You are PM. What 10 things do you do first?

[modeski]

Okay luvs, it's time for hypotheticals. Everyone thinks they could do a better job than Blair, so let's hear it.

If you were to wake up tomorrow as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, what would your first ten actions be? Unlike Tony Blair, I encourage debate, so please feel free to criticise and discuss my choices, and offer your own suggestions.

1. Withdraw British troops from Iraq
I would acknowledge the illegality of the the invasion of Iraq and pull our men and women out of there immediately.

2. Petition the U.N to remove allied troops, and install a peace-keeping force in Iraq
The U.N's only agenda in Iraq should be restoring peace. With US and "coalition of the willing"(hah) soldiers removed, I predict the insurgency would die a sudden death. U.N. troops would be tasked with restoring order and ending the current civil war.

3. Rescind all National I.D. Card legislation
Simply put, there are no good reasons for implementing an ID card scheme.

4. Divert 10% of military funding into renewable energy research
At the moment, solar, wind and wave power do not present a viable alternative to our reliance on coal, gas and nuclear power generation. With the right investment in research, perhaps in the future this might change.

5. Invest speeding fine money into public transport, and renationalise the railways
For all the joking about British Rail, it was a lot better under BR than the current mob of private companies who care only for profit. Furthermore, with the advent of peak oil, petrol is only set to get more expensive leading to greater demands on our public transport system. Investment is needed now.

6. Commit to disbanding the UK's nuclear weapons arsenal
The Nuclear Non-Profileration treaty is not worth the paper it's written on unless the major nuclear powers actually act upon it. There should never be a need to use nuclear weapons; they are a drain on our economy and absolutely useless. The money wasted (billions) should be reinvested somewhere more worthwhile, like education.

7. Take the US to task for its human rights abuses
It is vitally important to distance ourselves from the US' flagrant violation of human rights. One measure that should be taken is forbidding America to transport prisoners for torture via British airports.

8. Decriminalise recreational drugs
Half the people who are in prison for drug-related crimes do not deserve to be in there, and are a drain on the public purse. A sensible drug policy needs to be debated and created, in common with popular public opinion.

9. Increase the national minimum wage
In the 21st century, no one should be working and yet be below the poverty line.

10. Institute "Casual Friday" once a month in Parliament.
Just because.

[HStorm]

I'd do 1 & 2 in reverse order; it would be a disaster if we withdrew troops first and then found the UN couldn't arrange a sufficient peacekeeping force.

3 is a given.

I would do 6 only in a toned-down form. As long as countries like China and Russia have an ultimate weapon, we need to have something as well, just as a deterrent. But I'd definitely rule out any further escalation or investment in new or extra weapons, they are a waste of staggering quantities of money.

7 is nice in principle, but I can't for the life of me see how we're supposed to do it.

I'll think up some options of my own and post them later.

[Naselus]

1. Not merely decriminalise, but LEGALISE all victimless crimes

Thus saving police resources and gaining tax income from cannabis sales and prostitution.

2. Use the funds raised to massively invest in the NHS; creating a large, well-structures rehab program

To help all the drug addicts I'm constantly assured will start roaming the streets once drugs are legal, their pants stained with jism through constant masturbation when they can't find a rape victim.

3. Pass a law to say no person may earn more than 10 times as much as anyone else working in the same company.

And see how long it takes CEOs to raise shop-floor wages to £30,000 a year.

4. Set and enforce minimum wage to £7 an hour.

So that people can afford to live.

5. Subsidize small industry rather than oil companies

For reasons that should be painfully obvious.

6. Fine industries and companies that overstep a set CO2 emmission level

Rather than paying those that don't.

7. Withdraw from Iraq and the 'Coalition of the Willing', break apart the 'special relationship'

Because when America goes down, I don't want to sink with them.

8. Stop pissing about and actually commit to the EU.

Euro and all.

9. Create a decent system of sex and drugs education in schools

to replace the self-defeating 'drugs are bad, m'kay?' shite we have at present, which I contend merely encourages sex and drug abuse amongst minors.

10. Destroy the autobots once and for all.

How ironic.

[HStorm]

10. Destroy the autobots once and for all.

How ironic.

