Terrorism

Terrorism thrives on the perception of unfairness. (Security)

The government and people of the UK should be intrinsically fair and just - and seen as such. We are an excellent country with traditions of intelligence, tolerance and justice. These are the real virtues that would protect the UK from terrorism.

Waging war and making threats only makes enemies.

• IRAQ: The UK should apologise to the citizens of Iraq for it's involvement in such a poorly planned and executed operation. We should withdraw our troops and pay the iraqi people compensation - equivalent to the double amount we would have spend on our own troops - to fund their own peacekeepers.
• EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION: The UK should apologise to the world for allowing it's airforce bases to be used for 'extraordinary rendition'. We must regain the real working relationship we had with the USA under Thatcher (who was 'dismayed' with Reagan over the invasion of Grenada).
• ISRAEL / PALESTINE: The UK should apologise for allowing it's airforce bases to be used for refuelling flights carrying bombs to Israel. We should support the democratically elected government of Palestine - whoever they are - if we genuinely believe in democracy. The fact Hamas don't recognise Israel is a problem... Similar to China's attitude to Taiwan, or Russia's to the baltic states. It's no different, but we 'recognise' those governments. It's just hypocrisy...
• THE POLICE: Police should treat people as innocent until proven guilty - as the bloody law states! This means bashing peoples doors down at 5am with 300 armed police outside - should not ever be done unless they already have hard evidence of terrorist activity. If this happens again the officers in charge should be sacked!
  
  Police currently spend 50% of their time filling in forms that are designed by idiots at the Home Office. Police should spend no more than 10% of their time on paperwork. An electronic system of logging activity should be investigated.
• MUSLIMS: It is the duty of those who genuinely understand the Qu'ran - i.e. senior Islamic clerics - to tell all muslims that killing innocents is evil and those who do so will not be glorified in heaven, but instead will burn in hell. (or whatever is the islamic equivalent...). Why are we not hearing this from these people?
• ID CARDS: These will not help fight terrorism or crime. They will however, make life more expensive and difficult for the law-abiding. They will be used to build a DNA database of every law-abiding citizen. This info will be used for DNA profiling of 'potential criminals', denying insurance or credit, and a whole host of other evil schemes.
  
  Saving: [£20Bn] plus saving the right to anonymity from potentially corrupt government.

Budget Info

• It costs very little to stand up for your principles (as long as that doesn't include waging war).
• We would save money on ID cards, intelligence, policing. People would be happier...[£20Bn] minimum.

Afghanistan

We have a shortage of morphine for hospitals, and with heroin being decriminalised, the market for raw opium is now in the open...

Afghani farmers grow a lot of opium. They're damn good at it too... We need their product... Hang on... Er... I've got an idea... Aw no - it's gone...

Oh yeah!

If the Afghani farmers were not crushingly poor, they wouldn't put up with the Taleban any more than we would.

So, if we guaranteed to buy the all opium produced by the Afghanis - the Taleban wouldn't have anything to offer them. Not a thing.

We could basically liberate Afghanistan through trade. We wouldn't even need any troops there...

Budget Info

• The cost of the war in Afghanistan - to the UK - was estimated at £1Bn in Nov 2006 (Telegraph)
• We currently buy our heroin from New Zealand (I believe). I bet it'd be cheaper from Afghanistan.
• Estimated Saving [£2Bn]

Europe

See the Europe page for more - there's a fair bit...

• The UK should suspend payments to the EU until their auditors agree the accounts. We may also require that independant auditors agree the accounts.
• Our relationship with the EU should be changed to a benefits-related approach: A professional cost-benefit analysis will be made on the benefits of EU membership, and the UK will be happy to pay 90% of this amount as an ongoing payment to the EU. (The EU's economy of scale should mean that we get at least a 10% discount on services provided. If not - what is the point? We might as well just pay for and do it ourselves...)
• We should find a way to make all EU legislation retrospectively non-binding (even if it means disavowing the Maastrict Treaty etc). Any individual pieces of legislation that are deemed potentially beneficial to the UK will be presented and voted on by both houses - as we currently do with our own laws. Good legislation will be passed and the crap will not.

