1. Disband the army. I know people will say you can't do that because it will leave us vulnerable to attack and that the army comes in useful for things like 'defending our interests' but I honestly can't see much justification in supporting and industry that is basically designed to kill. Stop building weapons. Stop making guns and tanks and missiles. I don't know how much all that stuff costs but it's got to be a lot and given all the talk about money and stuff it seems like one awesome way to put it to better use: as the hippies are fond of saying, the day that the military has to sell cakes to fund themselves and schools get everything they need will be a good day indeed. I believe that the world is evolving, and that humanity are moving more and more from being a species based on barbarism to one that embraces enlightened concepts such as peacefulness and harmony among nations. The world is getting smaller. There really is no excuse for this stuff. People want nuclear disarmament but they make such small steps towards it - why not just stop? Just stop making weapons. Just stop killing people. At some point in our future war and killing will be a thing of the past - and someone's got to get the ball rolling, so why not let it be us? I've heard that Costa Rica have disbanded their army and it's only brought them good (though I'd have to research it more to know the truth for sure). I like the sound of that.
On the flip side, though, there is still perhaps some justification for defense. And, also, the army does maybe play a role in shaping the lives of young people, as a place to learn discipline and structure. Some people, too, may be simply born to do that kind of job (thinking here the Indian caste system, as it was a originally conceived) and it would be wrong to take that away from them. So there is perhaps some reason to keep some form of army. A lightly-armed one, perhaps - something like a national guard. But not one that costs hundreds of billions of pounds, that constructs inordinately expensive machines of warfare that never get used. It's gone too far.
2. The economy - there's too much talk about it. It seems to me like every government decision comes down to this thing called 'the economy' - but what is the economy anyway? And why should we care so much about it? I mean, if we have a reasonable standard of living, food on our tables, clothes on our backs, and roofs over our heads, should it really matter that GDP has moved 0.1% this way or that? And what are these figures based on? Basically, there's more to life than money, and we all know that and say it, and yet we live our lives as though it's the number one thing. Decisions should be made based on what is truly good - what enhances personal freedom and opportunity, what creates emotional and mental wellbeing and health - not on the development of economic growth. We say we care about the environment and each other but we don't act like it. But maybe we should.
2a. Why do people talk about the conservation of energy so much, and yet we see so much waste? If politicians are so concerned about energy waste that they feel compelled to change the laws regarding lightbulbs why are shops and buildings and businesses allowed to burn electricity all night long in order to light up their wares. There should be laws against this. People don't need to see dresses and televisions at all hours of the night - wouldn't it be nicer if we could see the stars?
2b. We should join the Euro. At some distant point in the future, the world will be one world, run by one world government - in which other direction could globalisation take us? - and we should be making decisions with this in mind. So why postpone it? Joining the Euro is another step in this direction - and is there any real reason not to? Other than tradition, than resisting change, than not wanting to give up something we've become habitually customised to? Furthermore, beyond the Euro we should be working at moving to a place where all world currencies are joined together - this could take centuries, but it's the direction that things are going in. So why not join with the dollar too, and encourage other groups of nations to join together? Can there be any real justification against this?
2c. Inflation - what is it? What's the point in it? Again, it seems like something manmade, something that comes in from the outside, based on what, I don't know, that causes problems. Why can't things just stay the way they are? Well, I know the answer to that - because man can't bear to live without imagining economic growth - but do things ever really change. Today I have 100x, and with that 100x I can buy a house for 50x, a car for 25x, and feed my family for a year for 10x - and in ten years time I'll have 1000x, and a house will cost 500x, and a car 250x, and so on and so on. Has anything really changed? No. So why do we put ourselves through this? (Not that I understand inflation at all - but wasn't there a time when it didn't exist? Perhaps someone can explain to me why we need it. Although a change of something like that would surely require the whole world's cooperation).
