What next?

I am intrigued by the idea but not sure if I support it. You say that you are committed to deepening democracy and ensuring that people are heard which poses these important (if slightly Bennite) questions:
* to whom are you accountable?
* how can people hold you to account?
* how can we influence your decision making processes?

Don’t use “scare” tatics like all the political parties with regard to the BNP. It is self defeating. You have described the BNP as “racist” which leaves you open to libel action. The BNP boast that they are for British people – if you are born here then if you are black, brown, yellow or white you are British and by defintion then the BNP are for all of us! This is the way to explain the BNP by logic and trusting the British people not to be fooled into voting for them. We the people have had enough of being told what we can and cannot do by what amounts to a bunch of political scum- on the take, on the make and on the fiddle. They will not be trusted again – don’t let 38degrees fall into the same trap.

From the BNP’s own constitution, which you can look at here: http://www.bnp.org.uk/Constitution%209th%20Ed%20Sep%202005.pdf

“The British National Party stands for the preservation of the national and ethnic character of the British people and is wholly opposed to any form of racial integration between British and non-European peoples. It is therefore committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration”

The same constitution also makes it clear that membership is only open to “Indigenous Caucasians”

Sorry Dave, but the BNP is a racist party and 38 Degrees is not afraid to say so. We’re not party political, but we do oppose the BNP because we don’t accept that they’re just another political party. They are racist and nasty – whatever their current PR operation tries to say. You can read more about why at http://www.hopenothate.org.uk.

Many votes for the BNP are cast out of frustration, helplessness and angry protest. In the Euro Election on Thursday I shall vote UKIP for the same reasons.

I do not believe that any amount of protest by any means will achieve any meaningful change – but I WANT to be proved wrong.

Yes, make MPs responsible, get constituents the right to recall them by petition, but why not campaign for GENERAL ELECTION NOW! Most people would, I think, welcome this.

Do you have any small leaflets (single fold A5), leaflets, easily carried and given out to friends, people in pubs etc.?

Best wishes for your success,

Roger Baldwin

At last! A group with the possibility to affect change in our society. Like many people I’ve written to MP’s and ministers and had the stock reply of, ‘your comments/views have been noted’. I’ve also had the odd letter published but always felt pretty impotent-a small voice shouting in a vacuum.

It doesn’t matter what political party is in power the main objective is to preserve the status quo, just a little tinkering round the edges to give the impression of radical change.

Like many people I would like to see a more equitable society where the poor are given some kind of opportunity to catch up rather than falling further behind. A more ethical society where priority is given to the environment and the needs of people rather than to the, sometimes, obscene growth of big business.
Thankyou for setting up 38 degrees. Liz

A ‘Recall’ Law would be absolutely fantastic for this country and would commit anyone in Politics to a “contract with the people”.
I really think it should be cascaded in to Local Elected Councillors too because no one should be exempt from doing what they are put there to do in the first place.
If you have given a promise to serve your community, then you should fulfill that promise or move aside and let someone else do the job proper.
All Politicians be warned!

This certainly seems to be a welcome initiative. All the best.

Your ideals sound great in principal, but I am not sure that I would want to become a member the way things stand.

I would gladly work with you on some issues, but don’t feel I could join you.

You claim to have no party affiliation or not promote a particular view, yet it seem that your membership is left of centre to say the least, and you are looking at campaigning on environmental issues, and blocking the BNP from winning seats.

I find the BNP less than tasteful as far as a political party goes, but I will not campaign against them, other than to promote other individuals or parties.
Anything more is simply subversion of the democratic process.

I may not like what they have to say, but they do have the right to say it, and that right should be defended.

As for the environmental issues, I agree that we need to look after the environment, but the current ways that get promoted just shovel funds towards large profit making organisations, and increase costs for the man on the street, while slowly reducing his quality of life. If you can demonstrate your plans are going to change that, then I may be interested.

Until then, you are just producing more hot air yourselves.

