and simply visible and make similar and comparable information available about other countries and what those countries are doing about it.

Once this work is properly underway, one option is to enable people to benefit from less damaging lifestyles by shifting taxes increasingly to high carbon cost items. This would create a framework where ordinary people benefit practically by choosing activities and purchases that protect the planet. This is one of the best ways to encourage behaviour. This could be done via carbon labelling and then charging per carbon unit. UKpopdems is committed to keeping overall taxes the same in real terms, so a move to carbon taxing could only be achieved through matching reductions in taxes elsewhere. Secondly, a change of this magnitude must have the support of the majority of the British people, so a referendum would be held before any such change could legitimately be implemented.

UKpopdems is a firm believer in utilising technological solutions to protect the environment. We’ll invest heavily in practical implementations for reduced energy usage, emissions and self-sufficiency. We’ll work with partners to rapidly develop and apply technologies for carbon neutral homes, hybrid transport, coal carbon capture, next generation nuclear and innovative renewable options. Energy self-sufficiency, or at least energy guarantee, must be a key defence initiative for any government, as must reducing the overall cost of energy to people and business. For these reasons, as well as increasing the viability of nuclear, clean coal and renewable options, we’ll address the protection of existing energy sources. UKpopdems is already promising to eliminate corporation tax, which means that no British company will pay taxes on profits; but we will take action to restrict profits on the British activities of utility companies. We’ll also examine the possibilities of ensuring that profits as well as dividends are kept or held in trust in the UK. The objective is to protect British resources, reduce costs to business and individuals and encourage the investment of profits and dividends to alternative and cleaner energy sources within Britain.

Another practical initiative government can take to reduce greenhouse gasses is to look into its own back yard. We’ll do this by setting an example and reduce overall air and private road travel targets for government and the public sector. We’ll extend these reducing targets to organisations that government can influence directly such as state subsidised companies, suppliers and other trading partners. As with all UKpopdems targets, these will be independently monitored so people can have faith in them.

Protecting against Global Warming

Whatever Britain does in reducing harmful emissions, it could well be that not enough is done world-wide to prevent global warming becoming a reality. We must do the practical research now to fully understand what the possible effects of Global Warming might be on Britain, both as a nation and locally. If global warming happens then the results will be both positive and negative and could affect almost everything in normal life, from food to flooding, disease to diversity. Britain must capitalise on the benefits and minimise the harm. By using this information and investing wisely, then whatever global warming brings to Britain in ten, twenty, thirty or more years from now, we will be prepared for it; and we will be in a good position to help our neighbours and others when and if they need it.

It is undoubtedly internationally where the greatest negative impact of global warming will be felt and we will play our part in attempting to minimise suffering. Ukpopdems will grow a global warming defence fund of one billion pounds a year to help those most affected who cannot help themselves, and we’ll work with our neighbours and partners to increase that by ten, twenty or thirty times so that when disaster strikes in the years ahead, the innocent and vulnerable can be helped properly.

Britain’s environment

We can be justly proud of the great environmental strides Britain has made in just the last 50 years. The rivers, towns, and the land itself are cleaner than ever. Ukpopdems promise to continue this progress and direct more investment to greening up Britain. Waste is a huge problem and Britons do want good solutions that reduce it. We’ll push for much more recycling but take a different path by finding ways to encourage rather than punish. This way, businesses, individuals and families will benefit from recycling and proper disposal of non recyclable waste. An example is packaging disposal, where retailers will increasingly take responsibility.

Other environmental measures are too numerous to identify here, but include initiatives such as reductions in live animal movements, reducing food miles, increasing fresh food usage in schools and hospitals, protecting green and wild spaces and enhancing the built environment.

2. Immigration – accepting the fact of immigration, but reducing and controlling it

Most people in Britain believe immigration is too high. Even many established immigrants themselves think this. It is certainly out of control because no-one in government has any precise idea of the true position. Historically, Britain is a nation entirely made up of immigrants, but whereas small scale immigration can be integrated into the British mix, today’s influx of millions over a short period is difficult to absorb and causes social and financial difficulties. Britain is a small, crowded land where every new person from overseas should show they add value to Britain’s interests. With a forecast population rise to 70million and the social infrastructure buckling, drastic action is needed. The people of Britain have made it quite clear that they expect government to reduce and control immigration and this is what UKpopdems will do.

Managing immigration

We’ll manage legal entrance into Britain in two ways; first, by increasing numbers of front-line immigration officers and second, by implementing UKpopdems ‘easy visa’ initiative, which is a simple registration process for foreign nationals. The entry process will involve producing appropriate supporting documentation and completing an ‘easy visa’ card similar to the American waiver system. Legal entry will be based on categories such as ‘WORK’, ‘STUDY’, ‘BUSINESS START-UP’ or ‘SHORT STAY VISIT’. Easy visa works by matching ‘easy visa’ categories to previously registered and approved employers, accommodation, colleges, funding sponsors and health providers. Checks at entry can then correlate ‘WORK’ with the appropriate registered employer, for example: ‘STUDY’ correlated to the matching registered and approved college: ‘BUSINESS START-UP’ with registered funds sponsorship and registered health insurers: and ‘SHORT STAY VISIT’ with registered accommodation etc.

Employing foreign nationals must not be seen as a cheap option and the registration and approval process of employers of foreign nationals, for example, includes an onus for provision of accommodation, pension, health and repatriation. For registered colleges it will be health, accommodation and repatriation. The process of registration and spot check inspections will not require hordes of additional bureaucrats but be the normal business of Community Officers as part of their local duties in the community. The previous community vision document showed how numbers of Community Officers will be increased by at least 250,000, so the registration/inspection role is well within their capability.

Legal and illegal immigrants already in Britain

At the same time, foreign nationals already in Britain will begin to be registered retrospectively in the same way as with ‘easy visa’. Organisations linked to employment, education, accommodation, funding and insurance etc., will register en-bloc initially, and these will be repeatedly checked, approved and re-approved locally by Community Officers and specialist inspectors to ensure the maintenance of high standards. UKpopdems ‘retro-register’ initiative will ensure that whatever the initial entry route, whether legal or illegal, every attempt will be made to legalise immigration under ‘easy visa’ rules. This is the fairest way and avoids the need for blanket amnesty and problems of complex legal processes. Those who cannot be successfully registered within a specified time limit will be termed illegal, detained and deported over the shortest reasonable time.

Finding and separating out illegal and legal immigrants is a huge task. There may be hundreds of thousands of ‘easy visa’ registerable immigrants in Britain, and millions of illegal immigrants – no-one knows. Illegal entrants may be both unemployed and unemployable, may be involved in crime of all kinds, drugs, slavery, prostitution, violence, trafficking etc. and will be hidden in the shadows of normal society. Finding, prosecuting and deporting illegal immigrants and caring for those who have been hurt by them must be treated as the very highest priority and will involve and affect everyone in Britain until the job is done. It means looking into every dark corner, stopping and identifying people at random, relying on information from local people, using undercover investigators and entering suspected premises. A difficult job that will be done while protecting the rights of millions of innocent Britons.

Asylum

Asylum should be sought in the first country of safety that is reached; but when those requiring asylum do reach these shores then we are honour bound, as a civilised nation, to consider their cases. Those searching for asylum have suffered, are under threat, and may have many physical and psychological problems. What Britain must do is to properly look after their possibly complex needs for health, welfare and education. The last thing that should happen is that these damaged and needy people should be left alone to their own devices in a potentially hostile and difficult first-world environment. UKpopdems feel this can be better achieved by providing places of safety and support, where specialised resources can give long term assistance immediately it is required. When conditions in the home country are normalised and danger no longer threatens, then refugees can return home safely. If return is impossible then Community Councils may decide, over time, to take responsibility for individuals or families by integrating them fully into local society, with appropriate support and ‘easy visa’ registration.

3. Defence and Foreign Policy – a safer, freer and more compassionate world

Our world is a dangerous and unstable place, and the dangers in the world are becoming more complex. The peril of massed armies setting out to destroy or take over our country have receded for now, but the threat of great harm by fanatical individuals and groups hiding in the crowds, has dramatically increased. Looking outward into the wider world, anyone with charity can only be dismayed at the heart-rending suffering of innocent men, women and children through the hand of evil in many guises and in many countries; suffering that the so-called enlightened world and its lofty idealism cannot, or is unwilling to, prevent. No nation today can claim its citizens are safe.

Remarkably, and inexplicably, as the world becomes more malevolent, so past governments have run down Britain’s defences. Almost in direct proportion, as the risk increases so Britain’s ability to protect itself and others against that risk diminishes. Surely, if a government has only one job to do, it is to protect its citizens and interests against the damaging actions of others. Not only has our country been weakened, but past misjudgement in defence policy has led to the dangers for Britain increasing.

Britain’s armed forces have never been so stretched, nor expected to carry out so wide a panoply of challenging duties. Yet they are badly armed, badly paid and badly treated. It’s no wonder that recruitment is falling and trained men and women leaving in increasing numbers. Britain should be able to act strongly in defence of these islands, our international interests and especially those suffering brutal treatment across the world; our armed forces should be able to operate in many roles and in several theatres without over-stretching resources. These goals are what UKpopdems aims to achieve in defence. More important than force, though it’s often necessary, is the need for Britain to reach out for peace in the Middle-East, Africa and wherever else we can make a difference, and strengthening diplomacy to listen, share and clarify effectively will be the basis of UKpopdems foreign policy.

Pay and conditions

Immediately, UKpopdems will begin to strengthen Britain’s defences in order to successfully undertake anti-terrorism, peace-keeping, re-construction and offensive operations world-wide. To do these jobs properly, without over-stretching armed forces personnel and equipment, we need to reverse the present declining trend and double front line resources, increase aircraft, ships, armour and weapons systems by 50%, and also keep our nuclear deterrent updated.

Men and women on active duty need to rest, recover and re-train. Equipment needs to be maintained, updated and replaced. With current commitments this just cannot happen, leading to lack of essential equipment, fatigue and low morale. UKpopdems will encourage recruitment by paying more, looking after our soldiers and their families better, and making sure front-line troops have the best training and equipment for the job. For too long, Britain has had a make do and mend policy, relying on superb training, discipline and commitment to cover failures in equipment and logistics. Front-line forces who willingly put themselves in danger deserve the very best Britain can give them.

Pay of the most junior ranks will increase by 30%; likewise for those who are most highly specialised and valued. Allowances, too, will double in combat zones. Support and accommodation for service families will improve radically. Knowing those at home are well looked after, whatever the circumstance, is a basic minimum requirement. The same goes for service men and women who are injured. They will receive the best care during recovery and after, as long as it s needed. No-one will be forced out of the services just because they have been injured. There is plenty of valuable work to be done. These are not cost-driven issues but a fair return for personal sacrifice.

Across the whole of the public sector, UKpopdems are planning to create up to a million new front-line jobs and pay for these by reducing, through natural staff turnover, an equal number of back-office bureaucrats, administrators and managers. For the armed forces an additional 200,000 front-line personnel will be needed to defend Britain and our interests abroad. Of these, 50,000 will be recruited specifically for the home defence of Britain itself, in immigration, special operations police and intelligence services.

Combating terrorism and other dangerous individuals and groups is a specialist job of identifying, targeting, neutralising and containing. Intelligence gathering is a key tool in the fight that requires highly specialised skills, equipment and a global reach. Many people are rightly nervous about over-strong intelligence departments and their possible negative impact on individual liberty. A joint Parliamentary and independent commission will regulate the service and censure operations if necessary. If the period of detention without charge needs to increase then we will ask the views of the people beforehand.

Equipment procurement

Equipment and weaponry has always been a key issue in defence, never more so than today. Britain’s forces need the best equipment, no doubt about it, but as a complement to the best trained and disciplined manpower. British troops are already accepted as the best trained and UKpopdems will ensure training programmes will not be watered down. But in equipment terms, Britain has suffered some woeful failures in poor performance, slow supply, massive cost and time overruns, badly developed requirements and sometimes just sheer incompetence of senior ranks and ministers. UKpopdems will turn all this round by going back to basics.

In order that they can do the job we expect of our armed forces and other defence personnel then they need the best arms and equipment available. Accept that, and it becomes obvious that equipment must be sourced from where the best already exists, whether at home or abroad. So in future, where there’s an ‘off-the-peg’ solution that fits the bill as it is, or with minimal modification, then as long as there are no restrictions on use and a part-manufacture and service partnership can be developed for the UK, we will make the procurement. Costs will not only be kept down but delivery speeded up. In addition, in order to speed up and improve requirements definition and selection, we will reduce the involvement of very senior ranks and increase the contribution of experienced front-line end-users.

Britain’s defence industry is strong and UKpopdems want it to stay that way and grow. The best route to achieving growth and profitability is for the industry to excel. There can be no complete separation of the industry from government but performance on both sides needs a step-changing boost. We’ll encourage the industry to look increasingly outwards to recommend the best off-the-peg solutions from global sources. Rather than strongly promoting their own in-house design and manufacture, industries will be expected to put forward the best product solutions even where they exist elsewhere. Rather than acquiesce to and even encourage constantly changing design requirements to increase profits, they’ll be expected to develop trusted partnerships to identify potential world-beating defence initiatives themselves that government can invest in. As summarised above, we’ll streamline procurement procedures to ensure actual front-line and experienced users are a key part of the selection process, firm up forward requirements and make sure that decision making is timely and commitments made are honoured. We must get procurement right so that equipment levels and quality rises whilst overall budgets remain manageable.

Resolving conflict for peace

Previous governments have let Britain’s role on the international stage decline, citing European supremacy or the UK’s reducing world influence. This is nonsense. Britain is one of the few countries that can and should play a full part globally. Our unique history gives us a potent and valuable view of world affairs and the ability to help solve many intractable issues. Britain’s interests need more protecting than ever, and suffering among many foreign peoples is on the increase. Ukpopdems will strengthen this country’s representation in every corner to protect joint interests, share learning, clarify Britain’s principles and intentions, and resolve issues where our expertise can be of value. If Britain can help preserve world peace through negotiation with anyone, anywhere, then we will do it.

There are at least two areas of conflict which demand early involvement, where solutions look difficult and current initiatives are failing; that is, Africa and the Middle-East. UKpopdems will push hard for Israeli/Palestinian resolution via the road-map already on the table. Our contribution may be to directly support moderate Palestinian initiatives and leadership, either in partnership or, if necessary, alone. In Africa there is so much need, such suffering, and the UN is not acting fast enough or strongly enough. Here, Britain will put forward a bold initiative to create a standing European/African rapid reaction force pre-approved by the UN to act in protection of the innocent under threat.

The implementation of this whole policy will result in a stronger Britain, better placed to protect ourselves and others overseas who need help. We will have a louder voice for peace that will carry across the globe and the commitment and ability to back our initiatives with action. Our influence for good will grow and the people of these islands, once again, will be proud to play a key role in creating a safer, freer and more compassionate world.

4. Britain – pride in Britain and our place in the world

For a small island nation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has a long and fascinating history, full of famous events and characters many of which are known, admired and celebrated the world over. Yet this history is only sketchily taught in our schools so that children easily confuse events and most lose interest. This is done on some misguided principle that what Britain stood for then and what Britain stands for now should be down played in favour of the values of multiculturalism. This is wrong-headed and muddled thinking. We expect the millions who come to Britain’s shores to visit or stay to abide by our rules, to fit in with ideals of British community, to share national values and contribute. This is only possible if these values are widely known and regularly reinforced. UKpopdems believes people want to be proud of Britain and our place in the world and our job in government is to create the framework to make this happen.

Investing in Britain’s success

One way of promoting pride in Britain is to foster success. Success means not only that Britons feel good about themselves and their own country, but also that more opportunities exist for ordinary people to realise that rising to a challenge in Briton can lead to personal and team success. We’re not just talking about wealth and fame, but also the ability to use British successes to help and support the needs of others.

UKpopdems intend to put aside £10billion a year for investment in British success and we’ll work to have this matched or exceeded by investments from the private sector and personal foundations. Key investment targets are sport, engineering, science, medicine, arts and entertainment. The success we must look for is continental and global acknowledgement. Britons know what success is perfectly well because our nation is already a world leader in several fields. What UKpopdems is looking for is spectacular achievements in broader fields such as medical and scientific breakthroughs, sporting records, global arts awards, fabulous entertainment and astonishing engineering feats.

The new ‘vocation’ element in UKpopdems schools curriculum ensures children have opportunities to participate in many of these areas and that talents and skills can be identified and nurtured from an early age. Expect to see expansion of facilities, the involvement of renowned and already successful people for coaching, investment in specialist teaching and individual and group sponsorship. Individuals and teams demonstrating sustained success and achievement will be put forward for national honours and other recognition.

British nationality and citizenship

UKpopdems vision for Britain is a single nation with different but valuable cultural accents. That is, where individuals are readily identifiable as British in their beliefs and core culture but with individual overtones of their own. Britain’s cultural identity is changing and has always been on the move, but this happens very slowly and the vast majority of people want this slow progression to continue. We have to make sure then, that new citizens fit in well with things as they are and, in fact, we should have an expectation that new entrants want to become citizens because they like things in Britain as they are and not because they want to radically change them.

UKpopdems will make British nationality hard to achieve and, therefore, something to treasure and strive for. In order to prevent abuses and give a period of reflection to foreign nationals when nationality is eventually achieved then it will be a provisional entitlement for seven years conditional upon behaviour on either side. Likewise, when British nationals marry foreign nationals then British nationality will be an entitlement only after seven years of marriage. New permanent residency is seen as a possible precursor to citizenship and must be determined in future by Britain’s needs and by individual foreign nationals being able to fulfil those needs. We anticipate this will be based on a points system tried and tested already in several other countries.

Foreign nationals will need a lot of schooling and experiences as they move towards a tougher to achieve citizenship because the requirements will include language fluency; involvement in the community; working for integration; historical and geographic understanding; secular law and how this transcends religious law; the workings of Monarchy, government and the established church; demonstrating tolerant, compassionate and honourable behaviour; financial and personal management; freedom, rights and responsibilities. Many reading this may think such a tough regime more onerous than for existing Britons, but we think our nation should be strengthened by new entrants, not weakened. In any case, as can be seen in UKpopdems education policy, all children will increasingly be taught against the same British principles as part of the ‘civilisation’ element of the curriculum where Britain’s history, culture and beliefs will be extensively covered.