2d. Subsidies - I'm not sure that things shouldn't cost what they actually cost. So that we say, this is what the materials cost, and this is what the labour cost, and factoring in some profit, this is what the cost is to the customer. Whether it be milk or chocolate or plane tickets or whatever. Why do we have subsidies? Wouldn't it be better to balance things out with supply and demand. Or would people merely go for the cheaper option, regardless of whether things are good for them?
2e. Is it right that some people can earn thousands of pounds a day - or even hour - while others struggle to survive to make enough to live on? Why should a solicitor earn hundreds of pounds for signing a document while other bust a gut to earn the same amount. There's a big difference between the rich and the poor - but who's to say that a roadsweeper's role is any less valuable than a lawyer's. I believe there ought to be some sort of measure on earnings based on work and effort put in and time taken to train for one's given profession. But something has to be done about the gross inequality between the haves and the have-nots. Not that I'm saying everyone should earn equally, or that the doctor who spends eight years in training, and deals with stresses unimagined by the manual labourer shouldn't be well compensated, but there's no way we can justify the amounts of money earned by solicitors, bankers and estate agents in comparison to that work they put in. Perhaps there should also be some sort of 'salary cap', with people free to earn however much they like, but with anything over a certain amount channelled back in for the greater good. Some live in luxury that even ancient kings couldn't dream of while others struggle in relatively appalling hardship. Is this right?
3. Immigration is an issue, if we're a fan of the tabloids, that's a hot potato these days - and what to do with that? It's a thorny subject - and I don't really know how I feel about it. On the one hand, whenever I read of some ten-childed single mum from Africa who's living in a mansion in Chelsea and receiving in excess of a hundred thousand pounds a year in benefits (and all the TVs and cars and help they invariably have in these stories) I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to knee-jerk reactions of 'sending them all back where they came from'. Likewise when I read of Eastern European crime gangs ripping people off or sex-trafficking, or Muslim terror groups, or Caribbean gun crime. But then I'm reminded that white English people are just as bad - commit as many crimes - swindle as many benefits - and I calm down. Also, though, we're told the country is too overcrowded as it is, and that's difficult to ignore, and there may be a case for that. So should we limit the number of immigrants we allow in? Should we say, I'm sorry but we're full, we haven't got room for any more? There're certainly arguments for that (England is something like the 8th most densely populated country in the world, and the second most densely populated in Europe, and anyone that's tried to find a bit of piece and quiet - and who has an acquaintance with other more spacious parts of the world - will attest to that). At the same time, though, I wonder if we have any right to close our doors, and whether we shouldn't just suck it up and accept what comes - for hasn't England, for hundreds and hundreds of years simple wandered about the globe invading whichever country it felt like and taking what we wanted? So we can just say, this is our karma - and, to be fair, what is a few million pounds worth of benefits compared to the devastation we have wreaked in India, in Africa, and elsewhere? Still, if we are to allow others in, shouldn't there be some measure of control? We are, it seems, more than a little afraid to enforce our ways on others, and in the name of political correctness and perhaps a sense of shame and wanting to do the right thing, we have allowed things that perhaps we shouldn't. So what is England now? What is our national identity? What do we believe in, morally, as a nation? Or has it all fallen apart in a wishy-washy mess of letting everything be? America, certainly, is more forceful about what it expects from its new arrivals - namely, that they should become Americans - and America, for better or for worse, still has some sense of national identity and of pride that we seem to have lost and even jettisoned. And has it made things better? What is Britain? I'll be honest, as a white Englishman I can walk around certain parts of this country and feel like a stranger, and feel invaded, and not like it one bit. I can feel like I don't want to be here - that sense of, well if they want it, they can have it, I'll go somewhere else. Yes, invaded - but, like I say, it's nothing worse than we have done to countless millions of others, and so maybe we should suck it up and accept it as our just rewards. And is it really any worse to walk around a 90% non-white part of London - and by worse I mean the sense of urban degeneration, of people not caring, of a city in shambles - than to walk around certain parts of pure white Britain? Or is it just the sense of otherness and difference that makes those dirty bleak streets seem like the fault of someone else? My feeling is that it is that - and so it's a feeling that needs to be overcome and ignored. Perhaps the question of immigration is not so much, what do we do with it? but, how can we change ourselves to understand it better?