Far too often, people blog, moan to the press or to friends and neighbours that nothing is being or can get done.
This group incentive is now a wonderful opportunity for people to take responsibility for their complacency and blatent angst with the democratic processes (or lack of it) in this country. Need I mention such debacles as the Childrens’ Tax Credits and the arbitrary and autocratic attitudes of government departments who refuse to communicate or even admit to mistakes supposedly caused by inadequate investment in technology. Not Human error as we all know it is!!!
When you turn to your MP or local politicians, how do you win a substantiated argument when they choose to not represent you because this goes against the ‘Party Line’ and they refuse to publish the extent of the problem because of Data Protection Laws.
Well, let’s have laws which ‘forces’ public opinion and proves that democracy is alive. Don’t make your protest by sitting at home and not voting, they can still get in by proportional representation! Go out and vote for the minorities and make those who think they are safe in their job realise that if they mock the public, then we can certainly have the last laugh!
Democracy after all, is all about a government listening to what the people want. If this group can make a government listen, then I for one will support them to the end because it’s not just the effect on my life, it’s the effect on my children’s too!

I fully agree with your recall law.

I am curious, why are these MPs not being charged with fraud?

I think something needs to be done about car tax, why lower emission charge is cheaper. Do these cars not still wear our roads out no matter what emission they have and if every person bought the cheaper emission car then where would all the money come from to repair are roads?. (not that I see many roads being repaired at the moment).

I often find myself wishing we were more like the French; there the government is afraid of the people, not the other way round as we have, for far too long, had it here in the UK.

For me, some of the most exciting and inspirational events of recent political history, were the anti-war marches back in 2003. It seemed to illustrate both the hideous arrogance of the Blair government and the power that the united masses can generate.

So,whatever we decided, I would love to see us marching through the streets. It is the only way that we can show the whole country that we don’t have to stand for the status quo and that we don’t have to resort to knee-jerk reactions such as voting for the BNP. We can march together, demand change and show everyone who is sitting at home feeling let down and betrayed by our cuurent system that together we can achieve something new and exciting.

I think we need a campaign for proper PR. Not this STV+ all the parties are talking about now, but proper PR.

I think two key issues we need to address are:

Pension funding – should we be raising the retirement age? How can we ensure we look after the elderly of the future (given there is such a low rate of private pensions)

Healthcare – what can we do to improve the quality of healthcare in the UK and ensure that the NHS is the world leader in socialised medicine

I want to remove coercion from education altogether replacing coercion with counselling, mentoring, personalisation, person centred planning, motivational interviewing, life coaching and self-directed learning. Learning should be purposeful and fun. Childhood should be one of the happiest times of our lives not a time where we learn to cope with oppression. Many kids do survive the current system with its abhorrent culture, but too many have their natural creativity beaten out of then, and too many are turned into rebels — sometimes with disastrous consequences. I say give young people a voice and tailor the education system to their short, medium and long term needs. I say set up responsive complaint systems and teach students, parents and teachers how to use them. I say enable and empower the next generation to make a much better job of running the world than we are currently doing. Does anyone support me with this thinking? Can anyone advise me as to how to get my views heard in all of the right places?

Maybe the Conservative MPs, Sir Nicholas and Ann Winterton should also lose their ‘honours’,they are after all supposed to be setting an example.

why not join the call for a referendum on fair voting, to be put at the general election. the question of whether to support achange in the voting system can be left till later, for now the campaign is simply for people to be given the choice.

Human Rights violations and abuse is occurring in the Mental Health System on a daily basis and no-one seems to care. And, solicitors feel powerless to intervene. The system is supposed to have safeguards, but these “safeguards” often don’t work very well. Even the media, which is normally very interested in Human Rights violations and abuse, ignores these things in the Mental Health System. One big problem is that patients notes tend to fill up with distortions and lies which then follow the patient around for the rest of his or her life giving everyone the wrong impression. Another big problem is that psychiatrists think that it is their duty to push patients around, ignore what they say and tell them what to do — patient viewpoints are rarely taken seriously. Human Rights must be given much more importance in mental health and safeguards must be tightened up dramatically. Does anyone support me with this thinking? Can anyone advise me as to how to get my views heard in all of the right places?

I would support a campaign for an immediate general election which would give us the opportunity to kick out all MP’s that have misused expenses whether in the rules or more importently, against the moral rules. This would include the well known names such as Darling, Hoon, Smith, Blears, Purnell…..I could go on all day with all parties involved.

For the last 20 years or so Party politic has held far to much sway as to the laws and governance of this country with MP’s toeing the party line as to which way to vote rather than taking note of their constituents veiws and of their own veiws on matters this has got to stop!!!!!! MP forget they are there to serve their constituents and not just their partys or party leaders.

Westminster is a large club serviced by smaller clubs (our polictical parties) which is answerable to no one except themselves democracy is for the people by the people not for the party by the party…..