Visibility and Participation

In Britain’s social oriented, post national politics there is a certain embarrassment about flying our national flag, the Union Flag. However, what has developed in its place is the growing practice of flying flags of personal choice, whether these are the flags of England, Scotland or Wales, or of the EU, or local, regional flags, or even the flags of foreign nations. There’s nothing wrong with this except that these flags sometimes evoke statements of ‘independence’ from Britain and can, therefore, be divisive rather than inclusive. UKpopdems will actively encourage the flying of the Union Flag on public buildings and by everyone to emphasise single nationhood. Other flags can then be flown in conjunction with the Union Flag as demonstrations of cultural differences and empathies, but with overall British belonging.

With UKpopdems implementation of empowered, participative democracy ordinary people have power individually and in their communities and can use this power to make their voices heard on issues that concern them. There are many intractable social issues that should not be the prerogative of government to dictate and still other issues that have crept into society without anyone questioning their relevance and impact on real people. It is time the British people had their say on social norms and the results put into practice. UKpopdems will ask the people’s views on diverse subjects such as: political correctness; health and safety; equality and discrimination; the portrayal of sex and violence in the media; rights and responsibilities - and others as they arise naturally or as people decide.

5. Europe – an early referendum on EU membership and the result acted upon

The European Union plays a large and increasing role in British life; it determines many of Britain’s laws, business practices, international policies and social responsibilities. When Britons were asked to vote on joining other countries in a European Community it was on the basis of the then Common Market and expectation of business benefits. Now we are members of the European Union and the power of Brussels has grown to the extent that European law now stands above British law and we are on the very edge of major constitutional changes that could change Britain For ever. There are many in Britain and in Europe who sincerely believe that full union into a United States of Europe is on the cards. This has all happened without further reference to the British people and that’s wrong and totally undemocratic. It is just not clear today whether the British people want to leave the EU, stay in the EU but as a separate national entity, or move towards full union. UKpopdems will redress this situation in an early referendum.

The referendum

In all UKpopdem referendums, government’s role is to stay neutral rather than try and use its position to sway opinion, and to ensure this neutrality through independent monitoring. What is important is to make sure all facts and opinions are available to everyone who wants to see them, and to actively moderate between facts and opinions, separating them so voters are not overtly manipulated by erroneous information. The referendum question itself will be very simple and unequivocal and again, independently monitored – something like ‘should Britain stay in the European Union’? In this case, as in many UKpopdem referenda, there is a need for a supplementary question for those who affirm they want to stay in the EU. This is to determine whether voters want to stay in but maintain their national status, or stay in and move towards full union.

Referendum votes involving constitutional changes must have a majority of 66%, but as a vote to leave the EU would be a treaty change, then a simple majority would suffice. If this or a vote towards full union is the majority result, then these are signaling major changes in direction and government must do everything possible to maximize participation, short of forcing people to vote through legislation. In general elections, governments have been voted in on as little as 25% of the eligible vote, and it’s possible referendum decisions could also be made on low turnout. With UKpopdems implementation of empowered, participative democracy then the people could force government to hold another referendum if they feel the result is unclear, so valuable safeguards are built into the voting system.

Leaving the European Union

If the majority decision is for Britain to exit the EU then the key priority is to ensure Britain’s financial and trade position is, at the very least, protected for the long term. UKpopdems would want to ensure Britain and the British people were actually better off before the act of exiting. It may well be that final exit won’t take place until well into a second term because much legislation will need repealing, new trade agreements need to set up both within the EU and outside of it, especially where other important countries traded with Britain on the basis of our continuing EU membership.

It may well be that the EU offers to make major structural concessions to Britain in order to keep us in the Union and if these were significant then another referendum would have to be held to gauge any change in national opinion. It could be that business opportunities expand rapidly for Britain outside of the EU and that financial growth can be assured. As for social legislation, there is no reason why any EU statute made to protect individuals, or the environment, or consumers or anything else, need be repealed if it has value by itself.
In other words, a vote to leave the EU is simple to determine via the referendum but the actual fact of it may well be prolonged while the interests of all the people are protected.

Voting for full union

If the majority vote is for Britain to move towards full Union in Europe then our first move is to signal this intention clearly to Brussels and Britain’s union partners in the fast track group. We’ll need to apply to join the Euro as rapidly as possible and prepare for all the financial implications that go with it as the European central bank takes precedence.

We’ll throw Britain into the heart of Europe linking closely to France and Germany, and promote the EU position over national interest both at the UN and in international diplomacy. It’s impossible to say now how, if and when the nations of Europe may form into a single national identity, but this result means that people are ready for it.

Naturally, because constitutional changes will definitely be required during a process of full union, then further referenda will need to be held to confirm the British people fully agree. In these cases a 66% majority will be required.

Retaining Britain’s Nationality

This result means that Britain sees benefits in remaining within the EU but wants to retain its full nationhood. In other words the interpretation is that Britain’s interests come ahead of Europe’s. This is not the status quo because Britain’s relationship with the EU is constantly changing today. The first action UKpopdems would have to take is to prepare for another referendum, this time on the Lisbon treaty as this treaty alone reduces Britain’s national power within Europe.

Secondly, we’d ensure that no further EU legislation is enacted unless the British people themselves approve it in a public vote, after understanding the full impacts, possible costs and benefits to Britain and the British people. Thirdly, UKpopdems would begin the process of eliminating, or at least drastically reducing, some of the endemic problems and failures of EU management. These include reducing bureaucracy and costs and eliminating fraud and corruption. This will be a long and hard fight but these are the right things to fight for. The EU should be an efficient unit promoting competition and the interests of its people, but there is little evidence of this being a priority. We will begin to withhold contributions to EU running costs unless fraud and unacceptable accounting practices are immediately and seriously addressed.

6. Poverty and Aid – directly helping those suffering poverty, fear and natural disasters

Poverty is not just about money, it is about genuine fear that the basic necessities for life will not be available – food, water, safety, shelter, medicine, care. Without these necessities, no-one can lead a normal life and prosper. Britain, like all nations, should do its utmost to help relieve these deprivations and support the lives of real people and communities wherever there is suffering. It is the causes of poverty that are of most concern and the most difficult to address because they come from endemic corruption, greed and conflict. Britain has to address these problems too, if the innocent and suffering across the globe are ever to be free of their shackles.

Addressing natural disasters

If we can’t prevent natural disasters then at least we can react quickly to help and support those most affected and bring back normality as soon as possible. Britain already has a competent system of coordinated world-wide support for natural disasters which works through central and local NGO teams. UKpopdems aims to support this existing network and complement it

We support the setting up of a large, permanent, multi-agency, properly resourced and equipped rapid reaction force ready to go, so that aid and expertise can be delivered anywhere in the world where there are sudden natural disasters to alleviate. .Britain should be capable of doing this alone, if necessary, but we’ll work to make this force international with our partners and allies. We’re talking about the powerful pumps; rescue and reinstatement teams, clean water, shelter, emergency food and medical aid, and, just as important, long-term back-up and support that would be quickly in-place and on-site in the most inaccessible places to minimise personal suffering, and help communities get back to normal as soon as possible.

This force won’t be government led. UKpopdems wants to reduce bureaucracy, not increase it. What government should do is to make sure that specialist expertise, equipment and funding are available where and when it’s required under the direction of existing NGO coordination.

Direct aid

As explained above, we believe that the main causes of poverty and fear are corruption, greed and conflict. UKpopdems needs to combat these causes to create an environment for long-term stability as well as helping the innocent individuals and communities who are suffering.

UKpopdems first initiative is to increase direct aid; that is, aid directly to the people who really need it. This is already happening to a certain extend but we’ll make it the cornerstone of British aid. We want to see a dollar of aid money buying a dollar of short and long term support at the point it can be most useful. This approach will be of far greater value than paying a hundred dollars to corrupt government and watching it disappear in bribes, corruption, luxury goods for the elite and military arms.

Secondly, where we do pay aid to governments, we’ll begin to make it conditional on increasing percentages being passed directly to communities who need it most and where it can be used under the direction of recognized and approved local agencies. UKpopdems recognizes that we are not going to stop corruption, greed and violence for a long, long time. To do that we need to gain the support of the UN, other national blocs, and the individual countries providing most aid: that’s a very difficult job.

We can start by making it clear that British aid is compartmentalized into three separate and measurable parts: the first part for direct aid; the second for direct national and regional development, such as new energy sources; and the third for central government use. Our overall objective is to make sure that 80% of total aid goes to the people and projects where it can help most.

Africa

Africa is a continent of enormous potential and yet gigantic problems. Corruption, greed and tribal violence seem a normal way of life and the innocent are badly hurt. Life-threatening diseases are rife and yet many governments seem unwilling or even unconcerned about seriously treating them. Yet, there are African nations which are stable, democratic and provide good government.

Europe has the key historic responsibility for the Africa we see today and Europe must play a major role in addressing these problems. UKpopdems will work closely with the EU and individual European nations, and others, to specifically bring forward plans to address African initiatives. We’ve mentioned before the need for a pre-approved joint European/African rapid reaction peace-keeping force and this needs to have European backing. Too often, there have been unacceptable delays in protecting people from violence and loss. And too often, bureaucratic processes of the UN and corrupt self-interest in Africa and other nations have got in the way of offering direct help. The protection of real innocent men, women and children is far more important than central processes and diplomatic niceties. Everything that gets in the way of this objective must be short-circuited and this is what we’ll work for.

In terms of aid and development in Africa there is much to do and we’ll increase direct aid and direct national development by £7billion (world-wide) in today’s money to support long term life needs and projects providing opportunities for growth such as cheap assured energy, efficient agriculture and local employment.

UKpopdems feel these problems can be addressed and should be addresses as a matter of extreme priority. The reduction of poverty and fear in Africa, and elsewhere in the world where we can make a difference, is so important for world humanity, peace and growth that this will be a UKpopdems front-rank ministerial position.

Empowered, Participative Democracy - The Road Ahead Series

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Mon, 26 May 2008 12:41:00 +0000

UKpopdems sharpens focus on Empowered, Participative Democracy.

UKpopdems – Popular Democrats, the party that puts Great Britain and the Great British people first, sharpens its focus on empowered, participative democracy (epd). Epd is the future for advanced democratic nations like Britain, where faith and trust in established politics, politicians and the bureaucratic elite is declining rapidly.

What is epd? UKpopdems define this simply as:

The combined democratic voice of the British people carrying more weight than the combined power of government.

Individuals participating in local and national decision making on issues that concern them and at a time of their own choosing.

That means more power and a bigger voice for ordinary Britons and less power for government. This is a promise UKpopdems has always made, but now epd gives us a legitimate, powerful and widely acceptable argument for our goals.

UKpopdems is the only party in Britain offering empowered, participative democracy fully formed and ready to go. All UKpopdem policies already come directly from what the people want for themselves, their families and their communities. Our far-seeing vision means that existing UKpopdem policies fits perfectly with epd. Test this for yourself by looking through the published policy summaries and ‘Implementing the Vision’ papers.

This unique epd proposal is explained on an automated PowerPoint presentation which can be accessed for downloading at:

ukpopdems%20-%20presentation%20%28automatic%29.ppt
(Warning – large file 10mb)

Through empowered, participative democracy, UKpopdems really can benefit Britain and all British people.

The Economic Vision - When in Government Series

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:13:00 +0000

A series of papers illustrating how UKpopdems will manage government for the benefit of Britain and the British people.

2. Implementing the Vision – we can govern for the pitfalls and problems of everyday life and deliver the promises we have made to Britain and the British people.

d). The Economic Vision - Increasing Opportunities for Financial Wealth

Summary

Ukpopdems economic vision makes good our promise to secure financial wealth for Britain and all British people. We will do this by implementing policies that bring work, opportunity and financial stability. Over the years Britain has been subject to the most appalling mismanagement of the economy by both Tory and Labour Chancellors and Prime Ministers, where out-of-control booms have been followed by out-of-control busts. In the last ten years, Labour’s frivolous and wasteful spending of your money has hit ordinary families hard in taxes with little to show for it except an engorged payroll of hundreds of thousands of additional controlling bureaucrats, consultants and quangos. In addition, Brown’s urging for consumers to spend, spend, spend in order to keep the economy growing, has resulted in the biggest personal debt crisis ever seen in Britain and all of these debts must eventually be paid off. As people are forced to tighten their belts because of ever higher taxes, loans and debts mount up and reducing them becomes harder. Britain is now heading towards a recession of Brown’s own making, not America’s, and it is the ordinary working individual and families that will suffer most, whilst the wealthy find new ways of making money.

Only UKpopdems has the answer for sustained long-term financial wealth and it comes from our listening to what ordinary people have long said should be done, rather than the self-seeking political dogma and pompous preaching of out-of-touch politicians and financial whiz-kids, whose only priority is to look after their own wealth and benefits. We’ll deliver through simple but astonishing initiatives in taxation and employment, as you’ll see below. In addition, UKpopdems is responding to the millions of ordinary people and businesses who want to see an end to the growing litigation culture that is not only costing billions in claims but stifling restrictions on activities of all kinds. Also included are solutions for transport where high and increasing taxes have been an easy cash cow for governments over many years. They fail to realize that personal mobility is a key element in creating wealth. UKpopdems has listened and, at last, begins the process of treating road vehicles not as destructive pariahs, but the essential tools of business, freedom and wealth creation. The people have made it clear they want environmental solutions to protect the Earth, and for transport some will be shown here and others in the next UKpopdem delivery paper ‘Delivering the International Vision’.

UKpopdems is proposing to address today’s economic problems in a radical overhaul of taxation that promotes wealth, opportunity and empowerment; but we are committing to everyone now that taxes overall will not go up in real terms, even though UKpopdems is planning massive investment in front-line resources and key services. In our second paper: ‘Implementing the Community Vision’ we went some way in explaining where funding is coming from. In this paper we complete the picture. The detail of UKpopdems economic policies and how they will be implemented to create long term opportunities for wealth are shown in this document under the following five section headings:
Taxation
Work
Litigation
Transport
Balancing the Budget

1. Taxation

There are four major faults in current taxation policy that no other party is properly addressing:
Taxes are rising rapidly and ordinary people have little or no control over them.
Taxes are becoming far too complicated making it hard to understand for individuals, companies and tax collectors alike; thus raising costs and the number of mistakes.
The tax system appears to favour the rich at the expense of the poor and middle earners.
Taxes seem to be stifling opportunity and wealth creation rather than promoting it.

Corporation Tax

Our first radical measure is to dramatically boost employment opportunities in Britain by eliminating corporation tax. It means businesses will pay absolutely no tax on profits. This master stroke will result in several key benefits. It means that for the first time in decades companies will be in total control of their own profits; the millions spent on consultants looking for loopholes to avoid tax will end; the cost of tax collection and fraud investigations will end; company profits will rise and bring an instant increase in company valuations and thus their ability to expand and recruit more staff; and best of all it will bring an immediate influx of highly profitable foreign companies that want to maintain their head-quarters and many operations in Britain. The employment opportunities this brings will be vast as will be overall wealth creation for Britain. Employment creating wealth is the best route to long term prosperity and that is what UKpopdems is establishing.

The loss of corporation tax revenue to the treasury will be made up by obliging employers to look after their employees better in terms of at least health and pensions, and even more for foreign employees. See the section on Work for details.

Very High Earners Discretionary Contribution (VHEDC)

The second key tax change we’ll make is to help very high earners make a fairer contribution to the lives of the poorest and most disadvantaged in society. Most people know that if you are rich enough you can get help in finding loopholes to avoid paying tax. This means that the very rich often end up paying far less tax, pound for pound, than low and middle earners. This is unfair and the wealthy should pay more. On the other hand we want to increase overall wealth in Britain and do not want to send wealth creators rushing for the exit. UKpopdems have solved this difficulty with an ingenious initiative called ‘Very High Earners Discretionary Contribution’ (VHEDC). This is a magic tax because VHEDC benefits Britain, the poor and disadvantaged even if people legally avoid paying it. In fact, VHEDC works better if no-one pays it at all: the less VHEDC paid the more Britain benefits. It works like this: VHEDC is designed to capture all income made in Britain and brought into Britain from whatever source. Where these total earnings are above an allotted threshold, then contributions are payable at the VHEDC rate of 55%. Any contribution goes straight to benefiting Britain’s poorest and most disadvantaged; not to the treasury, so VHEDC is not a tax and contributors can have pride in the knowledge that they are directly and personally helping those much less fortunate than themselves.

The threshold at which VHEDC is paid is a wonder of common-sense. We’re talking about very high earners here so the minimum threshold is 10 times British total average earnings, about £250,000! What’s more, for employers, the threshold increases depending on the number of British workers employed and their average total earnings. So the threshold’s 100 times average employee company earnings for 100 employees and up to 10,000 times for 100,000 Britons employed! Just 10 employees doubles the threshold from10 to 20 times earnings. Employees taken from the disabled or unemployed register count triple; so just employing three people could count as ten and double the threshold. You can see immediately how employers and employees benefit from VHEDC thresholds because those who employ more and pay more can raise their contribution threshold more.

There’s even more to VHEDC because liability can be reduced further through allowances. Any earner above the VHEDC threshold can mitigate their liability by directly investing in Britain. This includes buying British made goods and services (or that part which is British); investing in UK bonds and equities; donating to approved charities that support the poor and disadvantaged; investing in approved UK environmental measures etc. Once again, it can be seen how paying less VHEDC will increase benefits to Britain and the British people as a whole. Anyone reading between the lines can appreciate VHEDC is not setting out to catch company bosses who already provide employment for millions of Britons. VHEDC is designed to encourage the very wealthy who employ no-one, or spend their money abroad, to gain personally by giving back more to the country they call their home and the people they live amongst.

Your Say on Taxes

UKpopdems third key tax initiative is to give Britons themselves a democratic say on increasing or reducing taxes. When the fiscal position is known towards the end of our first term, the people can decide in a referendum whether the next government should increase or reduce taxation and, from a list, what to spend more on or less, and by how much (to a maximum percentage). If the result is to reduce taxes, and UKpopdems are elected for a second term then, depending on the tax reduction the people require, we will first eliminate Council Tax and not replace it, then Inheritance Tax and then Capital Gains Tax. A result to raise taxes will result in increases in VAT and direct Income Taxes. As with all peoples’ votes and referendums, the government will stay neutral, just making sure all the information and impacts are available. An independent commission will ensure the vote is fair and fact is separated from opinion. At last, this initiative finally gives ordinary people the empowerment they want to fully participate in the future of Britain at the highest level.