4. Government - there's too much of it. Why should the government be so central to our lives? Why should it dominate the news so much, the thoughts of everyday people? Shouldn't the government be like a good waiter, silently and almost invisibly serving the people, doing a job but mostly unnoticed? I read once that in the very early days of parliament there was a great concern from within that they were doing too much, and taking too much of a role in people's lives. The government of the day wished to be less hands on, and to do only what was necessary. Now, it seems, the government does far more than what is necessary, and that as a result the people look to the government to solve all its problems. But the people should look to themselves. Neighbourhoods can clean up neighbourhoods, not the government. The government should seek to work in the background, should be less media hungry, should slim down. What are all these government workers doing? How many countless millions of pounds are wasted on bureaucracy, expenses, lunches, travel, reports, consultants, that we could simply do without? We should cut back to what we need. We should allow people to look after themselves more. We should let the local area cater to the local area's needs - for who knows the local area better?
5. Democracy. Is democracy a good idea? I'm not so sure it is. Democracy is what gave us George Bush. Democratically, The Sun is the nation's leading newspaper and Eastenders its favourite TV show. What I'm saying is, the majority really aren't that bright, and so should we really look to them to make the decisions that shape the nation? Or should we elect the brightest and the best among us to do that job for us? Who's to decide? There's the question - but I favour a meritocracy, and a meritocracy that can truly lead us towards what is good and great about a nation (incorporating happiness, physical well-being, creativity, peacefulness and harmony, awareness, a benevolence to each other and to our surroundings). I have no idea, though, about how the abolition of democracy would or could take place. Has there ever been a meritocracy? Has there ever been an enlightened civilisation? Or, to be more blunt, has there ever been civilisation? We are not a wise people - we only have to look around to realise the truth of that - and yet it could also be said that there is nothing more we need to learn, only that which we need to put into practise. In a nutshell, we know what to do, we just don't do it.
6. Education in this country is a mess - I've worked in it, and I know. Students are treated as though the only reason for them to go to school is to fulfil some ambition and ideal based on exam grades. They are taught in classes which are too big to be effectively managed. Teachers who know how to teach perfectly well are perverted by government mandates but into effect by people who have no idea what it's like to teach. Again, education is another area which should be governed as much from the bottom up as it is from the top down - from the people who know what their students need, not from those who have never done it. Teaching has become an incredibly difficult job, teachers overwhelmed by paperwork and the pressure to conform to the curriculum and to ever-changing ideas about how to teach. And yet, for the most part, they already know. So let the teachers do their jobs, dispense with the paperwork and the pressure, and reduce the class sizes to something actually workable. And then change the entire structure of education so it is less about passing exams and achieving certain grades and more about what it means to be human being - for what worth is there in a citizen who has learned how to correctly use an apostrophe and can differentiate algebraic equations yet knows nothing of what life is for, of how to live, of how to love? Why do we not teach children how to manage their emotions, about spirituality, about goodness? Why do we send them so ill-equipped into the world? What of nature, stress management, relationship issues, right livelihood, personal growth and awareness? Are these not more useful to the average human being than knowing the names in latin for the various parts of a plant? And why do we force Shakespeare on children who can barely write their own names, whose use for literature may never go beyond needing to know how to write a letter or do a crossword in The Sun? Different strokes for different strokes. Equal opportunities - but not equal requirements, equal training. Can we not acknowledge that people are different? And that children naturally show an aptitude for what appeals to them in a given time? So why not let certain boys and girls concentrate on sport? Why all the squeezing and cajoling and forced learning of things that they have no interest in, that they will never use, that only serves to dishearten them, crush their spirits, and cause disruption and resentment? Surely all young people want to learn - but do they all want to learn the same thing? What is wrong with a boy leaving school at fourteen to learn mechanics from his father, to go into apprenticeship and eventually follow in his footsteps? Better that than two or four more wasted years in which practically nothing of note is accomplished. We should look at our children and ascertain what they need as individuals in their own individual path and tailor their educations to that. It may very well be that their path comes to resemble quite closely the path we currently assign to all children - but this will not always be the case. We need to educate the whole human being - in body, mind and spirit - and we need to let go of our ideas of what we want them to be and learn ourselves how to truly listen to them and learn more about what they actually are. No doubt there are enough models of alternative learning already in being from which we can look and learn, and seek to apply to teaching as a whole.