Well that's just prime. You knew I'd say that didn't you? Yeeeeess.

A blanket maximum wage all across the country was what I had in mind for option 3, although this suggestion is probably better as it'll be less arbitrary and more relevant on a case-to-case basis.

Another one I'd do is start work to drag our economy away from its amoral dependency on making and selling arms.

[Thanatos]

1. Unilateral nuclear disarmament. Nuclear weapons are a vastly expensive, potentially apocalyptic bluff - and if they're ever anything more than a bluff, he who uses them is a mass murderer.

2. Reverse all privatisations since 1979 except possibly some of the manufacturing industries. Just about all privatisations have been at best an expensively pointless and at worst expensively disastrous. Under Blair privatisation has been creeping ever more rapidly even into education, the NHS and the BBC, never to the public's advantage. Cap 'compensation' to shareholders according to their existing income and wealth; nothing at all for the richest.

3. Simplify and overhaul the tax system to make it more equitable. Abolish VAT and the pointless pseudo-hypothecated NI. Increase income and corporation tax to compensate and further still on the higher rates. Reintroduce a 'super tax' (though not at the old 98%) on unearned income. Tax currency speculation (very narrowly defined, I stress) at 200%. Abolish all regressive taxes except those targetting specific harmful goods such as cigarettes and fuel (those associated with negative externalities, for economists). Tax air travel. Replace council tax with an equitable property tax something like the rates.

4. Electoral reform. Proportional representation (open party list) for the Commons; replace the Lords with a body chosen randomly each year, one from each of equal constituencies (similar or identical to present parliamentary ones), in the Athenian style (but allow people to opt out). At the end of the year one of the latter will be chosen at random to serve as its Speaker and as head of state (replacing the monarchy) for the next year. No government positions for the upper house. Ban members of both from having other jobs. Impose penalties for repeated absence.

5. Repeal all so-called anti-terror laws passed since c. 2000, including identity cards. Incorporate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into law.

6. Relax immigration law. No numerical limits. Stop pretence of 'safe' countries like Afghanistan. Stop imprisoning asylum seekers.

7. Stringent environmental laws. Compulsory energy-efficient homes and buildings (at the taxpayer's expense), with insulation, solar panels etc, with exceptions where this would damage the character of listed buildings etc. (e.g. no solar panels on St. Paul's Cathedral). Increase fuel tax.

8. Healthcare: end prescription, dental and ophthalmic charges; no 'choice' crap or targets.

9. Education: abolish league tables, shitty academies (along with other privatisations, as above), faith schools and university fees; reintroduce grants; no classes in 'citizenship' or 'British values'; proper provision of vocational education for those who want it.

10. Double transport spending. Enough said.

And I haven't even had a chance to start on foreign policy...

[Thanatos]

By the way, Naselus, please explain what you categorise as a "victimless crime".

[HStorm]

On your point about unilateral nuclear disarmament, Thanatos, all the points you make are valid, but they don't necessarily mean we should get rid of our arsenal entirely. Yes, anyone who resorts to using them is a mass-murderer, but do we truly believe that countries like, say, Russia, China and North Korea are run by people who are not, at least potentially, mass-murderers? (Same could be said for the USA, Israel and France for that matter.) If we got rid of our nuclear weapons entirely, they would not see it as an encouragement to get rid of their own. It would be just one deterrent fewer against them using their arsenals; and it would further increase our dependency on the USA.

Once a weapon is created, it cannot be destroyed as long as the idea of it exists. But it can be contained. Sadly, that's usually achieved only by someone else possessing the same weapon as well.

Anyways, here's mine; -

1. Legalise all soft drug use and supply, and closely regulate the trade in harder drugs.
This should reduce the power of the black market, and increase Government revenue.

2. Refer the definition of approved arms-buyers to the United Nations.
'Approved buyers' are meant to be those countries that it is morally-acceptable to trade arms to. The problem with the present definition is that the Government can make up the rules as they go along, allowing us to carry on exporting arms to places like Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The best chance of preventing that - still far from reliable I must confess - is to have an independent outside body decide which countries should be approved and which shouldn't.

3. Introduce a nationwide maximum basic wage.
The wages big employers award themselves are often obscene, and ludicrous scales higher than the people who do the real work for them. When the wages are sorted out, the likely surplus should be dealt with as per point 4.