Tax Fraud and Red Tape

Protecting Britain’s treasury from high levels of illegal tax evasion is incredibly important. To do this we’ll need to double resources to detect serious fraud in evaded taxes and duties. It’s not the tens and hundreds we need to worry about but the millions of pounds that we need to recover. It’s probable that hundreds of millions, possibly billions of pounds are lost to big time tax and duty fraudsters. We’ll address tax collection in two ways: 1. because we know tax is complicated we’ll first make sure people get all the help they need to complete tax returns properly and access useful tips on reducing tax liabilities. We’ll do this by doubling Inland Revenue resources and put the majority of them directly into the communities where you live and work. There’ll be enough of them to come to you at your home when you need more detailed help, or they could answer simple questions over the phone. This way, you’ll know you’ve got your tax submissions pretty well right and any queries that could cause problems can be addressed with your local community inspector beforehand: 2. we’ll also double front-line tax investigators and customs duty officials working with the police to detect high-end tax and duty fraud. These high-end evasions are very serious crimes because the perpetrators are effectively taking money directly out of the pockets of ordinary, hard-working people. Because we are massively increasing resources there’s a much better chance these fraudsters will be found and prosecuted.

Excessive business regulation and red tape is stifling wealth creation and UKpopdems is committed to reducing it. Business federations claim that red tape adds £100 billion to company costs. This must be reduced and we’ll work with leaders from small, medium and large businesses to identify where cuts can be made that make business life easier. Our only conditions are that customers, employees and shareholders should have high levels of protection and we may add regulations that are currently missing, to make sure this happens.

2. Work

‘Right to Work’

Our estimate is that there are about 4 million Britons who want to work and need work but cannot find it. UKpopdems know that paid work is one route to long term prosperity, self-reliance and self-worth. Through incompetence and lack of effective policies, past governments have allowed a situation to arise where there are many unemployment hotspots in rural and city areas resulting in whole communities reeling from poverty, discontent, crime and benefit dependency. UKpopdems will end this waste of rejected human resource and talent through a simple initiative we are calling ‘Right to Work’.

‘Right to Work’ guarantees a real job to all Britons who need or want work and are on the unemployment register. With a massive increase in front-line public sector resources there is plenty to do. These will be fully supported jobs with appropriate skills training. It will work like this: beginning with age bands at 18 to 25 (and older bands as the scheme progresses) the national focus will change to one of full employment, and job centres will refocus to a role of training and individual support ensuring that those who are unemployed in the age bands move into appropriate work quickly. To aid this process in the public sector there will be no set limit placed on the numbers of front-line workers. We will also oblige all organizations who receive government funding or are linked to government supply contracts to participate in ‘Right to Work’ on the same basis. In the private sector, VHEDC will encourage employment from the unemployed register. In addition, the elimination of corporation tax will bring a massive influx of new employment opportunities. On top of this we’ll reduce business red tape and possibly employment taxes on condition that employers join ‘Right to Work’. Once independent observers signal that full employment effectively exists in an age band, it will be assumed that all those not registered have independent means of support and, except in certain circumstances, do not require government social assistance. The policy will be further supported by making sure that, in future, employers give a minimum redundancy period of three months basic salary after a probationary period. This will allow adequate time for those who have lost jobs to find work under the ‘Right to Work’ scheme.

‘Safe Pensions’ and ‘Sure Health’

These two initiatives are balancing measures from the elimination of corporation tax. They encourage all employers to look after their employees to a high standard in terms of pensions and health.

The Labour government has all but destroyed good company pension schemes where employees can be guaranteed a percentage of their salaries when they retire, and this is increasing poverty in retirement now which will be made much worse over coming years. The public sector still possesses final salary schemes and this is causing division because these state schemes are paid out of the same taxpayers’ pockets that have seen their own guaranteed pensions destroyed. The situation must be corrected and the clock turned back so that all pensions give a secure payout in retirement. This UKpopdem initiative is called ‘Safe Pensions’. Here, all employees have a right to a final salary pension equivalent to at least 50% and not less than the minimum wage applying at the time (more affordable than previous schemes offering 2/3rds of final salary). Contributions will be made up of both employer and employee payments with retirement age set at 65, but made flexible through raised or reduced employee deductions. ‘Safe Pensions’ also apply to the self-employed were audited contributions will have to be made on the same basis; part business, part personal contributions.

With ‘Sure Health’ we are shifting the responsibility for employee health onto employers. This initiative should achieve two things: firstly, it will give employers a great incentive to promote and support beneficial options in their employees’ lives such as healthier working conditions, ensuring proper meal breaks and vacations, stress counseling and preventative measures: secondly, commercial pressures should drive down health costs and speed up treatment as employers strive for inventive and imaginative solutions. Employers can organize ‘sure health’ in the best way that suits themselves and their employees, but the most likely route is via insurance schemes that will pay for NHS or private procedures. It can be seen that this employer responsibility for ‘sure health’ is one possible route to combat today’s social problems such as obesity, binge-drinking and drug abuse.

Both ‘safe pensions’ and ‘sure health’ apply to British employees and foreign nationals alike. Under these initiatives it is accepted that highly profitable companies will benefit more than those less profitable. If necessary, government will step in to support ‘safe pensions’ and ‘sure health’ where an employer genuinely cannot pay. But, in these cases, heavy restrictions will be placed on employers to keep cash within the company. It would mean that dividends to shareholders cease and directors’ salaries and bonuses reduced to match those of employees.

Other Initatives

Because of the above measures, the wish to eliminate fraud and to protect both British and foreign employees, all businesses will require registration. This is not a measure meant to increase red tape but simply to register income and activity from business rather than employment. Only where income is significant, or employment of others is involved, or the business is linked to foreign nationals need further monitoring be needed.

Our key business objectives are that companies maximize profits whilst ensuring customers’, employees’ and shareholders’ interests are properly protected. Unfortunately, this is not always the case and malpractice is occurring undetected. To combat this problem we’ll encourage and safe-guard whistle-blowers in both private industry and the public sector to help uncover fraud, corruption and dangerously incompetent performance. This will be handled by an independent commission to both offer protection and identify and teat critically serial whistle-blowers who cry wolf. As a balancing measure, the commission will have a role in identifying highly profitable businesses and public sector departments that perform in the most successful, competent, efficient way and that can be shown as exemplary. These organizations will receive awards, allowances and/or special treatment.
Dominant businesses, especially consumer businesses, can often edge out independent and start-up businesses. In towns and villages particularly, shops are disappearing or increasingly similar branded stores. Ukpopdems believe communities should have a helping hand in retaining facilities locally. We’ll do this by obliging dominant organization with a market share of 20% or more, to support small independents and start-ups. In practice this means that a village store can buy in goods directly from a chosen dominant company at that company’s own wholesale prices and have them delivered at that company’s own wholesale delivery rates. This would introduce true competition on a like for like basis and could apply to other facilities like Post Offices, too.

3. Litigation

In many peoples’ eyes there is no more damaging trend in Britain today than the burgeoning litigation culture. There are many dangers in this trend. Not only are litigation costs soaring, but the fear of litigation is forcing rising preventative insurance costs that affect everyone, and many activity choices are being shut down as this fears and costs rise. There are other side-effects, too. Litigation or ‘compo’ is becoming the first expectation instead of the last; lawyers are held in very low regard and appear to be promoting litigation and ‘ambulance chasing’; and in many cases the seriousness of the claim appears to bear little relationship to the actual loss.

The people want this culture ended and UKpopdems solution should be simple and effective. First, we’ll legislate so that a claim can only be brought where the loss has been due to the direct and active human action of another. This will mean that ‘passive’ claims involving inanimate objects (like a paving slab) or an animal not under direct human control (except home pets) can be insured against by individuals or groups rather than result in a claim against a third party. Second, we’ll regulate awards given by a court so they are limited to immediate tangible losses and future losses only where reasonably provable. This will mean that someone physically injured will receive a simply provable award, whilst someone whose feelings are hurt will find it much harder to identify provable loss. We’ll also make it easier for most claims to be heard in small claims courts, thus reducing legal and court costs. Third, we’ll protect leaders and organizers of normal school, club and charity events etc. from third party claims. However, very young children will still need protecting by the adults assigned to look after them.

4. Transport

In modern Britain and indeed the world, rapid transport and the mobility it gives are essential tools for business and pleasure, bringing both social and financial benefits and without which life as we know it would cease to be liberated. Of course there is a price to pay. All forms of motorized transport are potentially dangerous, have huge fossil fuel based energy requirements and produce massive volumes of CO2. But, even so, the benefits far outweigh the problems to the extent that hardly any individual would choose voluntarily to dispense with planes, ferries, trains, buses or cars.

For all its critical importance a proper transport policy has been woefully lacking in Britain. Public transport is very expensive and not always reliable or even available. To past governments, private vehicles have served merely as cows that are permanently available for endless milking, rather than essential tools for wealth creation and social benefit. Traffic congestion is worsening which harms both business and the environment; and while road users pay very high taxes, they appear to get little return investment to make their lives easier.

Elimination of Road Tax Disc

UKpopdems will address these issues in the way the people have long wanted them to be addressed. The solution will pay back over an extended period, but distinctive short term benefits can be achieved quickly. Most people want the right options to meet their needs for safe, fast, reliable and clean travel at fair cost and this is what UKpopdems will deliver. In the first place we’ll make a simple change that past governments should have done years ago; we will eliminate the tax disc on all road vehicles and add the average to petrol prices. This will do several things: first, it will make road taxes fairer by causing drivers to think about actual fuel usage rather than just the size of vehicle. Real-life fuel usage is a much better indicator of CO2 emissions than theoretical published figures. Thus, the less fuel used, the less tax is paid. A light foot and efficient driving will save money, while a heavy foot and inefficient driving will cost more: second, it will create an environment where all road users pay fairly. There will be no room for evasion as with the current disc and therefore worthwhile savings will be made on enforcement resources and central road tax processing costs: third, it will force foreign drivers to pay their fair share of road usage costs when in Britain, which they do not at the moment. To maintain fairness, we’ll guarantee through independent monitoring that government will not make more tax money out of British drivers using this system; any surplus will be returned in future lower fuel taxes.

Ring-fencing Motoring Taxes

Next, we’ll do something else that past governments should have done; that is to ring fence motoring taxes as an exercise in open government. This way everyone can see what is collected and where the money is going. Actually, increasing tax ring-fencing generally is a long term goal for UKpopdems and it’s something people will see more of. For motoring we’ll guarantee to spend 50% on roads, 15% on public transport, 15% on emergency services and 20% on environmental improvement. In terms of the environment, we’ll use these ring-fenced billions to help make road transport cleaner, quieter and safer. That means tax breaks for purchasing cleaner technology, such as ultra clean diesels, hybrid and hydrogen, and the development and use of the very cleanest fuels. The more people know about bio-fuels, the more it is realized that the damage to food sources out-weighs the benefits and so we’ll cap bio-fuel percentages in Britain.

‘Safe Roads’ Initiative

Congestion on our roads is incredibly damaging in terms of business, the environment, peoples’ health, towns and countryside. In fact, congestion is damaging in every way and we’ll make it a priority to get traffic moving and keep it that way over the long term. First, we’ll begin UKpopdems ‘safe roads’ initiative, which focuses on using ring-fenced road taxes to vastly improve existing motorway and major trunk roads, and building new motorways where there is evidence they are needed. Motorways and good trunk roads take traffic away from town and country roads, and this should be encouraged. We’ll gradually make all the most heavily used trunk roads four or six lane dual-carriageway with safe exit and entry slip roads, and redesignate them on completion as near motorway standard ‘T’ roads (for example T46 instead of A46) to encourage their use. Similarly for motorways, we’ll find novel ways to double capacity for those that are most congested whilst restricting intrusion in urban and protected areas. Secondly, we must find ways to relieve congestion in the short term. We’ll do this in three ways: 1. by restricting freight traffic to approved routes so that higher capacity roads are used as far as possible to the delivery site. This will help unblock over-used country roads: 2. by also restricting freight traffic to the inside lane of multi-lane highways unless the overtaking manoeuvre can be completed within 30 seconds. 3. by measuring highways agencies on keeping traffic moving rather than slowing it. This would include recommending immediate measures to speed traffic locally, identifying misleading temporary signs, unnecessary road work obstructions and keeping traffic moving around accidents and breakdowns.

Communities have real power in a UKpopdem democracy. We’ll encourage communities to get together on determining ways to keep traffic moving on the B roads and community roads they are responsible for whilst keeping driver and pedestrian safety at the top of the agenda. This could include experimenting by removing traffic lights; separating pedestrians and cycles from motorized traffic more; town and village by-passes; faster through routes etc.

Public Transport

The availability of clean, reliable, fast and fairly priced public transport options are essential for Britain’s future if roads are not to become totally clogged. There is only so much road space that can be created in a small island. For busses UKpopdems want to implement four initiatives. First, we’ll begin a programme to clean up urban transport by tightening emissions and particulate standards, leading as soon as technically possible, to near emission free public road transport: Second, we’ll encourage cities to grow bus networks and timetable frequency so that public transport becomes the preferred option: Third, we’ll use ring-fenced taxes to grow the rural bus network so that clean and comfortable busses run at least hourly from villages to the main local commercial centre and back: Fourth, as soon as the country can afford it, we’ll extend free bus travel, now available to over 60s, to young people up to 30 so they can develop a habit of travel by bus. It is UKpopdems intention that all bus travel should eventually be free.

For city congestion charging, it is up to communities working together to decide upon this option, but it must be shown through independent monitoring that public transport is first able to cope well with increased usage before charging is introduced. However, we’ll encourage communities to implement initiatives like park and ride and free town centre parking for shoppers to keep town centres busy and economically healthy.

There are signs, at last, that rail transport is making progress in the direction people want it. However, there is still much to do. We want to see operating contracts that stipulate growth in the number of services. We want every long haul passenger to have the availability of a seat and we want to see speeds increasing safely and prices reducing so that trains become the natural option for long distance UK travel. In terms of pricing, we’ll work to understand how to reduce costs in the system so that fares can reduce in sync. And we’ll also make cheap off-peak fare structures much more visible and attainable by ordinary passengers without the current complexity of offerings, perhaps in the model of low cost airline fares.

Air travel is an unbeatable option for those wanting to embark on rapid journeys of hundreds of miles across national borders. In years to come, true Inter-European integrated super fast rail travel may become a real option and we’ll join in making this a reality. In the meantime there are undoubted benefits and environmental liabilities such as large-scale emissions and noise and congestion nuisance etc. See the next paper on implementing the international vision for UKpopdems environmental solutions. UKpopdems medium term plan is to continue to expand direct routes from regional airports for business and social use. It is evident that when these facilities expand there are immediate benefits for local people and business growth. But communities working together in an airport’s catchment area should have a deciding voice so the benefits are demonstrable, impacts can become clear and minimized. We will ask the peoples’ opinion nationally and locally concerning Heathrow and future expansion.

Other Transport Initiatives

Speed limits are increasingly confusing. We’ll carry out an independent review of applied speed limits to make them simpler, more common sense, modern and understandable. The speed limit review will be fast and based on village, town and city boundaries and how well traffic is separated from pedestrians and each other. Some limits will probably increase and others decrease. In a public vote we’ll ask the people about fixed speed cameras, their expansion or removal and how fines should be used.

Road vehicles are lethal weapons in the wrong hands. Unsafe driving has to be identified and stopped and this is something everyone wants. Increased resources allow UKpopdems to spot check unsafe foreign vehicles at point of entry, especially freight traffic. Highway police will also be increased to spot, stop and prosecute dangerous and illegal driving (rather than inconsiderate driving). In an exercise of individual empowerment we’ll enlist the help of every driver, via their passengers, to record both dangerous and inconsiderate driving through the capture of photographic evidence. When good, these will be acted upon officially. Dangerous drivers need to be removed from the road, re-educated and re-tested before venturing out legally again, while inconsiderate drivers can be helped to understand how their actions impact other road users unfairly.

5. Balancing the Budget

This section sets out to clearly define UKpopdems management of Britain’s fiscal position for the benefit and wealth of the people and the country. In summary, our first term policies are not only achievable and affordable, but have been designed to leave HM Exchequer in surplus ready for possible tax cuts in the following term should the people decide so in a public vote. In government, we have pledged not to raise taxes in real terms. All UKpopdems policy pledges are guaranteed by strong and independent regulation. Any tax changes, outside those published in the manifesto, that are required during office will only be made by reference to the British people and with their agreement. There will be no spinning or double counting by our Chancellor on tax. All statements of fact will be made by senior civil servants rather than politicians.

Instead of raising taxes, UKpopdems intend to deliver policy commitments by redirecting expenditure away from government back-office functions and resources, and towards front-line delivery resources and supporting infrastructure. Over the long term, spending on back-office bureaucracy, administration and management will reduce, as near as possible, to just 20%-30% of what we spend on front-line delivery resources. The reduction in back-line staff will happen through natural public sector turnover. UKpopdems target reduction will be 7% a year until sustainable levels are reached. There will be no redundancies and we will not penalise dedicated public sector employees when the real culprit is bad management by past and present governments.

UKpopdems will also create funds for our policies by identifying and reducing waste. No government in history has wasted so much tax payers’ money as this present one; hundreds of costly quangos, failed IT systems, Whitehall bureaucracy, botched initiatives, red tape, foreign junkets, disastrous policy rethinks, Local Authority profligacy, expensive outsourcing of services, excruciatingly costly consultancy, not to mention press officers and spin doctors in every public sector department. Taken together, waste and back-office bureaucracy could add up to £180billion every year. UKpopdems never forget this is your money and should be spent on the projects and policies that the British people actually want, rather than what politicians think you want.

It will take a little time to fully identify what is waste and what is beneficial; which resources are back-office and which are front-line delivery. This job needs to be done carefully to avoid hurt and damage. However, we fully anticipate being able to redirect at least £20billion extra to front-line resources and infrastructure during our first year; and to raise this to £100billion extra in our fifth year of office. To release funds immediately and get started on programmes that bring the most benefit possible, we may need to temporarily freeze back-office administrative IT systems and internal consultancy projects, dissolve many quangos and stop other obviously wasteful programmes. These will be categorised in our first few days of office.