Budget Info

• The cost of EU membership is between £9-50Bn per year.
• It is impossible to say how much cash it would release by legally extricating ourselves from the EU, but at worst it would be about £7Bn per year, at best £50Bn... That's an awful lot of cash. (10% of the whole UK budget!)
• Estimated Saving [£20-50Bn] per year.

Pensions

Everyone should retire at the same age, receve the same state pension, and have the same access to private, protected pension schemes.

• Pay compensation to all the people whose private pension schemes folded when the companies running them did.
• Reinstate the tax-breaks on pension dividends that Gordon Brown took away.
• Reduce the pension age back down to 65 for the private sector.
• Pay everyone over the pension age a non-means tested, flat rate pension.
• Change the law so pension schemes cannot be brought down by the failure of the parent company.

Paid for by...

• Increase the pension age to 65 for the public sector
• Share the pension pots from the public sector with those who have lost their private pensions.
• Tax Income.
• Cost To The Taxpayer: [£50-100Bn] per year.

Prostitution

People should be free to do what they want - as long as it doesn't harm anyone else.

• Prostitution should be legalised and regulated.
• Obviously!
• Estimated Revenue [£2Bn] per year.

Guns

The first thing this country needs is proper border controls!

Guns are smuggled into the country by the same people who smuggle drugs. Decriminalising drugs would reduce gun and people traffic.

• Reinstate the police's powers to stop and search
• Reduce the amount of regulation of legal guns (these people are not the problem - and it just wastes everyone's time)
• Current sentencing is plenty. We should not send anyone under the age of 21 to prison or longer that 5 years ever!

Drugs

See the Make Drugs Legal page for more.

The UK had a policy of allowing some doctors to prescribe heroin to addicts for one year in the early 1980's. During that year, anecdotal evidence suggested that shoplifting decreased by 80%.

Drugs are not bad. Alcohol is a drug. Without alcohol - most of us would never have been born!

• All drugs should be legalised and made available to over 21's.
• The drinking and smoking age should be raised to 21 - as they are also drugs.
• The tax money raised should be spent on rehab, research and education (in that order)

Not Convinced?

• Holland - where cannabis is decriminalised - has the lowest rate of cannabis usage in the developed world.
• People can only act responsibly if they are given responsibility for their own lives.
• Alcohol and cigarettes are officially more harmful than cannabis, ecstasy, and lsd. They are drugs.

Budget Info

• The annual cost of drug-related crime is estimated to be £16Bn (Guardian). If such crime fell by 80% (as experiences in the past suggest) then the overall saving for the country would be about [£13Bn]
• Decriminalising drugs would bring in a similar revenue (or greater) to alcohol and cigarettes. Tobacco revenues are about £11Bn. I couldn't find a figure for alcohol, so lets say that's 9Bn... [£20Bn]
• That's just the cash saving. The improvement in quality of life caused by the massive reduction in crime would be priceless!

Comments

This is a sporadically moderated blog. I am not responsible for anything below!

Drugs

You state that alcohol and cigarettes are more harmful than some of the other \'harder\' drugs... surely this is all relative. If drugs like Ecstasy and LSD were made legal surely there would be more of them around and then surely more deaths? If you look at the amount of deaths caused by alcohol in relation to the amount of drinkers. Then take the amount of people killed by ecstasy based on who takes it. Is alcohol really a lot worse for you? As opposed to legalising all drugs why not destroy all drugs...? why... because they bring in some much money in taxes to the UK. And whilst i am on the subject.....this smoking ban. Whilst i am not a smoker and welcome the ban are you not taking peoples freedom away from them. Would it not just be easier to ban cigarettes altogether? of course not as mentioned previously they bring in too much money!

By Jo Hearn on 04 June 2007

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