4. Make equal profit-related pay bonuses for all employers and employees compulsory across commercial industry.
If big business fat cats feel they are entitled to windfall payments, they should be made to share them around. All profits surplus to the wage structure within a company would have to be shared out equally among all people employed there.

5. Raise the minimum wage.
Employers whined about it at the time, but the truth is that the minimum wage introduced in 1997 was measly, and I think most of them were grinning smugly about it behind closed doors. Naselus' figure of £7 an hour sounds about right to me.

6. Re-nationalise the rail industry.
Privatisation and fragmentation of the network has been every bit as catastrophic as was predicted before the process began. The network should be restored to public ownership so it can stop treating the shareholders' interests as the only priority.

7. Abolish subscription fees for any satellite/cable TV company that provides more than five channels.
Smaller companies that provide one or two channels, like Ideal World and Challenge, can't afford not to charge a subscription. But enormous conglomerates like Sky Broadcasting seem to expect to have everything their way i.e. their customers have to pay the license fee to the BBC, they have to pay a separate subscription for satellite, and they have to sit through hours and hours of adverts every day as well.

8. Abolish all 'league tables' and 'targets' from public sector industry.
There must be a method in place to assess public sector performance of course, but this kind of elitism is extremely misleading and damaging, and is also a convenient excuse for the Government to interpret things back-to-front i.e. a school low down in the league tables is seen as underperforming and therefore undeserving of more funding, where in fact it may be that the failure is caused because it's underfunded in the first place.

9. Introduce policies that discourage use of petroleum fuels.
There's no point sneering at this. Oil is running out and pollution and congestion are increasing, so we need something else. If electric cars prove to be the answer, at least in the short term, then so be it. But fuel tax would have to go up, large planes should be banned from taking journeys that don't even leave the country, and in the long run I might consider rationing petrol.

10. Eliminate Blake's 7 and the Liberator.
Seek, locate and destroy Roj Blake and his rebellious crew of criminal malcontents... FROM STRENGTH TO UNITY!!!!

[Thanatos]

"Yes, anyone who resorts to using them is a mass-murderer, but do we truly believe that countries like, say, Russia, China and North Korea are run by people who are not, at least potentially, mass-murderers?"

All right, say they use their nuclear weapons and we still have ours. What do we do? Retaliate? That would slaugter millions who had nothing to do with it, and wouldn't change the fact that theirs had been used. Moreover, if they're mad enough to use them, they're mad enough not to care about the consequences (cf. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove).

I should add that I would support a 'Star Wars' missile defence system if, unlike all hitherto proposed, it was concomitant with unilateral disarmament, and if, also unlike all hitherto proposed, there were a reasonable chance that it would work.

[HStorm]

thanatos said:

All right, say they use their nuclear weapons and we still have ours. What do we do? Retaliate?

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying they're less likely to use them as long as we have them. They also find it a lot easier to bully nations that don't have them.

if they're mad enough to use them, they're mad enough not to care about the consequences (cf. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove).

Um, I think you're jumping to conclusions quite a bit there. You're assuming that all forms of madness are alike.

I should add that I would support a 'Star Wars' missile defence system if, unlike all hitherto proposed, it was concomitant with unilateral disarmament, and if, also unlike all hitherto proposed, there were a reasonable chance that it would work.

Not a bad idea. But, long before I worry about what it goes hand-in-hand with, my chief concern would be whether the defence system actually works. The problem with things like Star Wars, Patriot, and all manner of other missile defence programs down the years is that they've been painfully unreliable. And until we've got one we can rely on, a psychological deterrent is about the best we can do. I'll become a firm unilateralist once I'm confident we have a missile defence program that really can protect us.

[Naselus]

thanatos said:

By the way, Naselus, please explain what you categorise as a "victimless crime".

Any crime whereby the 'victim' has accepted and even asked for the illegal act to be committed, i.e. drug dealing (not including pushing, which is FORCING someone to imbibe a substance - also note I wouldn't allow people to be forced to drink alcohol), or prostitution. If the victim in some fashion solicites the criminal to commit the crime, then it's not a crime.