UKpopdems will not be driven off-course or bamboozled by Whitehall bureaucrats in our drive to benefit ordinary Britons. We’ll recruit up to a million extra front-line delivery specialists to combat crime; improve social services, education and health; reduce and manage immigration; strengthen security and the armed forces, boost international aid and other programmes. Nor will we step back from building more prisons, new specialist schools, new community hospitals; new and safer roads; acquiring the best defence equipment and expanding public transport.

As well as being able to implement all UKpopdems community, democratic and international policies within existing tax revenue, our economic policies are designed to produce a healthy fiscal balance capable of sustaining future tax cuts. Our plan to eliminate corporation tax will attract large numbers of highly profitable companies into Britain and thus greatly increase employment opportunities for all Britons who need work. Innovative programmes such as sure health, safe pensions, right to work and very high earners discretionary contribution will not only save revenue but also guarantee better living standards, employment, health and dignity for everyone. Tightening the litigation culture will make individuals, organisers, workers and businesses freer and reduce legal and insurance costs. And our plan to strengthen local community and Parish councils by redirecting front-line resources directly into communities, and putting existing Local Authorities under community control will not only improve democracy, but allow the efficient channelling of funding directly to the people who need it most and can make the best use of it.

For a full fiscal model and breakdown see 'Policy Funding' page of UKpopdems web-site
www.ukpopdems.org.uk

The Community Vision - When in Government Series

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:13:00 +0000

A series of papers illustrating how UKpopdems will manage government for the benefit of Britain and the British people.

2. Implementing the Vision – we can govern for the pitfalls and problems of everyday life and deliver the promises we have made to Britain and the British people.

c). The Community Vision - Increasing Social Wealth

Summary

UKpopdems Community vision strengthens the position of communities as the key democratic bodies nearest to the individuals they serve. Implementing the community vision means that far more front-line resources will be available to support the needs of the community, residents, those working in the community and their families. Currently, far too many valuable public sector resources are tucked away in central offices or involved in administrative, managerial or bureaucratic duties when they should be using their expertise to support people who most need their expertise. UKpopdems community vision ensures these resources are mobilised to work directly in the communities they should be serving, in the specialist delivery roles where they can add the most value in increasing the social wealth of Britain. Back-line administrative, managerial and bureaucratic activities will gradually be reduced to no more than 20%-30% of total front-line resource numbers, instead of the 100% overheads suffered today.

Even this change will not be enough to repair the social damage inflicted by past and present governments and their failures to address crime, social services, education, pension and health problems and provide effective solutions. They’ve imposed very high taxes and wasted much of it on central bureaucracy, quangos, consultancy, failed IT systems, poorly executed re-organisations and much else besides. UKpopdems will seriously address and solve these problems to the satisfaction of individuals and communities; the only true test of ultimate success. To repair the damage, UKpopdems will recruit an extra one million front-line resources to serve Britain and the community; half of these will be specialists working directly in the community, on the streets and in schools and hospitals. The new buildings and infrastructure those resources need will also be a key part of the UKpopdems solution.

To balance overall costs and ensure taxes do not rise further, the extremes of government waste and bureaucracy we have all become used to will dramatically shrink. We’ll reduce central and Whitehall bureaucracy by 7% annually (half the rate of natural public sector wastage), eventually saving £50billion a year, and transfer the funding to front-line resources: there will be no need for redundancies. Independent estimates of total government waste run to £180billion a year. UKpopdems will quickly identify and cut £20billion of this in the first year, rising to £50billion a year in the fourth year, and apply the savings to building front-line infrastructure such as special schools, local hospitals and other essential construction. Together, that means an extra £100billion total transferred from waste and back-office bureaucracy to front-line resources and infrastructure; half of it going directly to help local communities.

The detail of how UKpopdems intends to utilise these extra community resources to repair and greatly improve the social wealth of individuals and communities across Britain is the subject of this document under the following sections:
Policing and crime
Schools and education
Hospitals and health
Social services and pensions

Policing and Crime

One of the most serious problems expressed by almost everyone is crime and the fear of crime, especially violent crime. Violent crime seems to be escalating out of control; detection rates for all crimes are very low and sentences appear derisory compared to the seriousness of some crimes. Britain suffers a thousand murders every year and tens of thousands of crimes involve violence. Millions of Britons are victims of crime and in many cases all the police can do is offer sympathy and a crime number with no hope of ever finding and prosecuting the culprit. This situation frightens people and limits their freedoms; it also demoralises the police and has great destructive social and economic consequences for the whole of Britain. UKpopdems must solve this problem for the benefit of all law abiding people and make it safe for everyone to go about their daily lives.

Ask ordinary people and they’ll tell you what the answer is. They want many more police on the beat and tougher sentencing for serious crimes. UKpopdems trusts this commonsense approach and will act on it. The key goal is to make it clear to all offenders and potential offenders that they will be caught, prosecuted and receive proper sentencing. It is especially imperative to rid communities of the cancer of violence; that is, violent acts by gangs and individuals, mindless threatening aggression and serious criminal damage. Perpetrators must be caught and, if found guilty, immediately removed from the societies they are terrorising. This will keep individuals and families safe and give violent criminals the chance to understand their actions and redeem themselves. The same must also apply to crimes of invasion, for example: burglary, mugging and rape; and also to drug and people trafficking as well as serious fraud. The resources to accomplish these goals are woefully inadequate today.

We will immediately begin to increase police resources by recruiting an additional 250,000 Community Officers to keep communities safe. These are real policemen and women patrolling community streets twenty-four hours a day and liaising closely with community leaders. They’ll be operative after only two weeks training and have full powers after completing standard police instruction. Existing PCSOs will cease to be a separate community force and become fully integrated and trained as Community Officers, thus boosting numbers still more. Initially, Community Officers will be deployed where crime is worst but eventually cover the whole of the country. 250,000 officers sounds a lot, but it’s the minimum required to genuinely reduce crime, and if Britain needs more then more will be recruited. There will be no penny pinching on this policy.

The key job of Community Officers is to thoroughly get to know the individuals and families in the communities they serve to accomplish three objectives:
1. To identify people who really need support from social services; health services or educational services and are not currently getting it. Community Officers will be the coordinating channel for all kinds of social support and will use their local knowledge and contacts to provide long term continuity where help is required to avoid the communication and hand over problems commonly encountered where different service groups are involved.
2. To reduce future crime by identifying individuals and groups likely to become involved in crime, especially violent crime, and initiate projects that bring appropriate social, education and health resources to bear in order to address problems before they get out of hand. UKpopdems will hold a popular vote on whether or not to reduce the age of criminal responsibility and parents of under age offenders may be prosecuted themselves unless they inform Community Officers beforehand that they need support in managing their children’s behaviour.
3. To play a major role in identifying suspects after crimes have been committed. They should know from their local knowledge those who may be directly involved or be keeping stolen goods, illegal weapons or drugs, or be harbouring illegal immigrants. No corner should be so dark that Community Officers do not know what is going on in it. This is the reason why such a large number of Officers are required. There must be enough presence to cover the whole ground.

In order to halt the burgeoning weapons culture, guns and replicas even remotely capable of re-commission; other weapons; most knives; toys capable of firing dangerous projectiles will all be banned from sale and possession. Standard shotguns and small bore rifles may be exempt if kept only on approved land and transported only by secure agents. Permitted knives will need licensing by Community Officers if carried in public. Illegal possession will generally result in a custodial sentence. As a balancing policy, the police will no longer carry arms routinely in public, only as a last resort in response to a direct and obvious individual threat. Weapons required for anti-terrorism must remain out of sight of the public with any use regarded as failure. Other means must be utilised to disable threats. No-one wants more innocent deaths at the hands of over enthusiastic armed police.

Britain can do nothing about reducing crime levels unless sentences properly reflect the seriousness of the crime. All serious crimes, especially crimes of violence, will carry sentences of detention from the very first verdict of guilt; and the term given will be the minimum time served. Bad behaviour will result in lengthening the sentence. Because UKpopdems is recruiting thousands more front-line resources, proper support for life-changing opportunities focused around basic skills, work, discipline and service will become a reality. This policy will require many more prisons, detention centres and other secure institutions: perhaps triple the number of current places before the pattern of violent crime turns down. Growth in prison places will be speeded up through ensuring each county, district and Metropolitan area sets aside land for building, and by adopting standard design principles that promote rapid pre-fabrication and build.

Lastly, it is essential that court procedures and paperwork be speeded up. But there must be no reduction in the rights of ordinary men and women, nor their treatment under the law, nor the presumption of guilt over innocence. The extended use of magistrates’ courts allowing up to 12 month prison sentencing will go a long way to easing the legal burden. Courts will have to stay open longer and some minor offences will be made civil to reduce work-load. Paperwork, the bane of police work, will be reduced by portable technology used at the scene of crime and thus avoiding the need for manual duplication of data.

Schools and education

The future of Britain is the future of our children and the object of education is to turn out well educated, healthy and confident young adults. Yet thousands of pupils are leaving school without sufficient education to fulfill their expectations; truancy, disruption and bullying seem endemic; children are not being stimulated sufficiently to keep their interest; bureaucracy, government interference and constant ‘new’ initiatives are distracting teachers from their main role; children who require specialist education are not getting the support they need; grade inflation is leading to devaluation of results and confusion for university and business recruiters; and many students are starting their lives saddled with debt.

This is a sorry picture and a tale of past and present government failure not befitting a great nation such as ours. Neither will Britain’s complex and demanding future needs be secured unless young adults enter the workplace with skills and confidence enough to take advantage of the challenges and opportunities they’ll be presented with. UKpopdems will address this issue boldly. We’ll invest massively in terms of both resources (an additional 100,000 teachers and front-line support) and new school infrastructure (additional annual funding of £6billion) to ensure that every individual student can maximize their potential. We are proposing that the school day be lengthened for all pupils in order to incorporate an extended curriculum; two healthy meals cooked fresh in-school, and to allow for the completion of homework and course-work at school under supervision rather than at home. The longer school day will also greatly help most working parents, too. Their children will be healthily fed (breakfast and lunch, or lunch and supper); they will not have to worry about their children being home alone or worry about getting them looked after while they are still at work; and they won’t have to concern themselves with pressuring tired children to get on with their homework. Parents can expect much better school liaison, including the services of a qualified dietician, and will be encouraged to participate in school activities and meal times when they are able.

Truancy, disruption and bullying are such serious issues and adversely affect so many pupils that combating them is a key priority. First, every unexpected no-show will be followed-up immediately by local Community Officers, some of whom will have the school as part of their community responsibility. Parents and guardians must take schooling seriously and will be prosecuted if they are aware their child is truanting, unless both the school and Community Officers have been notified early of impending problems. Infirmaries will be incorporated into most schools so that mildly ill children can still be brought in, and those not able to travel to school or to see their own doctors will be expected to remain at home until examined by a community school doctor. It will be normal for most pupils to stay and be safe on school grounds throughout the day, unless accompanied. Older students can earn the right to travel outside school unaccompanied. A simple school identity card will be introduced so that Community Officers will know that children out of school have permission. These are tough measures, but with truancy out of control, tough action must be taken. Repeatedly disruptive and bullying pupils have got to be removed for their own benefit and that of other children. Ukpopdems massive investments mean that new disciplinary schools will be available where the necessary support needed by these children, and possibly their parents, will speed return to normal education.

The school curriculum needs to be expanded and changed to ensure children are fully equipped to succeed in the modern world; young children learning by play within set boundaries, understanding and differentiating between right and wrong; middle school pupils learning through adventure with wider horizons; and senior students learning through challenge without frontiers. The new curriculum must offer a rounded education of breadth and depth which can be tested properly through a new independent examination board giving a true and honest insight into knowledge and performance. There’ll be no school selection as such but there will be constant individual assessment to make sure pupils are allocated to the right schools for their needs. Schools themselves will be measured and monitored on individual attainment as well as overall school success. The curriculum needs to operate at all levels with pupils learning in the way that suits them and their individual capabilities best, and allows them to freely move between streams and schools as they develop. Likewise, political dogma must be taken out of the educational field so that all the schools that children need are available, from grammar schools to special schools. The new curriculum contains four departments: Communication, Civilisation, Self-Management and Vocation.

Communication equips students with the ability to communicate clearly through the written and spoken word in English. Young adults who do not possess basic communication skills who cannot be understood clearly and have limited vocabularies are not only likely to be less valued in the work-place, but might withdraw from normal society, or revert to violence instead.
Civilisation will promote respect and understanding of the modern world and its diversity. Here are the sciences including history, geography, mathematics, languages, physics and chemistry, all promoting a diverse world view and with practical relevance to adult life, particularly understanding, tolerance and respect of difference.
Self-management prepares and equips students for the adult world of work, responsibility, accountability and democratic power; confident in managing their own lives and goals in a competitive world. It includes understanding and coping with: responsibility for others, food preparation, money management, mental arithmetic, contracts, law, work, cleanliness and personal health, alcohol, drugs and sex.
Vocation encourages experiences and the development of practical skills in sports, engineering, science, health, arts, crafts, entertainment and others. Every pupil will be encouraged to get involved in one or more vocational fields both in school and outside school hours.

Our eventual aim is that when schools can demonstrate they are ready, they’ll be set free from what many teachers claim is the cloying control, interference and bureaucracy of both local education authorities and central government. It will be theirs, the governors and the independent regulator’s decision – not central government’s. This is not independent or public schooling by another name. They will remain as state schools funded by the state, but will have been set free to do the job of properly educating children. Government’s role will be to set standards, construct a regulatory framework and to ensure independent inspections are carried out, addressing any remedial action required. With freedom will also come a larger role for Communities. It is anticipated that community representatives will sit on school boards within catchment areas and approve plans in cross-community summits. Communities, individually or together, may also decide to open their own schools where they perceive the need and prioritise their funding,

Hospitals and Health

The provision of a modern health service is incredibly expensive yet totally necessary for the elimination, or at least lessening, of disease, pain, disability and debility. Never before have so many health solutions been available for so many health problems. Yet, for all the money governments have invested in Britain’s health service, it is not up to the standard of many other countries nor up to the standard the British people expect. Waiting times are still too long for many in and out patient treatments. There is too much bureaucracy and not enough front line specialists or beds. Hospital infections, food quality and patient dignity require improving. People in need at home, and their carers, require more help and support. Obesity and other public health concerns, particularly childrens’ health, need much more attention.

The first thing UKpopdems will tackle is reducing waiting times. We want to see waiting times for all procedures requiring hospital treatment reduced to a total of three months: a maximum of one month to initial consultation, a further month for diagnosis and then a final month to treatment or operation. Initially these times will apply to life-threatening conditions, chronic pain and crippling and debilitating illnesses (recognizing that these times are already being beaten for some serious situations). Hospitals will be obliged to publish their current maximum wait times for serious and less serious conditions on a board in a prominent public place. Wait times will be independently monitored and inspected. Patients will have choice and may elect for treatment elsewhere, or in the private sector or abroad if published wait times are exceeded.

Achieving this reduction requires investment and determination. We’ll start building local cottage and convalescent hospitals to avoid bed blocking. This will allow patients to be properly monitored and cared for pre-op and post-op without taking up expensive and much needed beds in full service hospitals. Minor procedures and some out-patient treatments may also be undertaken locally. These small hospitals may be attached to larger hospitals or integrated into community clinics. Community councils will form part of the board of these local hospitals agreeing plans in cross-community summits. Secondly, we will end the practice of outsourcing resources and services so all staff and services are directly under the control of the hospitals that need them. This will include porters, cleaners, catering, home care etc. To ensure adequate resourcing and cover for absence, we’ll need to accept overstaffing by about 20%, but this will be better and no more costly than employing temporary nursing through agencies. Many hospital staff are recruited from overseas, sometimes depleting the skilled resources of hard pressed developing countries. As a simple balancing initiative UKpopdems will commit to the local training of double the number we employ from developing nations so that both Britain and the providing nation benefit.

As well as shortening waiting times the standard of in-patient and home care must improve. We’ll do this by expanding the responsibility of the nursing profession to take on total responsibility for patient care; that is, to ensure that the health of patients improves pre-op, post-op, at discharge, in convalescence and long term in the community. This will include responsibility for ancillary services now brought in-house; porters, cleaners, catering, and all staff involved directly with patients so that standards of cleanliness and food quality can be directly managed. It will include all home health services, too. This much expanded role will require fundamental changes, training and professional development and we’ll liaise closely with the profession to make sure the benefits both to patients and the nursing profession are evident. Doctors and surgeons will remain responsible for patient treatment and be measured on improving patient outcomes.

It is anticipated that individual hospitals, including teaching hospitals, will eventually become independent of Local Health Authorities when they are ready. They will not be pushed into this decision as existing foundation hospitals have been with inevitable financial problems. But UKpopdems are expecting efficiencies, with qualified professional staff delivering more and managing and administering less. Efficiencies will be important because hospitals and clinics will be paid by procedure at a standard NHS rate determined independently. There is no reason except poor management why an initial consultation cannot be followed by necessary testing, x-rays etc., analysis and diagnosis all while the patient is on-site, rather than forcing another appointment on a suffering patient with all the attendant administration, traveling, inconvenience and extra waiting that involves. Government’s role will be to set standards and ensure independent inspection of performance. Hospitals and clinics will also be expected to canvass patient and community opinion and this will be part of the inspection process. Funding research and training will still be a government responsibility and investing for research, particularly, will substantially increase.

Looking at treatment and care outside of hospitals, UKpopdems want to ensure that when local and community hospitals are built they have provision for 24 hour surgeries and dispensing, so that consultation and minor procedures can be carried out in-situ. This will also have to include provision for out of hours home visits. Just as with hospitals, out-patient care and home convalescence will be the responsibility of the nursing profession who will have the final say on health matters and call in the support needed for proper care. Funding will come directly from the communities these patients live in. The charitable sector, nursing profession, social services, Community Officers and community leaders will all have to liaise closely to fulfill their responsibilities. Proper home support and especially help and appreciation for carers is crucial and UKpopdems will be expanding front-line resources by thousands across the country to make sure this happens More resources will also go toward ensuring that those suffering disability get the support they need to participate fully in society, contribute to it and get the most out it. Support for psychiatric and behavioural disorders will expand to properly treat, monitor and look after patients. It will not be a second class service. Institutions will be strictly monitored for the quality of care and treatment. But where there is a risk of violence, psychiatric care must be under a secure regime to ensure medication is taken under supervision and the community is protected.