6a. Should teachers be paid more? Probably. And nurses too? Yes. These jobs provide such an important service to society and yet they are far less well-rewarded than so many others. Can we really be proud of a society in which those who educate us and heal us earn less in a year than our footballers earn in a week?
7. Transport. The roads are too crowded - somehow, within the space of a decade or two, the car has become to the Brit what they have long been to the American. What should we do about that? Do we want to see much more of our countryside concreted over, so that polluting machines can race up and down these crowded motorways? Or is there a better way? Much of it, of course, is down to the individual - he complains about the state of the roads, the price of fuel, traffic jams - and yet still he drives. Do we really need to? And do we really need to live at such a pace? Again, what is life for? For few people would claim happiness in these lives of commuting and jams - but it really does seem to be an individual choice. So what can the government do? We can say no to more roads (and airport expansions, for that matter - such as the one proposed at Heathrow, which would see the destruction of an entire village) and we can look to develop the railways more. The railways, though, are out of control price-wise, and it's little wonder people are reluctant to take the train - there should be more regulation here. I mean, in my local area it costs something like £3 to go to the next village four miles away, or I can travel ten miles for the same price. Some lines charge £70 for a 200 mile journey - and yet on another day it might cost as little as a tenner. There's no rhyme or reason in any of this. It's frustrating, and it's totally out of step with what happens in the rest of Europe. It's just another of those things that leads to social unease and the feeling that we live in rip-off Britain.
As for cars, I would abolish the road tax and instead include this in the price of fuel. Isn't that more fair - so that you're actually charged for how much you use the road? I mean, should a car that's used only once a month be liable for the same amount of road tax as one that's used for hundreds of miles a day. Plus, again, it would cut down on needless administration.
8. Which brings me on to tax - I think there's too much of it, and I have no idea where it all goes. But going back to something I mentioned earlier - the initial days of government - I believe that taxes began as something which were levied for the running of the country, whether that be in times of war, when taxation would have been increased, or just for the day to day. So why have things changed? Taxation is relentlessly enforced, regardless of what it costs to run the country - but surely there should be some relation between the two. And why so many different kinds? Why not just one source of tax - our incomes - and dispense with the rest - and therefore the endless administration (and associated costs) too?
VAT is tax added to most of the things we buy, currently levied at 17.5%. Everyone that buys something pays this - including the people we buy those things from, and perhaps even the people that they buy the things from - while some claim this back. It all sounds rather complex. And I'm not sure what justification there can be for it. Why do we need this tax?
Inheritance tax is levied on the estates of people who have just died. I believe it can be quite high (something like 30-50%). But what has the government done to deserve this money? After a lifetime of paying taxes why should the government have any claim on the deceased's fortune? Doesn't seem to be anything fair about that.
Stamp duty is a tax paid when a house is bought - which can be worth many thousands of pounds. But, again, what justification is there for this? What has it to do with the government whether I choose to buy a house or not? The level of stamp duty charged in the UK has changed a lot in recent years, but currently stands at between 1 and 5% depending on the value of the property sold. A house bought for £125000, for example, would be liable to 1% stamp duty, or a payment of £1250. A house sold for £251000 would incur a charge of 3%, or £7530. That's not small potatoes (the government earned £6.5bn in 2007-08 through stamp duty). Strangely enough, a house costing £250000 would be liable to pay £2500 - so spend an extra £1000 on your home and your tax bill jumps by a whopping five thousand pounds. Homes costing over a million pounds are now liable to a 5% bill - meaning a minimum of £50000 to be paid in stamp duty. Best to not move home too often!