Public health issues in Britain are increasing with obesity, binge drinking and drug abuse at the top of the list. None of these issues are easy to solve and will take years of hard work. UKpopdems is taking a two-pronged approach. Firstly: getting messages out to children in schools under the Self-Management curriculum and by providing support at school and home to children and parents that encourage moderate behaviour, including the wide provision of qualified dieticians. We’ll also protect young people by ending food advertising aimed at children altogether. Secondly: using the massive coverage of Community officers to detect drug use and trafficking, and to discourage bad behaviour by making it clear that violence and aggression are serious offences that will result in mandatory prison sentences. We have to face up to the fact that obesity, drug and alcohol abuse are illnesses that have to be detected, treated and managed properly like other infirmities rather than the cure being left up to the will power of the sufferer alone. UKpopdems will have the resources and funding in-place to detect and treat these problems, but eradication is a long term goal.

Social Services and Pensions

The point of social services in Britain is to make sure that people who really need help can obtain it simply and thoughtfully. But today, many individuals and families are not getting the help they desperately need because of bureaucracy, complexity or lack of resources. And yet many others are finding it easy to get support fraudulently by playing the system and taking advantage of the very bureaucracy, complexity and the lack of communication among overworked resources that is preventing others who need it from getting it. It’s a bizarre and deeply ironic situation. It’s a mystery why governments have failed to address this situation, leaving many high and dry, yet allowing others to take advantage. UKpopdems will finally correct this inequality and build social wealth everyone in Britain can be proud of.

If people really need help then the right support should be easily and simply available. As with other community services we’ll get workers out of back offices and working in the community directly with the people who need their support. We’ll also massively increase specialist frontline personnel by several thousand to ensure those in need are not abandoned. In future, when people need support, social services will mainly come to them at their homes in order to observe, survey and properly understand requirements, and to simply explain what is available and how it can be obtained, and to complete any necessary form filling at the same time. One of the most important changes is making sure that communication and hand-over problems do not cause mistakes and harm where there should have been help. There have been too many of these, where the public apology that ‘lessons must be learned’ is never actually learnt. We’ll correct this situation by bulldozing barriers between social services departments, putting multi-disciplined teams, including charities, together within communities delivering broad areas of support. In fact, social services will work directly for and be funded by the communities they serve and be managed by cross community summit groups so that local priorities can be met by local resources.

Once we have begun to put in place social service solutions so that people who really need it can get help easily and quickly, we can begin to tackle the problem of fraud. This is a much simpler task under UKpopdems policies, because hundreds of thousands of extra front-line resources are active in the streets and homes of local communities across Britain. This is where some of the value of Community Officers comes in; that is, their role in detecting crime, including Social security fraud. In this role they liaise with all other services as well as get to know the local population well. So those who are claiming benefits fraudulently or that they are not entitled to will come to light. Fraudulent claimants will know they’ll be caught and punished so those thinking of it will think twice. In addition, it is our intention to gradually replace cash benefits with more practical material support and therefore, the temptation to claim benefits solely for the transferable cash value will also diminish.

Providing dignity in retirement and old age through adequate pensions, as well as social support, is a key requirement of any government; but this government particularly, has destroyed the value of pensions in the private sector and left many looking forward with unease to an old age of poverty. This is a reversal after many years of improving living standards for pensioners and is shameful.

UKpopdems has to reverse this situation and we’ll do it through an initiative called ‘safe pensions’ (further explained in the next paper – Implementing the economic vision). This involves reducing company taxes and in return, obliging them to offer all employees, British and foreign, easily transferable final salary pensions that pay at least 50% of average earnings. This will also apply to those who are self-employed. We’ll set up a joint ring-fenced industry/government fund to make sure pensions can be paid in full if the business fails or there’s a shortfall. Under strict conditions, companies who genuinely cannot afford to pay into their pension funds will be government subsidized. Retirement age will remain at 65 but employees may vary their retirement date in advance through extra contributions, or lesser contributions for later retirement.

For those not working, in career breaks or retiring early, we’ll provide contributions for a safe minimum pension that can be made up once back in employment if a return is practical. In any case, no pensioner at age 65 will receive less than 50% of the minimum wage pertaining at the time. This will be an individual entitlement and there will be no reduction for couples co-habiting. It is our intention to negotiate with unions to implement ‘Safe Pensions’ for new entrants in the public sector, too. ‘Safe Pensions’ is a future proofing policy to make sure people are secure in retirement and Britain is protected from escalating pension costs.

Implementing the vision papers to come:
The Economic Vision
The International Vision

The Democratic Vision - When in Government Series

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:28:00 +0000

The Parliamentary Vision - When in Government Series

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 17:33:00 +0000

A series of papers illustrating how UKpopdems will manage government for the benefit of Britain and the British people.

2. Implementing the Vision – we can govern for the pitfalls and problems of everyday life and deliver the promises we have made to Britain and the British people.

a). The Parliamentary Process

As UKpopdems becomes more widely known and as our vision, goals and policies for Britain and the British people gain wider understanding, it is not surprising that people in all walks of life ask the obvious question. How is it possible, they say, that any political party can promise to deliver so much that is of benefit to ordinary people – individual and community empowerment; social and financial wealth; pride in Britain’s place in the world – when established and much larger parties who have actually formed governments fail time and again to deliver anything like UKpopdems own twenty priority policy areas. Is it too good to be true?

People are right to ask this question. How can UKpopdems deliver where experienced governments have failed? The answer is not really so difficult to explain or understand. Labour and Conservative governments, over the last thirty years especially, have concentrated on just two things: firstly, doing whatever it takes to gain power in the first place, and secondly: doing whatever it takes to hold onto power once they’ve got it. Policies and the quality of legislation suffer as a result. That sounds cynical, but it can be seen clearly in the increase of spin over truth and real delivery; the rapid centralisation of authority; the declining quality of legislation; the increasing politicisation of the Civil Service and public bodies; the slowly increasing restrictions on individual freedom and interference in our everyday lives and the steady decline in truly democratic decision making. It’s no wonder ordinary Britons in their millions are decoupling from the political process because not only do they feel all parties are the same and but also that they can exercise no individual democratic influence over them. But, amazingly, this public disconnect is taken by politicians as signalling that they have got things right otherwise, they say, ordinary people would be more active in voicing their opinions. It’s a tightening vicious circle.

UKpopdems is very different as a party. We believe the balance of democratic power should be shifted towards the individual and their communities and away from bureaucratic and centralising government. So with UKpopdems, the needs of Britain and the British people come first and we’ve listened hard to what those needs really are. As proof of this we are laying out before the people the result of that listening in the form of detailed policies that we intend to deliver in government. Not fuzzy blandishments, but actual detail. Because UKpopdems has this detail, when we’re elected we’ll be able to hit the ground running in delivering benefits. Departmental heads, Local Authorities and delivery agencies will have been very much aware of what UKpopdems stands for well before any election, so we’ll expect any implementation that can be done without legislation to move forward quickly and with full backing.

This is just the start. In a system as complex as Britain’s we cannot expect policy to be implemented smoothly and without problems just by ticking a box. Our watch-words in government are ‘simplify’ and ‘empower’: Firstly, simplifying the process to enable direct engagement with delivery agents responsible for implementing change, and secondly, empowering communities to take democratic decisions and authority when they feel ready. Internally, in Whitehall, we’ll break down the huge bureaucratic, monolithic, serial departments so individuals work simply in small empowered teams to achieve broad implementation objectives in many parallel areas. As we move more resources to the font-line where they’ll work directly in the communities they serve, then MPs and departmental teams will work face to face with delivery organisations and communities to ensure systems and expertise are in-place and everyone is comfortable with increasing local democratic powers and accountability.

On a day to day level, the cabinet will be separated, with two ministers appointed to each cabinet post. One of these ministers will be responsible for successful change management to ensure new policies take effect with the promised benefits; the second minister will be responsible for current operations to make sure established systems continue to work well and events are addressed properly as they arise. Both of these positions are essential to avoid potentially serious events being mishandled on the one hand and policy implementation being blown off-course on the other. To prevent even the possibility of spin by a UKpopdem government, senior public servants will be given clear responsibility for announcing factual information in both summary form and back-up detail. These facts will take precedence over any statements and interpretations made by cabinet ministers. The point of this is to make sure everyone; Parliament, the public, civil service, delivery organisations, the Head of State and international bodies have the same agreed factual position. Cabinet ministers’ role then is to address these facts, rather than dispute them, and apply themselves to future action.

Today, instead of getting on with the business of governing for the benefit of the people, parties ‘in power’ spend much of their time manoeuvring to gain advantage for themselves and their backers. This not only damages our democracy but also provides too much opportunity for MPs and ministers to avoid addressing major issues, which then often turn into crises. One of the first things UKpopdems will do in government is to stop any chance of damaging manipulation being possible. A tough, independent regulator will be appointed to monitor MPs behaviour and protect public interest. In addition, Ministers will lose the right to initiate enquiries which are often used to avoid public discussion of contentious issues. All enquiries will be initiated, and terms of reference defined, by a new independent body. Under a major constitutional change that UKpopdems will work to implement, the House of Commons will also lose the right under the Parliament Act to push legislation through the Lords and onto the statute book. In future, if The Lords reject a bill twice then precedence will no longer revert to Parliament but to the people themselves who will have an opportunity for the final say in a referendum, the result of which will be binding on both Houses.

Of course, none of the above regulations and restrictions should be necessary in a free democracy such as ours. But Labour and Conservative have each contributed to the damage suffered to our Parliamentary system by introducing greed, sleaze and spin and by centralising power into fewer and fewer unaccountable hands. They have steadily increased government’s ability to manipulate situations to their own advantage and negatively impact the lives of ordinary people. MPs have mistakenly allowed themselves to believe they are better than the people they are meant to be serving. The value of Parliament is to protect and grow the peace of mind, wealth and freedom of the people, not to restrict and damage these values. Ukpopdems is a party of the people and in government we will be the servants of the people. And as servants we not only need to properly manage government for the benefit of the people, but we have to be seen to do so, clearly and unequivocally.

Implementing the vision papers to follow:

Implementing UKpopdems Democratic vision
Implementing UKpopdems Community vision
Implementing UKpopdems Economic vision
Implementing UKpopdems International vision

Global Warming and the Environment - Key Issue Series

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 10:29:00 +0000

We go behind the published policy summaries to explain in some detail how UKpopdem goals and policies work together on one of today’s major issues.

2. Global Warming and the Environment

The Problem
It is said that, after world terrorism, global warming is the most serious threat to future civilisation and, by attachment, Britain’s future, too. Some claim the threat is greater than world terrorism. Most people are prepared to accept now that the earth is warming and yet uncertainties abound about its real seriousness and impact, also about man’s involvement in its cause and government motives and responses; and most of all a worry persists in the back of peoples’ minds that their lifestyles and what they strive to achieve for themselves and their families, will be irrevocably damaged and curtailed in the fall-out from the crusade to reverse Global Warming.

The facts
Unlike world terrorism, where there is daily and awful truth of its viciousness against real people trying to go about their daily lives, there is no definitive scientific proof of global warming, nor is there a mathematically provable theory. There is, however, compelling evidence for warming and complex models show possible predicted variations in future temperature: and from these, further forecasts are attempted which contemplate possible outcomes and impacts. It is a tenuous picture but most people are willing to take it on trust. When it comes to the cause of global warming, however, that it is created wholly and totally by man’s hand, rather than by some natural change, and therefore that our destructive activities should be restricted, then herein lays the debate and the mistrust. If scientists are right and global warming is caused by man-made CO2 emissions, then the world is in serious trouble indeed and solving the crisis without negatively impacting our everyday lives is probably the most complex problem the world faces.

Everyday lives
You see everything we do and everything we are requires energy. Using energy creates CO2. The food energy we use just to live is breathed out in CO2 and ejected as methane waste (which is 25 times more damaging than CO2). Producing the food we need also requires energy and emits CO2. And it’s the same for all the animals. Add in the energy required to make the clothes we wear and fuel for basic heating to keep us warm, and it’s evident that just getting through the day uses a lot of energy and results in tonnes of released CO2 and methane. If we in Britain and the rest of the world all lived a simple pastoral existence as in the Middle-Ages then the energy we use and resulting CO2 would be large but stable, surely? But wait, aren’t there 10 times as many people on the planet now as there were in the Middle-Ages and still growing. Are scientists really telling us there are too many people in the world and that’s the man-made cause of rising CO2? What are scientists and politicians saying?

Wealth and CO2
Actually, scientists, governments and pressure groups say it is not increased CO2 due to population growth that is the cause of global warming; it is the increase in manufactured goods we employ and the energy required (and thus CO2 output) in making them and using them that is the problem. In Britain this means everything manufactured that we have got used to; everything that makes our lives comfortable and enjoyable, everything you see around you in your work, your home, your street, your town; it includes your travel, your holidays, your music, your TV; and activities in hospitals, schools, offices, shops – everything everywhere. This is what governments and pressure groups want to stop and reverse. But this is also the machinery of wealth and progress, of hope and aspiration, not just in Britain, but around the world. Without it we would indeed be back in the Middle-Ages toiling for a bare existence, with the disease and short life that goes with it.

Taking Stock
UKpopdems believe the commonsense voices of ordinary Britons hold the answer to this knotty problem and should be listened to. They have made it quite clear what they wish their government to achieve. They say: We want solutions to protect the Earth, but without damaging our lifestyles. This marvel of rationality gives UKpopdems confidence in listening to the British people rather than the self-centred and doubtfully motivated opinions of pressure groups and our current batch of politicians. This does not make our job easier but our direction is clear. UKpopdems commits that the lifestyles of ordinary British people will not be crucified on the altar of global warming. We will not introduce any green taxes or impose any restrictions unless the people agree and politicians, senior public servants and corporate bosses pay their own individual green taxes and are personally impacted by the same restrictions. We will look for environmental solutions that Britons can agree with and support actions they can take personally, and we’ll focus on reducing CO2 through technology applications and energy efficiency.

Britain’s Environment
We can be justly proud of the great environmental strides Britain has made in just the last 50 years. Look outside and the dream of a green and pleasant land seems realisable. The rivers, towns, and the land itself are cleaner than before the industrial revolution blackened our skies and our lives. Ukpopdems promise to continue this progress and direct even more investment to cleaning up Britain. However, there still remain four great blights to be addressed; road traffic choking villages, towns and cities; new and ugly development creeping into our green spaces; the gross and hideous spectre of society’s waste mountain; and the dirty, wasteful and inefficient production of energy. These are long term problems requiring concerted long term solutions but we know what we have to do, what the people want, and we’ll start immediately.

Key solutions
We’ll stop persecuting motorists but increasingly separate traffic from pedestrians by improving and building ‘safe roads’; give better, easier and cheaper public transport options to get cars off the road; make actual fuel usage the simple and sole efficiency criteria of what taxes road users pay; and with our international partners, we’ll drive for greener engines. For the built environment we’ll redevelop cities and towns and protect the green belt; we’ll set up a permanent royal commission to improve the quality, beauty and sustainability of buildings and infrastructure; and increase shared ownership schemes to make more homes affordable. In reducing waste, Britons do want good solutions and we’ll push for much more recycling where this makes sense and the people give their support; we’ll increasingly make retailers responsible for packaging disposal; and to reduce fly-tipping we’ll change the emphasis towards encouraging proper disposal rather than penalising it through swingeing taxes. With power production, the real debate now is between nuclear and renewable sources and ensuring Britain’s energy production. The result will have long term impacts. We’ll hold a wide-ranging and open debate and make sure the voice of ordinary people is heard above the clamour of disparate interest groups, so that the outcome has the democratic approval of the British people. UKpopdems policy solutions contain far more than can be shown in these few lines, but whatever we do our goal is to improve Britons’ lives, not damage them.

The International Factor
When it comes to overall CO2 output, Britain’s contribution at 2% is insignificant compared to total world CO2 output. Britain’s real role is to do our bit and make sure our voice is heard. Once again, ordinary people have made it quite clear that their priority lies in supporting developing and disadvantaged countries and pushing first world nations to recognise their duty in this respect. Britain and other nations need to drive China particularly, to use its new wealth in foreign reserves and earnings for investment in clean manufacture, clean transport and cleaner coal-fired power stations. The EU is doing a good job over time in forcing the same thing in Eastern Europe and other states it can influence. If there is one thing that the United States can do within its power then it is to reduce its own dependence on oil which has been, is now and will continue to be the cause of so many world conflicts. Moreover, the new US rush to bio-fuels is already damaging food production and affecting us all. Africa is an exception and we must not allow jobs-worth bureaucrats and well-meaning green pressure groups to make that continent suffer further by denying it access to cheap power and manufacturing capability. Africa must be lifted up, not left shackled to the dirt in poverty, and Britain and Europe must take the lead. Ukpopdems will grow a defence fund at a £billion a year to help those most affected by Global warming who cannot help themselves. In addition, we will have in-place a permanent rapid reaction force equipped and ready to go when famine, fear and disaster threaten.

Protecting Britain
We just do not know whether Global Warming will benefit Britain or harm us. Finding this out in as much detail as possible is a key priority. UKpopdems will invest to quickly understand likely impacts better so we can take advantage of the benefits and protect our citizens against possible dangers, especially drought, floods, rising sea levels, food production and energy provision. To protect Britain’s essential resources and promote reinvestment, we’ll restrict profits for utilities to 10% and make sure those profits are kept in the UK. Local communities, who are the key decision making bodies in a UKpopdems government, will get the expertise and support they need to make and implement long term decisions to protect and benefit individuals and the whole community based on local priorities. Whatever global warming brings to Britain in ten, twenty, thirty or more years from now, we will be prepared for it; and we will be in a good position to help our neighbours and others when and if they need it.

Immigration and Nationality - Key Issue Series

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:17:00 +0000

We go behind the published policy summaries to explain in some detail how UKpopdem goals and policies work together on one of today’s major issues.

1. Immigration and Nationality

The problem
Everyone in Britain, except a few Labour and Lib/Dem MPs and a matching number of bureaucrats, believes immigration is too high; way too high. Even established immigrants themselves think this. Historically, Britain is a nation entirely made up of immigrants, but whereas the past had seen gradual small scale immigration that was absorbed into the British mix, today’s influx of millions over a short period cannot be absorbed. Britain is not the America of two centuries ago with open land and a wild west that needed filling and taming. No, Britain is a small, established, crowded land where every new person from overseas must show they add value to Britain’s interests, rather than take slices out of it. With a forecast population rise to 70million, drastic action is needed.

Control for new immigrants
First, UK Popular Democrats will control and reduce immigration by restricting entry to Britain except for those foreign nationals who can show: a) provable work with registered employees; b) provable study at registered and approved institutions (registered employers and organisations will be responsible for accommodation, health, other services and repatriation); c) provable funds, sponsorship and approved health insurance for those starting a business; d) registered accommodation, funds and health insurance for short stay visitors outside certain nationalities. New EU members will be included in these restrictions and we’ll work to back-track restrictions on EU Eastern Bloc countries. The process will involve a card visa waiver based on the American system, together with supporting documentation and registration database checks. UKpopdems term for this initiative is ‘EASYVISA’.

Existing legal and illegal immigrants
At the same time, foreign nationals already in Britain will begin to be registered in the same way as with ‘EASYVISA’. Organisations linked to foreign national recruitment, education, accommodation and insurance will register en-bloc initially, and these will be repeatedly checked, approved and re-approved locally by a very large expansion of immigration officers and police officers located directly in the community and with local knowledge. Foreign nationals who cannot be successfully registered within a time limit will be detained and deported over the shortest reasonable time. Spouses and children of registered foreign nationals already in Britain, but not individually registerable themselves, are expected to be maintained by their registered spouse rather than the state, and be repatriated together at the end of the registered period. Registered foreign nationals guilty of imprisonable offences will be deported. Registered foreign nationals given permanent residence will be treated differently (see below).

The task of identifying illegals
Maintaining future entry conditions and reducing future immigration will be fairly straight-forward once resources and processes are in place. But finding and separating out illegal and legal immigrants is a huge task. There may be millions of legally registerable foreign nationals already in Britain, and millions of illegal immigrants – no-one knows. Illegal entrants may be unemployed and unemployable, may be armed and deeply involved in crime of all kinds, drugs, slavery, prostitution, violence, trafficking etc. and will be hidden within normal society. Finding, prosecuting and deporting illegal immigrants and caring for those who have been hurt by them must be treated as the very highest priority and will involve and affect everyone in Britain until the job is done. It means looking into every dark corner, stopping and identifying people at random, relying on information from local people, using undercover investigators and entering suspected premises. A difficult job that must be done while protecting the rights of millions of innocent Britons.

Working conditions
To reduce the need for immigration, UKpopdems will improve employment opportunities for all Britons who are looking for real work. We will give tax benefits to high earners in corporations when they employ British workers, especially those who are unemployed, disabled and disadvantaged. These are special conditions that are expected to be supportable in EU law. In any case, we will make sure that all British citizens who want work will get real jobs in the public sector front-line and in government sponsored companies. Companies that do employ foreign workers will, in future, have to employ for a minimum period and provide accommodation, health insurance, services like pensions and stand guarantor for repatriation. Hiring foreign nationals will no longer be a cheap option at the expense of British workers and British tax-payers.

Permanent residence and British nationality
It must be assumed foreign nationals already in Britain today who have been given permanent residence have it because they deserve and want British nationality. UKpopdems will make British nationality hard to achieve and, therefore, something to treasure. In order to prevent abuses and give a period of reflection to foreign nationals when nationality is eventually achieved then it will be a provisional entitlement for seven years conditional upon behaviour on either side. Likewise, when British nationals marry foreign nationals then British nationality will be an entitlement only after seven years of marriage. New permanent residency must be determined in future by Britain’s needs and by individual foreign nationals being able to fulfil those needs. This will be based on a points system tried and tested already in several other countries.

The route to British nationality
UKpopdems vision for Britain is a single nation with different but valuable cultural accents. That is where individuals are easily identifiable as British in their beliefs and culture but with subtle overtones of their own. Foreign nationals will need a lot of schooling and experiences as they move towards British nationality over seven years. This will include language fluency; involvement in the community; working for integration; historical and geographic understanding; secular law and how this transcends religious law; the workings of Monarchy, government and church; demonstrating tolerant, compassionate and honourable behaviour; financial and personal management; freedom, rights and responsibilities. Readers may think this tough regime more onerous than for existing Britons, but we think our nation should be strengthened by new entrants, not weakened. In any case, UKpopdems education policy makes clear that British children should also be taught against the same principles.

Asylum
Asylum should be sought in the first country of safety that is reached; but if asylum seekers do get to these shores then we are honour bound as a civilised nation, to consider their cases. Those looking for asylum have suffered, are under threat, and may have many physical and psychological problems. What Britain must do is to properly look after their possibly complex needs for health, welfare and education and prevent them being left alone to their own devices in a damaging and difficult first-world experience. UKpopdems feel this can be done better by keeping refugees and asylum seekers together in places of safety, where specialised resources can give support immediately it is required. When conditions in the home country are normalised and danger no longer threatens, then refugees can return home.

Brown’s First Hundred Days

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 10:17:00 +0000

Anyone coming new to British politics would not believe Prime Minister Gordon Brown had been the power behind the Blair throne for ten years before taking the crown for himself. The tone is so different, so conciliatory. You could be forgiven for thinking that the Brown the media talks about; that his own colleagues talk about behind his back, is another person entirely. Judging by the latest polls, even the ordinary people of Britain, having endured ten years of hard Labour, seem prepared to suspend their natural scepticism and take Gordon to their hearts. What’s going on?

Well, there are many learned folk who believe that if you know someone’s past history then you have a good guide to their future. I subscribe to this view because it’s been proved time and again. Do you remember Michael Howard, one of the several Tory leaders, of whom it was said, ‘there’s something of the night about him?’ When he took over he was a different person, acknowledging past mistakes, saying how he was a caring, sharing person really and not a scary, cold, emotionless, dictatorial figure, and indeed he was changed into a bright, humourous touchy-feely party animal – for six months. Then he was back to his old alienating self. It was unnatural behaviour and he couldn’t carry it off.

Today, Brown is saying exactly the right things. For goodness sake, he is speaking UKpopdems words straight out of our vision, goal and policy statements. He wants the NHS to look outwards to the people instead of upwards to government; he wants the NHS (again) to provide the best treatment and care; he wants an independent exam system for schools; he wants to look after our armed forces better; and other things UKpopdems stand for. It almost does make you want to cuddle up to him and share his ‘Big Tent’ of all the talents. He even makes a middling stab at spontaneity and question and answer sessions.

And yet history tells us that Brown’s natural habitat is very different. He is known as a control freak who makes up his own mind and brooks no opposition and accepts no contrary view. He is known as the master of spin, hiding any bad news and double and even treble announcing positive news, especially on spending. He is a man who hides when there is trouble and pops up again afterwards when there is capital to made out of spinning that the day has been saved. I, and many others, believe he does not care about you, or me, or the ordinary people of Britain. He cares about winning elections above all. It was Brown that Blair pleaded with to help him win the last election when things looked bad. And shockingly, after the last election, the first meeting MPs had was not to talk about how Labour was going to make good on its promises to improve life for all Britons; no, it was about how the next election was going to be won.

This uncaring attitude is backed up by his ten years as Chancellor. He was prepared to see hundreds of thousands of pensioners left with nothing after their funds collapsed, despite government assurances they were safe. He was even prepared to rob (others words, not mine) pension funds to the tune of billions every year to fill his coffers, thus contributing to the problem. He has encouraged huge levels of consumer debt, just so that he could claim Britain’s economy was strong and growing thanks to him. He has hidden the real and shocking truth of Britain’s high unemployment figures by reclassifying people who are out of work as disabled, inactive, or training; and also by hiring millions of extra bureaucrats in non-jobs; all this at your expense. No wonder he has a voracious appetite for your money. That’s what he does care about.

Let’s look at the three ‘events’ that occurred on his watch this Summer, and how they were handled. Then we can see the real man behind the words and how our Prime Minister will actually deliver.

1. The Floods. Brown kept his head down initially, then came out to shake hands, and then re-announced the billions of flood-defence spending he had already allocated. But it turns out many floods were caused by lack of money for basic maintenance. The drains had not been cleared. And the new money was not for maintenance, it was for building new defences. There was no extra money for maintenance. And then the victims were hit twice by being told that because of the foods, water bills would have to go up. Brown could have stopped this, made extra money available in a disaster, but he didn’t.
2. Foot and Mouth. Brown disappeared form view, but excellent reaction from DEFRA to try and contain the outbreak. Then we learn that the outbreak was caused by a ministry drain that had not been repaired; and the reason for this was a dispute about who was going to pay for it. So once again, people suffer because money is not available for maintenance.
3. Northern Rock. Brown disappears. A new Chancellor seems to panic behind the scenes. The more The Chancellor and Bank of England reassure, the bigger the run on the bank. The sight of the queues travels around the world and shames Britain, a world leader in finance. The Bank of England has no answer and melt down is in prospect. Brown reappears and takes over. His forte, surely - meat and drink to him. But his answer is a wild move that guarantees total Northern Rock and other bank savings. This is contra to all measures of prudent behaviour, Brown’s past byword.

What this tells us is that Brown is the same man. He loves the grand gesture, the big announcement. But when it comes to the dirty job of making things work day in and day out, the grind of practical delivery, it doesn’t interest him and so there’s no money for it and he doesn’t pay attention to it. The appalling scandal of lack of support for our soldiers and their families is a classic example. Brown pledges improvements but there’s no new money. Look at the grand announcement gesture of deep cleaning all our hospitals. How will it work, how long will it take, and where’s the additional finance? The grand announcement that all gun toting immigrants will be deported. The EU says it cannot be done, so what’s his plan? Do you remember Brown saying he was going to end world poverty? These empty gestures hit the right note emotionally, but have no practical outcome.

So my view is that the Brown government will be exactly the same as the Blair government; plenty of strong announcements, plenty of spin, but weak on delivery. The real difference might be that whereas Blair came forward to communicate his thoughts at every juncture to spin failure as success, Brown could just disappear when difficult explanations are required, quite happy to let others take the flak. Another ten years of that is too ghastly to contemplate.

Securing financial and social wealth for all Britons - Implementing the Goals Series

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 10:57:00 +0000

Securing financial and social wealth for all Britons - Implementing the Goals Series

Securing financial and social wealth for all Britons is one of UKpopdems three main goals. It’s easy to say and many other parties have told UKpopdems they believe in the same thing. But you won’t find this statement in any other party’s manifesto or published goals: not even the ‘big three’, who are increasingly taking UKpopdem policy headlines into their own public statements. Even if Labour, Conservative or Lib/Dems did take ownership of this goal for themselves it would be impossible for them to deliver with anything like their current or planned financial and social structures. Let it be said here and now; UKpopdems will deliver this goal in office for the benefit of all Britons, and what follows explains what it means and summarises how it will be implemented.

UKpopdems believes in individual, community and national financial wealth. The wealthier people are, the freer they are, the more choices they can make which benefit them and the more they can take control of their lives – and the more they can give back to society and those less fortunate than themselves. So UKpopdems defines financial wealth in terms everyone can understand – Britons feeling and actually being better off. Defining social wealth is also easier than it looks. When people who really need help and support are confident they will get it, that’s social wealth: when people feel empowered to influence events that are important to them, that’s also social wealth: and when people feel confident their lives will improve, they have social wealth.

This is the goal that UKpopdems is pledging to achieve. Present and past governments are failing increasingly in both these areas. Social help is becoming scarcer, more bureaucratic and centralised; leading to what there is becoming sometimes ineffectual. Likewise, in real modern British financial terms, many ordinary people are slowly getting poorer or standing still. Not so long ago it was quite possible for one parent in a family to work and keep the rest of the family in reasonable comfort. Now both parents have to work to pay the mortgage or rent, bills and live a reasonable life. It seems this government’s intention is to make as many people as possible dependent on the state – either working for the state or receiving benefits of one kind or another.

In summary, this is how Ukpopdems will increase social and financial wealth for all Britons. The programmes are fully funded. There will be no tax rises and no public sector redundancies. We will wring £100billion of waste and bureaucracy out of Labour’s bloated fiscal mismanagement and redirect it to where it can be better used.

Firstly we are dramatically increasing the power of individuals and communities. So you and your local community will decide social priorities and where funding should be spent – not local authorities or central government. Then we are putting up to a million additional front-line resources into the community. That’s real people doing a real job in your community – not in back-offices; police; doctors, nurses; teachers; social services and many others. And we’ll build the matching infrastructure to support these resources. This means social benefits for everyone. You will no longer live in fear of violent crime, and when you really need help of whatever kind, it will be there for you. We will encourage ordinary like-minded individuals in their millions to get together to have their say on legislation and to advise the government – and the government will listen. You will feel you can really make a difference to your country and will be in the driving seat of democratic change. You will decide, by public votes, national and social issues like political correctness, equality, human rights, the portrayal of violence and sex in the media and many others. You will have real power; you will have help and support when you really need it; you will have secured social wealth.

In securing financial wealth, too, UKpopdem policies will deliver. Firstly, we are making companies wealthier by totally removing corporation tax. You can imagine the huge influx of highly profitable corporations coming to Britain – and the matching job opportunities. Secondly, we will give every Briton a ‘Right to Work’. That’s real employment for everyone who needs a job with training and support given when its needed (a UKpopdem policy just recently taken up by Gordon Brown). We will reduce immigration and give Britons first priority for jobs. We’ll still have immigration, of course, but all foreign nationals will need ‘Easy Visas’ to legally enter Britain. We will re-build the value and security of pensions through employer funded ‘Safe Pensions’ linked to salaries, so everyone will have dignity in retirement.

We’ll re-orientate education to make sure pupils get the best life chances through maximising individual potential. Then we’ll encourage the really wealthy to put more back into Britain through the implementation of ‘Very High Earners Discretionary Contribution’ linked to total earnings and average salaries and numbers of any Britons employed. Those liable can choose to reduce their contribution to zero through benefiting Britain directly, employing more people, or supporting the very poorest and disadvantaged in society. Still more, we’ll give everyone a chance to reduce future taxes in a popular vote, releasing more wealth for ordinary Britons. As a minimum, a vote to reduce taxes would see Council Tax, that most hated of taxes, completely eliminated. So a real job and better opportunities for every Briton, better education, a secure retirement, a proper contribution by the very wealthy, and the possibility of reduced taxes. All these will bring truly secure financial wealth.

Ukpopdems – securing financial and social wealth for all Britons.

Anti-social Behaviour - Key Issue Series

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:38:00 +0000

We go behind the published policy summaries to explain in some detail how UKpopdem goals and policies work together on one of today’s major issues.

3. Anti-social Behaviour

The recent reported murders of young people and adults at the hands of gangs, drunken youths and so called anti-social groups is tragic and begs the questions, is violent crime out of control in Britain? What can be done about it? One thing is certain and that is that millions of ordinary men, women and children do not feel safe on the streets and going about their everyday lives; especially at night and even in broad day-light. It is no longer an easy option for adults to tackle the bad behaviour of others head-on; not just because of the danger of retaliatory violence, but also from mixed ‘human rights’ messages coming down from authority which often leads to brave intervention being interpreted as a crime in its own right by those who should know better.

Everyone understands that the first job of any government is to protect its citizens; yet In the case of crime, and anti-social behaviour specifically, the failures of government past and present have been so broad and at so many levels over twenty, thirty, forty and even fifty years, that those with a responsibility to protect us are at a complete loss as to what to do. The failures are many: a failure to support families properly; a failure of moral guidance; a failure of effective policing; a failure of criminal justice; a failure of education; a failure of commonsense by authorities; a failure of community; a failure of housing; a failure to listen. No wonder government resorts to blaming society and parents and…and…well everything and everybody else except themselves and their own failed policies. For this government particularly, it’s much easier to spin targets and play with numbers than tackle the problem directly. It’s just too difficult for them.

Besides, politicians just don’t suffer the same problems as ordinary folk. One call from them and the police come running; some even have their own team of police right outside their doors. They can even make laws just to protect themselves: got an annoying protest outside Parliament? Well, just create legislation to ban it and the bottomless pit of your tax money pays for the police to enforce it: somebody interrupting your very important speeches? Well, just get them arrested under anti-terrorist laws, that should keep them quiet. How can they fix the problem when they don’t live it; when they are not even listening?

UKpopdems can fix these problems. We must fix them for the good of Britain and all the British people. How can UKpopdems solve this problem when all other governments have failed? Well UKpopdems works in a totally different way from any other political party. For a start we put the interests of ordinary people first, and the interests of politicians, their backers and spin doctors last. Secondly, we listen to the commonsense views and needs of ordinary Britons and our success comes from serving those needs. Because we’ve listened we know what needs to be done and we’ll use the mechanics of government to focus on real solutions for real people rather than party dogma and self-interest.

You’ll see elsewhere in UKpopdems policies that we are recruiting an additional one million public sector front-line delivery resources. Not through raising taxes but by wringing £100billion out of government back-office bureaucracy and waste. This is easier than it sounds because no government has wasted your money so obscenely as this current one – perhaps to the tune of £200billion! Of those one million additional front-line resources nearly half will work in the community, That is, your community, your streets; listening to your views and your individual needs and making sure you and your community get support when and where its required.

We’ll deliver what you’ve always asked for, more police on the beat. Actually, 250,000 extra police, safeguarding your families and your communities. Their job is not only to reduce crime but to make sure that when people really need help, they can get it. And because there will also be thousands of additional community, social, health and education specialists then that much needed help and support won’t just be big talk, it will be available. An overwhelming police presence is the best way to reduce anti-social behaviour, youth drunkenness, weapon carrying and criminal gang behaviour. And real support for families in difficulty is the best way to prevent young people getting into trouble in the first place.

We’ll also strengthen the criminal justice system to make sure that prison always awaits criminals found guilty of violent crimes, serious violent aggression and mindless criminal damage. UKpopdems redirection of government funding towards front-line resources also includes support for new infrastructure such as a faster courts system, many more prison places and better rehabilitation and training. We’ll also make sure the education system works for all children, and instead of wasted talk about grammar schools we’ll invest in the special, remedial and behavioural schools that will give children who need help a better start in live. School attendance will be more thoroughly monitored, with no-shows followed-up immediately and problems resolved. Our schools are key assets in making sure children understand right from wrong and what is acceptable in society and what is not. A new curriculum that includes ‘civilisation’ and ‘self-management’ will better equip young people for adulthood.