Stamp duty, by the way, was introduced in 1694 in order to raise money for a war against France.
Like stamp duty, income tax has its quirks too: earn £37400 p.a. and you'll be liable to a tax bill of some £7480 (20%) - but make another £100 and your tax bill rises to £15000 - meaning that £100 bonus will have cost you over seven grand in tax. Sound fair? Not really. Little wonder people employ talented accountants to minimise tax payments - and can we blame them? What logic is there in a system like this? And what justice in being required to hand over nearly half your earnings - and that's before we've even begun to talk about all the other forms of taxation.
Something needs to be done: like stamp duty, income tax was introduced (in 1798 in the UK; 1861 in the US) to fund wars, which one could argue was necessary. But what does it fund today? And how much do we need? How much does the police, the (new, reduced) army, education, health, sanitation, and all the other necessaries of life cost? Would it be possible to replace our current taxation system - including VAT, inheritance tax, stamp duty, and all the rest - with a blanket income tax of ten percent? Would there be less tax evasion? Would people feel more of a sense of decency? Would people be happier to support society rather than being fleeced by it? This is what I propose.
9. I guess I've got lots of other ideas but I'm sort of running out of steam. What else is there? Well there's the problem of alcoholism and binge-drinking in Britain - though I see this as more of a cultural habit and malaise rather than something which legislation can be used to change. Drugs? There could be arguments both for and against the legalisation of most drugs (given that the most dangerous and costly drug - the aforementioned alcohol - is obviously legal and probably always will be). The fact of the matter is, though, that drug taking happens - and so it could be better for it to be regulated in some way. Then again, I for one would support arguments banning tobacco - what justification can we have for allowing this cancerous, foul weed to pollute our air and lungs? - so I'm not really sure. Would people want it if it wasn't there? Probably not. So why not get rid of something which produces absolutely nothing of goodness and causes only problems, illness and death?
Which leads me onto another form of taxation - if we must have alcohol and nicotine - and one directly linked to cost, so that these products should be taxed to provide payment for the hospital, police and legal services upon which they cause such a drain. If people must do things which lead them to need medical assistance, etcetera, shouldn't they at least do the decent thing and pay for it?
Some might say parents should be taxed for having children, and should pay for schools, etcetera. I say that children are a part of the society as a whole, and, in an ideal world, will bring benefit to the masses. Also, that we are each responsible for each other in certain ways.
We need less laws. We need less health and safety. We need to be able to clip a stranger's kids around the ears if they're up to no good without fearing we'll be locked up if we do so. We need to do what is obviously right - so if we are defending our property against burglars we shouldn't have to worry that we'll be the one locked up and not them. As for jails...sheesh, that's something I know nothing about. A part of me believes in the rehabilitation of offenders, and believes that everyone can change - and yet when I read of some criminal released who then goes on to rape or murder or abuse I think there's something not quite right with this picture. Should we castrate rapists and child abusers? Maybe we should. They shouldn't do it. They know it's wrong - they should have been taught that it's wrong - and it's a heinous crime to the victim. It's harsh, though - it's the kind of law we look upon, say, Saudi Arabia in horror - and yet I'm not talking beheadings and cutting off limbs for stealing bread here, I'm talking child abuse and rape. Should we hang murderers again? Should we lock people up for petty crimes? It's a big subject - I need to know more - but, again, something's not quite right.
Is that it? Is that my platform? Less tax, more love? Doing what's right rather than following the money? Yes, I guess that's about it. Seems sort of simple, really, when you put it like that...
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