Because UKpopdems is a party that really listens to ordinary people there will be plenty of opportunity, when we are in government, to voice your opinions on a number of subjects, and where the majority agree, get changes made. We’ll be holding public votes on several social issues that affect people, such as abolishing or changing human rights laws; the portrayal of violence and sex in the media; your right to protect yourselves and your property, to name but a few. So you can see, with UKpopdems in government, we can and will address the key issues and problems that affect your daily lives, and you will have a proper say in the way things are done.

Express letter of the week

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:25:00 +0000

Letter published as 'letter of the week' in Express Newspapers 29/07/07

Dear Sir,

So we are told water bills must go up. The government and local authorities fail to protect the people properly; water companies already make vast profits and the victims have to pay. They’ve lost their possessions, their livelihoods, their clean water, their power, their future peace. They’ve been mugged and in our ‘modern society’ it’s the victims who doubly suffer.

We see Brown in his true light now. He may be Prime Minister but the old Chancellor in him won’t go away. He won’t be happy until every last penny has been taken from the peoples’ pockets to feed his voracious appetite for waste and bureaucracy.

David Cordingley

UKpopdems – United Kingdom Popular Democrats
david.cordingley@ukpopdems.org.uk
www.ukpopdems.org.uk

Floods and disasters – Where We Stand Series

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 07:44:00 +0000

Floods and Disasters - Where We Stand Series

OK, so what would UKpopdems do?

Good question. It’s all very well UKpopdems planning to make Britain a better place to live for individuals, families and communities, and providing changes that allow all Britons to access long term financial and social wealth; but what about handling the everyday events and rarer natural disasters that sweep other governments off-course. Well, if you’ve looked through our principles and policies in the web-site you’ll already know UKpopdems is offering something very different from the increasingly centralised government decision making we’ve suffered for decades.

What’s happened over the last 30 years or so, maybe longer, is that successive governments have starved funding for front-line services that directly help individuals and communities and, instead, poured billions of your hard-earned money into central departments and central decision making by quangos and bureaucrats. The result is they get what they want but you don’t get what you, your family and your community needs.

UKpopdems’ principles and values are different. One of the first things we’ll do in government is begin the process of re-distributing the money that comes from the taxes you pay so that funding massively increases for front-line resources and infrastructure, and substantially reduces for back-office departments and bureaucracy. In our first year we’ll find £20billion extra for immediate front-line community services and by the end of our first term, we’ll be redirecting £100billion a year extra to communities. Half that money will go into recruiting a million extra front-line resources and half into the expanded infrastructure needed to get the job done. That’s a lot of money and we are expecting to achieve a lot with it.

You’ll see in our policies that we are setting up a large, permanent, properly resourced and equipped, multi-agency rapid reaction force to deliver aid and expertise anywhere in the world where there are sudden natural disasters to alleviate. This force will be ready to act and go on the occasions when Britain and communities need it. This force will, indeed, be large because we are doubling the size of the armed forces and massively increasing police numbers. If UKpopdems was in government now, the powerful pumps; rescue and reinstatement teams, clean water and emergency food aid, and, just as important, long-term back-up and support would be immediately in-place and on-site to minimise personal suffering, and help communities get back to normal as soon as possible. Neither man nor government can prevent the damage nature does at her wildest, but we should be able to respond to limit the damage and hold out a strong and competent hand for those who need help. This is the proper and appropriate action anyone would expect from a wealthy and civilised nation.

UKpopdems will make other changes too. We believe that decision making should be done at Parish and Community Council level, as close to the people affected by decisions as possible. This means your community will not have to suffer the bureaucratic wrong-headedness of central department decision making and delays. You and your community will decide priorities about where spending should be directed to best effect; not central government, Regions or Local Authorities. With UKpopdems your commonsense knowledge of the locality and what your community needs counts far more than any decision that could be made by central departments. What we’ll do is to make sure you have all the expertise on-hand that you need to help in your decision making process. So if flood defences, drainage and stricter planning rules are your community priorities to prevent future problems in your area, you’ll know no-one is going to turn up with a big stick telling you otherwise.

That does not mean communities are on their own, trying to manage with sparse resources. As part of UKpopdems redirection of funding we’ll be massively increasing the numbers of front-line public sector workers active in Britain’s communities, so individuals and families will get the support they need when they need it. Not just police, nurses, doctors, teachers, but all the resources and infrastructure you’d expect.

So, yes, UKpopdems have policies for everyday living as well as long term benefits for Britain and all British people. When you are ready for UKpopdems, we’ll be ready to serve.

UKpopdems – The Road Ahead

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 15:46:00 +0000

As we approach our first anniversary in July the party is standing on very firm foundations and is capable of a leap forward that could bring positive electoral results. Let me share with you the progress made to date and plans for our next stage of growth. Your views and backing is vitally important to the success of UKpopdems so please make your opinions known as we move forward, as you have done in the past.

1) Overriding UKpopdems Principles

We’ve defined the three key and overriding principles that guide every aspect of our party today and in the future. These principles are fundamentally different from those of other parties and set us apart in UKpopdems passion for Britain, the British people and true democracy for ordinary Britons. These principles are contained in three clear and unambiguous statements:

‘UKpopdems - putting Great Britain and the Great British people first’

‘UKpopdems - making Britain and the British people better off, both financially and socially’

‘UKpopdems - giving ordinary Britons real power and a real voice’

This means UKpopdems as a party stands for three broad ideals:
1) Giving more power to ordinary Britons and less power to government
2) Giving Britons access to long term financial and social wealth
3) Giving Britons a good feeling about themselves and their country

2) UKpopdems Vision

The party’s vision has been defined from the above principles. Over the past few months UKpopdems vision has been further refined to create a model that clearly shows what it really means to put our democratic principles into practice. Models are in development for UKpopdems community, economic and international vision. Your input to these models will make sure our vision becomes as crystal clear as possible to everyone that comes into contact with the party.

Above all, when UKpopdems form a government, then that government will need to operate for the benefit of millions of ordinary Britons, rather than for the benefit of a few hundred politicians, their cronies, backers and senior civil service elite, as is the case now. Several published reports, including the Rowntree ‘Power Report’, confirm that the British people have become disengaged from politics and democracy and that disengagement is getting worse. It’s why we have completed the democratic model first, to show that we will address that issue absolutely and completely. Everyone should recognise they will have real power and a real voice with UKpopdems in government.

Overall, our vision as a government is to meet the needs and aspirations of individuals and communities. We know that the commonsense needs of ordinary Britons counts far more than the self-centred interests of mainstream party politics.
While today’s governments and parties are concerned with ‘TELLING’ the people what to do and even what to think, UKpopdems is concerned with ‘LISTENING’ to the real needs of ordinary Britons.
While they want ‘POWER’ over the people, UKpopdems will succeed by ‘SERVING’ the needs of the people.
While they ‘SPIN’ instead of delivering, we’ll ‘DELIVER’ and ban spin.

Link to UKpopdems democratic model:

democracy%20diagram.ppt

3) UKpopdems Goals

UKpopdems goals are matched seamlessly to our published principles and vision. They show we mean what we say and we’ll deliver what we promise. The goals UKpopdems are pledged to deliver come straight from the people themselves. No party can truly claim to represent the people unless they fully understand what the people themselves want.

Publishing these goals that come straight from the people is another unique UKpopdems feature. No other mainstream party can do this: Firstly, they don’t know what the people want and they are not asking: secondly, other parties are concerned with their own egos and their own dogma. Look at New Labour and New Tories. If they did ask the people what they think then these parties would get a slap in the face; so best not to ask and just carry on regardless.

Test the goals on yourself, your friends and colleagues. These are not ideals; they are real goals that can be delivered by practical UKpopdem policies

Hospitals and health: We want fast treatment and the best care before, during and after.
Schools: We want to turn out well-educated, healthy and confident young adults.
Social Services: When we really need help we want it given simply and thoughtfully.
Crime: We want to feel safe in the streets and going about our everyday lives.
Environment: We want solutions to protect the earth without damaging our lifestyles.
Immigration: We accept Britain needs immigration, but we want it reduced and controlled.
Defence and foreign policy: We want a safer, freer and more compassionate world.
Transport: We want the right options to meet our needs for safe, fast, reliable and clean travel at fair cost.
Taxation: We want fairer taxes and a say in how tax is raised and spent.
Pensions: We want a secure retirement that keeps our dignity.
Work: We want rights and protection in work and employment opportunities for those seeking work.
Democracy: We want our say on issues that affect us and we expect government to listen.
Politics: We want politicians once again to be deserving of our respect.
Britain: We want to be proud of Britain and our place in the world.
Litigation: We want redress for real loss, but not a litigation culture where someone else is always to blame.
Europe: We want our say on EU membership and the result acted upon.
Poverty and aid: We are a compassionate nation and want to directly help those suffering poverty, fear and natural disasters.
Bureaucracy: We want more front-line public sector workers and fewer bureaucrats
Local Government and Regions: We want local and more accountable decision making at less cost.
The Monarchy and honours: We want to see what value the Monarchy brings and the honours system reformed.

4) UKpopdems Policies and Funding

The foundation of our policies has been set. We can show what’s wrong with things as they are today, what UKpopdems needs to about them to meet peoples’ goals, and what the results will be once these policies are implemented. They are all shown on the web-site so they won’t be repeated here. The full detail has still to be developed and this process is ongoing, but will be in place well before an expected election in 2009.

What the party is defining now is the funding required to implement UKpopdems policies. In our tax policy, the party has promised not to raise taxes overall. Most people already believe taxes are far too high now and we will be giving Britons the opportunity to vote for reduced taxes towards the end of the first term. So our programmes and initiatives will be delivered within existing national income.

Our plan is to implement our full first-term programme by REDIRECTING revenue to where it is most needed, that is in front-line resources and infrastructure, and away from back-office waste and bureaucracy. No government in history has wasted so much tax payers’ money as this present one; in hundreds of costly Quangos, failed IT systems, Whitehall bureaucracy, botched initiatives, red tape, foreign junkets, disastrous policy rethinks, Local Authority profligacy, expensive outsourcing of services, excruciatingly costly consultancy, not to mention press officers and spin doctors in every public sector department. Our estimate is that money wasted on back-office bureaucracy and things the people don’t want and can’t use adds up to near £200billion annually.

UKpopdems intends to recruit a million additional and much needed front-line specialists; teachers, medical and support staff, police, immigration and customs officers, prison warders and rehabilitation staff, military personnel, social and care workers and many others. And develop the infrastructure to support these front-line specialists and promote British prosperity and safety: prisons, specialist schools, local hospitals, research facilities, the best military equipment, new and safer roads, more and better public transport, additional community facilities and much more.

To achieve this we’ll wring £20billion out of back office waste in the first year, rising to £100billion in the fifth year, and redirect it to our front-line programmes. There will be no redundancies; instead we’ll use natural public sector turnover to reduce bureaucracy and also offer real and valuable front-line specialist jobs to any back office staff who want to transfer. To mark its importance, the full detail of our programme funding will soon appear as a separate page on the party web-site.

5) Next Steps

Over the next two years UKpopdems and the membership need to prepare for national elections. In order to field candidates in those elections the party requires more members, more funding and a completed manifesto.

To help meet those goals, two programmes are proceeding in parallel:

First, the party will invite applications for additional PARTY OFFICERS; party officers are members who will become senior representatives of the party, moving the party forward as members of a joint cabinet. They may specialise in one or more activities including refining policy, recruiting members locally to set up branches, identifying funding and could become potential election candidates.

Secondly, costs will continue to be kept low by maintaining our focus on electronic communication. The web-site will be updated with new and modified pages as well as a new page on programme funding. Also expect an exiting new Home Page incorporating an animation of the party’s core messages, a comment pane promoting two-way exchange of news items and comment, and an on-line viewable and downloadable promotional brochure.

The future for UKpopdems looks bright. Your engagement will make that future even brighter. Join now.

Grammar schools - Where We Stand Series

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 18:06:00 +0000

Grammar Schools - Where We Stand Series

The Tory muddle over Grammar schools is still in the news and some people are naturally asking what UKpopdems position is on this subject. Anyone who knows UKpopdems well will be able to take a good guess at the position the party takes on Grammar schools even though this specific issue is not totally clear in the main published points of our schools policy.

This issue is straightforward for UKpopdems and difficult for mainstream parties because all our policies come from what the people of Britain want for themselves, their families and their friends. With UKpopdems, ordinary Britons have real power and a real voice and our job is to listen to those millions of voices so we can address the key issues and needs the people really want. For schools and education the people of Britain have already told us what they expect from Ukpopdems once in government; it is to turn out well-educated, healthy and confident young adults. And that’s what our policy on schools and education is intended to deliver.

Cameron and his party’s confusion on Grammar schools and New Labour failures in education comes because they are both mired in policies that reflect their own interests and party dogma rather than the interests of real people and what they want. Because many senior politicians of left and right as well as top civil servants and other party cronies and advisers went to Britain’s very best schools, their arguments over these establishments seem the most important thing in the world to them. But Ukpopdems knows that what’s important to the vast majority of people; people like you and me, is that children of whatever ability get the best education they can from schools at all levels and in all locations. The debate on Grammar schools is unimportant and incredibly elitist considering the very few who could benefit – but they have their place and that place has value in turning out well-educated, healthy and confident young adults.

UKpopdems education policy is wide ranging, but on this one specific issue concerning the type of schooling available our policy is clear; we will utilise good schools of whatever type to achieve the peoples’ objective in education for their children. Yes, that includes Grammar schools, but more importantly, it includes strengthening the educational attainments of main-stream comprehensives, sixth form colleges and city academies as well as primary schools. And more importantly still, UKpopdems is alone in recognising the urgent need to invest properly in schools to support those who need special help. Young people who are disadvantaged, have learning difficulties for whatever reason, have disruptive problems or are struggling in some other way, have just as much right to the best possible education as those more privileged and more capable.

UKpopdems have several initiatives to improve education and the most important schools policy detail is two-fold; one, that children should have access to schools that suit their abilities; and two, that teachers’ first responsibility is to maximise the potential of every individual pupil. As is clear in our policy, UKpopdems in government will give teachers the tools, funding and the freedom to make sure this happens and, in return, we will measure their success in identifying educational needs, improving abilities and liaising with families and guardians. We do not shrink from saying this will mean careful observation, assessment and review on a continual basis by teachers themselves. Only by this means can teachers, pupils and parents become fully aware of progress and needs. This does not mean the return of 11-plus, which is seen as divisive by many, but it does mean mobility, streaming and focus to make sure pupils at all development stages get the schooling they both deserve and need to become well-educated, healthy and confident young adults.

So, yes to Grammar schools as for all schools: if pupils can benefit from the educational programmes on offer and not enough existing school places are available, then UKpopdems is committed by our policy to make sure more places are accessible, either through expansion of existing facilities or new build. There will be no dogmatic, politically correct or class led decisions. Individuals, interested groups and communities will decide and UKpopdems will ensure the funding and enabling structures are available. Funding for all UKpopdems public sector initiatives is well-developed and comes from reassigning existing back-office government expenditure to front-line resources and capital projects; releasing £20billion a year initially and rising to £100billion in the fifth year.

Blair's legacy - a personal view

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Fri, 11 May 2007 12:43:00 +0000

David Cordingley
Ukpopdems – Popular Democrats

I know Tony Blair well. I feel I know him well, anyway: such a strange mix of brilliance and incompetence; so Jekyll and Hyde. How we wept with him and loved him over his care and concern on Diana’s death; how we wept at him and hated him over his uncaring of 100,000 innocent Iraqi deaths. He risked his premiership to successfully bring ancient enemies together in peace, yet trampled over the body of one good servant to save his own political career. A creator of a Labour machine that won three great victories, but at bottom a naïve idealist who genuinely thought all he had to do was tick a box, mix in some spin and ape the immortal words of his real master in Washington – ‘job done’.

The master of spin, he spun at the end that his unique legacy of success was to lead the greatest government since 1945. Let’s have a look at it.

He believed if he could only persuade Brown to pour enough of our money into public services, they would automatically improve without any of the real hard work of restructuring being necessary on his part. But that money was soaked up by bureaucrats, management consultants and disastrously failing IT systems. The British people paid for a French National Health System and ended up with a baffling Balkan bureaucracy where nurses are sacked and managers are hired. They paid public school prices for fabulous state school exam results that turned out hundreds of thousands of illiterate, innumerate and virtually unemployable A-star school leavers, never having had to string a sentence together before their first college thesis. And where the socially disadvantaged are forgotten and lost.

A tough on crime government that thought politically incorrect criminals were more dangerous than violent criminals. The result is that murderers and dangerous paedophiles walk the street; violent gangs are in control of many inner cities and millions are afraid to walk the streets of their communities at night. Because the money has run out, rather than build more prisons the spin machine gets into gear and the cry goes up that ‘prisons don’t work’. Ask the victims; they know one thing, that prison takes their tormentors off the street and out of their lives and the lives of other potential victims.

This was a man who personally played his part in fanning the flames of world terrorism and destroyed Britain’s role as potential world peacemaker through the tragedy of Iraq. Worse, he betrayed our beloved young men and women of the forces by equipping them badly, paying them badly and looking after them badly when they needed help. Ipods are no substitute for cover, armour and the ability to defend yourself. Blair’s terrible mistake means that his people at home are losing their freedoms – where a pensioner who heckles a Labour meeting or a protester with a placard outside parliament is counted as dangerous a terrorist as a man with a bomb.

And yet the immigrants flood in uncontrolled. Every town is swamped and the social services we pay for are breaking. Are they honest workers or the most heinous criminal gangs? Who knows, no-one in government seems concerned. They say the British are good at understanding irony; it’s a fine irony indeed when up to three million British unemployed and ‘inactive’ are matched by up to three million new immigrants taking their jobs.

Yet, in ten years, Blair has not been able to totally destroy Britain’s social structure and if he set out to do this, it is only the innate strength, good humour, commonsense and the caring nature of ordinary Britons that has thwarted him. In his farewell speech, Blair was right in one thing, that despite all he has done Britain is still the best country in the world.

And so good-bye Blair and hello Brown.

Brown is virtually unknown as a real person. He has been missing when the bad news had to be given out. He has hidden behind the spun figures of his double and triple funding announcements. What do we know?

Well, we know from the people who know him that he is a control freak. Someone who feels he is always right and others always wrong. It will be spun as ‘strong principles’ to the media. We know he is a man prepared to shake hands with celebrities and ruffle the little heads of the poor children in Africa to win an election, then forget all about them afterwards.

We know he is old left-wing Presbytarian Labour. He has taxed and taxed and spent and spent. He doesn’t care that handing over almost half your money to him hurts you and forces both adults in every family to work, rather than one being able to stay home to look after the children. He doesn’t care that most of that tax is wasted on weird back-line non jobs out of The Guardian, and fraud, and quangos and form-filling and peoples’ art and vast bureaucracies.

He doesn’t care that thousands of private sector pensions have been destroyed and stolen, and that those same victims are paying for nice, cosy and safe public sector pensions like his own. He doesn’t care that petrol, utility bills and Council Tax have doubled while state pensions have declined in real terms. He doesn’t care that homes are unaffordable; manufacturing in Britain has been destroyed; balance of payments is £55billion in the red; and business red tape is forcing productivity down faster than a fireman down a pole.

If his control freakery fails to find a way of forcing the British people to elect him through constitutional and electoral tinkering, then perhaps he will start caring in 2009.

After the elections - Where We Stand Series

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Mon, 07 May 2007 12:47:00 +0000

After The Elections - Where We Stand Series

Local, Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament Election Response – May 2007

Which way did you vote? Did you vote? There’s no doubt the most popular vote in last Thursday’s elections, as has been the case for many years, was the no vote. You can’t blame people for not voting, UKpopdems don’t. At local authority level particularly, there’s hardly a difference to speak of between the main parties. Some folks say the biggest factor in the pro-Tory vote was a protest against the mad and unhygienic, so-called green, policy adopted by many local authorities to collect rubbish every other week. Maybe, but UKpopdems believe this is just a side-show. Everybody knows Council Taxes will continue to go up and services will continue to deteriorate. You’ll still pay more for less next year whichever party got in in your area.

The biggest reason local people don’t vote is because they think it’s all a waste of time and that no-one is going to listen to the voice of real local people like you and me. UKpopdems agree. Councils aren’t interested in local peoples’ problems any more than our national government is interested in truly representing the British people. Labour, LibDem and Tory are only in it for themselves at national level and it’s the same at local level. Individually, some MPs and local councillors really do want to do their best to help, but they are soon stymied by the power play of political shenanigans and mired in the treacle of politically correct bureaucrats. In any case, most of the money the council spends is not even determined by councillors; it’s dictated by government. Look at the bureaucratic job titles on offer in your council and you can see hardly any of them are relevant to your lives or what you want. But you are still paying for them.

UKpopdems is the only national party that wants to end the overbearing, undemocratic, bureaucratic and politically correct nonsense of local councils, where ordinary people have no voice to determine what needs to be done to make life for themselves and their neighbours better. Our policy on local government is to get rid of a whole tier of bureaucracy by eliminating all county, district and metropolitan councils. Instead, Parish and Community councils will be strengthened so that you can be truly involved in making the decisions that affect your daily life. Your local community will have the funding and professional support necessary to encourage you and the people you know to get involved in and decide on local issues yourselves, and your community leaders will HAVE to listen to you. It’s not a dream, it will happen with a UKpopdems government. Furthermore, UKpopdems will, at the end of our first term, hold a popular vote that will allow you to decide on national taxation and whether to eliminate what many people feel is that most vile of all taxes, Council Tax. If you vote to reduce taxes and, therefore, end Council Tax, it will not be replaced. There will be no stealth taxes with the Popular Democrats.

Only at regional level (London, Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament, and let’s all hope Northern Ireland Assembly) can be glimpsed just the tiniest ray of light that ordinary people may get some benefit from their vote; that their voices may be listened to. Recent regional policies such as free prescriptions, free elderly care and free university education cock a serious snook at the failing dogma of labour’s policies that only England now has to endure. And last Thursday’s elections not only kicked labour where it hurt most (far more than local council election disasters) but showed the people of Scotland and Wales for the first time that they could afford to flex their muscles in an outburst of democratic power favouring dedicated regional parties over the failing triumvirate of what some people call the Lab/Lib/Con alliance.

UKpopdems want England to benefit from regional democracy as well, but not those awful Stalinist regions dictated by Europe and quite rightly defeated by local people (though, unbelievably still in place as unelected quangos thus demonstrating the contempt Blair and Brown have for the voters of England). No, like the emblematic regions embodied in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, UKpopdems will implement English regions that distil the same pride and belonging personified in the ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Anglia and Wessex; regions of true geography and emotion. London will continue to be a powerful separate region as befits the capital of the United Kingdom; if the people wish it, perhaps a region for Cornwall, too. In addition, and to make sure regional decision making really does reflect what local people want, UKpopdems will implement regional upper houses consisting of representatives from community councils. These new senior chambers will approve policies made at regional level before they are implemented. So you will have a direct voice, through your community, in regional assembly decision making.

These and all other UKpopdem policies are designed to put Britain and the British people first so that all law abiding Britons can feel better off, both financially and socially. With UKpopdems the democratic millions of ordinary people will be able to take back control of their own country from the damaging self-seeking dogma of today’s politicians. In government, UKpopdems will be the servants of the British people while the people, acting together, will be the masters. Instead of telling, we’ll be listening; instead of controlling, we’ll be serving; instead of lying and spinning, we’ll be delivering. Join UKpopdems now and together we can build a better Britain.

Sunday Express Comment – ‘Right to Work’

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Mon, 07 May 2007 12:42:00 +0000

We can reduce the dependency culture by finding real work for everyone who needs it

David Cordingley – Leader
United Kingdom Popular Democrats (UKpopdems)

What do you think is the biggest single problem facing Britain’s future? Listen to mainstream politicians and they will tell you: global warming; the Iraq conflict and terrorism; world poverty; crime and the gun culture; obesity; bird flu? You could be forgiven for thinking the answer is all of these because a new Armageddon does seem to fall out of politicians mouths every few weeks. But the real one is the one that all politicians of whatever colour desperately want to avoid talking about.

The biggest problem facing Britain today and for the future is Social Dependency. ‘So what’? you may be thinking. Let me explain something. Almost half the tax our beloved Chancellor wrings out of you is spent on programmes that try to compensate for social imbalances. Things that have gone wrong that should not have, like social services, pensions, health, unemployment, housing, crime and others. That’s a total of about £250billion! If you pay average tax on average earnings that means almost a quarter of what you earn disappears in social taxes. Imagine what you could do with that extra £6,000 a year. What!? Yes, don’t forget the taxes you pay include more than just the basic rate. There’s VAT, drink, motoring, National Insurance, Council Tax plus a host of other stealth taxes adding up to almost 50% of what you earn.

Like most things this government has tried to do, spending all that money of yours on social re-engineering has not worked. Social health problems are escalating, so is crime, so are debt problems. Pensions, which were meant to give people some dignity in older age, are now devalued or even worthless and that in itself is a key future threat. What’s worse is that a whole generation of Britons - and immigrants too - are dependent on these social taxes, perhaps up to five million. Everyone’s heard of the ‘Dependency Culture’. But what is it? Well, it’s a sound bite that unfairly brands and boxes three groups of totally different people. ONE: People who want to work but can’t find work and depend on benefits to live, and TWO: People who don’t want to work and are content to live on benefits, and THREE: people who should be getting support to maximise their potential but the money’s run out to support them properly so low-grade benefits are the only answer.

Brown’s done his sums and even he knows that more big tax rises are out. There’s no more money to throw at the problem, and even if there were, we all know it would be wasted and social dependency would get worse. His and Labour’s only answer is to ignore it and rely on their mastery of spin to pretend it’s not happening. Tories and Lib/Dems have no better answer so we are all suffering, those who are paying the hefty social taxes and those who need better help and are not getting it. But there is an answer and it’s really not that difficult. It is to make sure everyone who needs work can get it; real empowering jobs that contribute to Britain and our society; jobs that turn social dependents into valuable contributors. This is ‘Right to Work’.

Employment is the sure route to independence and self-respect. Everyone knows unemployment leads to poverty, dependency and humiliation – and provides the foundation for crime, disaffection and ill health. ‘Right to Work’ provides real jobs for people who need them. There is plenty to do in the front-line of the public sector alone, let alone the private sector. ‘Right to Work’ is a programme that particularly includes jobs for people who have low basic skills and are disadvantaged, such ex-offenders, mobile disabled, the young unemployed, and those discriminated against. There’s a lot to do to get Britons back into work, so best start now.

This is how ‘Right to Work’ can be implemented by a determined government at no extra cost to British taxpayers. First we need to recognise these jobs already exist, they’re either just not being done or not being done by Britons, so we must make sure British citizens are first in the queue for jobs, ahead of foreign nationals. Don’t be fooled by human rights lawyers or EU fanatics. Briton can legitimately do this as a sovereign state. Second we need to make sure basic skills training is available for those who need it in communication, work responsibilities etc, so the long term unemployed can gain confidence. Third we need to make sure everyone clearly understands that if they need work, can work and should be working then work will be made available. Then we need to do a couple of important things. One, change the role of job centres so they are responsible for finding jobs for Britons and two, making sure private sector companies can get worthwhile tax incentives by taking on Britons who are currently dependent on benefits.

‘Right to Work’ is a long term programme but could be fully implemented over ten years or two terms, possibly segmented by targeted age bands. As the programme progresses then three fundamental social goals will be met that will benefit Britain and the British people. One; Britons will be in work and know that if they need work they will get it. Two; billions in social benefit costs will be saved for better purposes and, Three; those who need real support to make the quality of their lives better will have access to the money denied them by government for special schools, care, equipment and effective treatment.

After the Budget - Where We Stand Series

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 11:37:00 +0000

After the Budget - Where We Stand Series

UKpopdems – The party that puts Great Britain and the Great British People first

· No new green taxes unless you, the people, agree and junket loving politicians pay their own share. UKpopdems refuse to penalise ordinary people for their hard won luxuries and conveniences.
· No road pricing. Motorists are persecuted and harassed enough. UKpopdems will ring-fence road taxes so you know your money is going towards new roads, emergency services, better public transport and repairing the environment.
· An end to local authorities. UKpopdems will abolish these self-seeking, bloated, expensive and politically-correct obsessed bureaucracies in favour of local communities where you make the decisions that affect you.

UKpopdems – The party that turns politics on its head and puts Britain back on its feet

· Your vote on taxes. UKpopdems will hold a referendum to decide on reducing Britain’s tax burden. Council Tax, Inheritance Tax and Capital Gains Tax will all be eliminated if you vote for reductions. There will be no stealth taxes.
· Your vote on Europe. Now, at last your voice will be heard on EU membership. UKpopdems will hold an early EU referendum on exit or staying in and promise to abide by the decision of the British people. There will be no political fudge.
· Your vote on policies. UKpopdems will implement true popular democracy by supporting the British people in getting together to propose new policies and legislation. The politicians will listen to the people.

UKpopdems – The party that addresses the difficult issues other parties avoid

· Two million government bureaucrats, administrators and managers released, saving £100 billion. UKpopdems will recruit a million extra front-line public sector workers where they are needed most in crime, health, education, community services, immigration control and the defence of our nation.
· 250,000 extra police patrolling the streets to combat Britain’s violent crime epidemic. UKpopdems will deliver more prisons, more first-time prison sentencing and proper jail terms to make it safe for ordinary people to go about their daily lives.
· Britain’s spiralling legal and illegal immigration problems controlled and reduced. UKpopdems will introduce Visas for all foreign nationals and recruit 50,000 immigration officers to protect our borders and peer into every corner.

UKpopdems – It’s your party. Join us and make the difference. www.ukpopdems.org.uk

Explanatory Notes:

UKpopdems – The party that puts Great Britain and the Great British People first

Green Taxes – Ukpopdems is very concerned about the environment and protecting against harmful effects of global warming. However, green taxes are not the answer. Everyone knows green taxes go straight into the treasury pot and not environmental measures. Green taxes are just another excuse to take money from ordinary hard working individuals and families. It is ordinary people who suffer from green taxes by paying three times over. Politicians and Bureaucrats don’t pay their own green taxes; you do in increased taxes elsewhere. Businesses don’t pay their own green taxes either; you do as they increase their prices. So, ordinary individuals pay three times – for themselves, the politicians and business. UKpopdems believe in encouragement not punishment and will not introduce new green taxes unless everyone pays their own way and the people agree in a national vote.

No Road Pricing – Britain’s motorists are the most heavily taxed and officially harassed group in the country, contributing over £40billion to the treasury coffers. The high taxes motorists already pay, if used properly, should be more than enough to solve the excruciating traffic problems most people endure. UKpopdems have a number of commonsense initiatives to cure our transport problems, but we refuse to pile more pressure and more costs on law abiding motorists. As motorists are 90% of the UK population each increase in costs impacts everyone.

An end to local authorities – Ukpopdems is a party that believes first and foremost that the voice of ordinary Britons must be heard above that of politicians and the needs of ordinary people addressed before the needs of politicians. This is not happening today. A few hundred radical activists, money-men and party hacks dictate policy in this country. No-one is listening to the 99.9%, the millions of ordinary, hard-working Britons. UKpopdems are moving democratic power down to the local community so that decisions that affect local people can be made by local people themselves. To make sure this happens; UKpopdems are taking out a whole tier of government at local authority level and redirecting front-line and professional resources to support communities. For the first time ever, people will be empowered to make a real difference to their everyday lives.

UKpopdems – The party that turns politics on its head and puts Britain back on its feet

Your vote on taxes – The voice of ordinary people who pay tax in this country is seldom heard. Their hard-won money is just hoovered up by dictatorial decision making at No. 11. UKpopdems will give people a say in how tax is raised and spent. Taxes will not only begin to be ring-fenced to keep politicians hands out of the tax till, but Britons will have the opportunity to vote on raising or reducing taxes and by how much through choosing what to spend less or more on.

Your vote on Europe – Millions have differing, and some quite radical, views on Britain’s membership of the European Union. Because no vote has been taken since the decision to join decades ago, it’s impossible to say where the nation stands now. UKpopdems believe the nature and goals of the EU have changed since our joining and that the British people want the chance to vote again on continuing membership. This referendum will be heard early with the government taking a neutral view, standing aside except to ensure all the facts and opinions can be heard, and the one clearly separated from the other. Whatever the clear majority, UKpopdems will implement the decision, and in doing so make sure Britain’s interests, and the interests of the British people, are maintained and enhanced.

Your vote on policies – In some other countries citizens can get together to call for changes in legislation. That is a truly beneficial addition to democracy not available in Britain, where politicians have always felt themselves above and knowing better than ordinary British people. UKpopdems will adopt this extension to democracy and go further by actively encouraging and supporting large interest groups of up to 5million voters to get together so that new legislation and changes to existing legislation can be discussed and proposed. In this process, ‘peoples’ bills’ will be voted on by the whole country. The voice of the people will be heard in Parliament.

UKpopdems – The party that addresses the difficult issues other parties avoid

Ukpopdems is addressing the many issues ordinary Britons tell us are their main concerns. Issues like Immigration, Crime, Government Waste and many others. Ukpopdems is dealing with these key problems in a straight-forward, commonsense but radical way so it will be clear to everyone what the proposed solutions are. The three main parties are spinning like mad in an effort to avoid these issues and it’s hard to see why. It’s most likely Tory, Labour and LibDem just do not have any answers beyond tinkering lamely with what already exists.

If the main parties listened to ordinary people more they’d find the solutions to the problems facing Britain and The British people are obvious. UKpopdems is developing policy detail on each of our 21 key policy areas. Crime and Defence are already available and up on the ‘Latest News’ section of the web-site. More will follow. In the meantime, the 21 Key Policy Points and the bullet point policy detail are already up on the web-site and should give enough detail to answer most questions.

http://www.ukpopdems.org.uk/

UKpopdems – 2007 Budget response

noreply@blogger.com (United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party) — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 22:48:00 +0000

Gordon Brown has clearly signalled his style as Prime Minister in this budget. He is determined to out spin the Blair spin master himself with this magnificent tribute to the art. Income tax down – no wait, income tax up. Corporation tax down – no wait, businesses taxes up. Green taxes up, yes, right on that one. The summary of this budget can be easily expressed; the rich like Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, all our Parliamentary ‘betters’, political party donors, spin doctors and senior bureaucrats, all much better off with reduced tax rates and promised increases in top rate thresholds – and their gas guzzling limo taxes paid for by the rest of us. The poor, low paid families, pensioners, dispossessed and disadvantaged; in fact, all those without a strong voice, worse off with the 10% tax rate gone and petrol taxes ever upwards.

It’s becoming clear now that decisions in Britain are increasingly made by a few hundred radical green activists who want to take this nation back to the Middle Ages. Brown’s Presbyterian roots are complimented by the Greens’ puritanical dogma that anything the working class strive after, any aspiration, must be taken out of their reach through swingeing taxes and be reserved only for the rich and famous and our political masters. To be fair, the Greens are liberal with their sermons. They also want to withhold cheap and practical energy sources from the Third World so that the children of Africa will never escape their poverty, ill-health and dirt shackles.

UKpopdems – Popular Democrats blow the lid off the King’s new clothes and say Brown is Britain’s worst ever Chancellor. Having destroyed safe pensions, he has stolen in taxes what’s left. Having presided over the biggest fall in the stock market in decades, it’s still not back where it was after seven years, and that knocks company values and expansion and our jobs. The biggest personal debts ever at well over an unimaginable Trillion pounds; Britain’s competitive position falling faster than a fireman down a pole; millions of miles of red tape tying up business; hundreds of thousands more bureaucrats, administrators and managers in the public sector than nurses, police, teachers, social services and other front-line jobs.

The ‘Stalinist’ Brown doesn’t care about green issues or even world poverty. He wants your money and any pretence at taking it will do. Between them, Brown and Blair are destroying Britain’s cherished social and capital structures and it seems there’s nothing anyone can do about it. The Tories have no answer and the LibDems are still digging that tunnel in an attempt to find sanity. If this disaster continues there’ll be trouble and every ordinary, commonsense Briton knows it. Will you, the ordinary people of Britain, allow this to continue? Are the only other choices really between racist xenophobes and straw brained green hippies?

UKpopdems – Popular Democrats are creating the political structures that allow ordinary British people to take back control of their own country. Ukpopdems is the party that puts Great Britain and the Great British people first. We will always make sure the people have more power and a stronger voice than politicians. UKpopdems is addressing the difficult issues the other parties avoid, like radical, commonsense solutions for crime, immigration, health, education, government waste, communities and many others. Look at the detail of what UKpopdems offers on www.ukpopdems.org.uk