This (38 degrees) will only work if it is not high jacked by party faithfuls and lipspits with extremist views I include both the right and left wing also the greens in this. At all times this group must take a balanced veiw of issues and must not be lead by newspaper hysteria or politcal correctness

I think this type of site is long overdue. There are now a couple of generations out there who will use the web via social networking and other sites such as this one as their ‘only’ means of being heard and we really need their voices.

In terms of issues, I’d like to see:

- an urgent campaign to uphold the hunting ban (since so many Tories intend to scrap it). Whether you like foxes or not – chasing a terrified animal through the countryside to exhaustion and then allowing hounds to tear it apart alive – is just heartbreaking and unacceptable in a civilised society. There is nothing ‘sporting’ about this activity or the type of people who enjoy it. These animals are canines. Would you let someone do this to your dog?

- stop throwing our money away on the royal family and support only the Queen and only in one residence. This particular second, third, fourth etc. home/palace allowance system is more appalling than anything the politicians could come up with.

- remove all political power from anyone in parliament who has not been voted in by the public.

- stop supporting all third world countries until we eliminate child poverty, get families out of housing estates, and support and house our elderly in decent and caring conditions.

- stop immigration until we can afford the increase in infrastructure without destroying what remains of our green spaces. I’m an immigrant but I can certainly see that we’ve reached the limit.

- take the billions used to support mass immigration (additional housing, schools, roads, transportation, social benefits, healthcare, crime, etc.) and use it to provide decent pensions for those already here. This concept that we need taxes from immigrants to keep our pension system alive is a crock. These funds only support the still bloated pensions of public service employees.

- and finally, somebody please sack Hazel Blears. She represents everything that is contrived about politics today.

I like the 38 degrees philosophy and have put in my votes on the issues you’ve selected for starters. I have another one I’d like to put forward.

I think one of the big problems in an election is knowing what we’re voting for. Each party produces a manifesto in the run-up to an election, but hardly anyone reads it because we know whoever is elected will then do as they please regardless of what was in their manifesto.

I’d like to campaign to make manifestos meaningful. The government would be legally obliged to do the things their manifesto said they’d do, and would be legally prohibited from doing things they hadn’t. Then if, for example, they decided they’d like to invade some foreign country, they’d have to get a new mandate from the people before they could do it.

By new mandate, I don’t mean an election, I just mean they’d have to listen to public opinion, and can go ahead if it’s clear that public opinion is with them. Obviously, I wouldn’t let them measure public opinion themselves!

We have seen comments and public outrage about MP’s expenses.
Yes, some have offered to repay sums.
Yes, some have, in effect, been sacked from their party.
Yes, some have actually said “Sorry”. Like certain ex Bank Directors !

BUT….. the whole point is, none of the foregoing apologies and actions would have taken place if none of these practices had come into the public arena.

So why should we just accept the repayments, or sackings, or apologies. They,or their bretheren, made the rules to suit themselves then profitted from the rules. They should be charged with fraud and taken to court for trial.

This looks like a move in the right direction, because I for one have had enough of Politicians and Local Government.

There is a bigger problem that lurks beneath the surface which is the power of the bureacracy that is totally unelected and piles on the misery (and cost) for voters of whichever party. Really most of the “Democratically Elected Representatives” are just cogs in the wheel of the Big Machine that is out of control.

It gets bigger each year and in recent years it has turned very nasty. My local Government puts out a newspaper (funded by us, but we are not allowed the chance to say whether it stays or goes) which is extremely unpleasant in its contect. Much of it is coaxing the public to spy on people from Dog walkers (foulers of course) to people who leave their bins out for too long or overfill it or put the “wrong” waste in a bin.

No change of Politician is going to change this so what do we do to get this lot “accountable”?

the LORDS needs to be replaced with a Senate (or Witan to use an old name from Saxon days). Let’s be truly radical – instead of geographical constituencies (why is it assumed that I have lots in common with 60,000 other people because I live in something called ‘Walsall north’), let the upper house be elected from Non-Geographical Constituencies (NGC). These could be trade unions, environment groups, the CBI, faith bodies, the FA, anything you like. A minimum number of paid-up memebrs would be required. eg the RSPB has over 1 million members. Why should they not be represented in Parliament?

A key issue no-one has ever looked at in this country for centuries is land reform. 1% of the UK population own over 90% of the land and this distorts the economy. If tenant farmers had the right to buy (at a discount for length of tenancy) we’d get rid of the landed gentry (moats and all).

An issue that comes and goes in the British Press but doesn’t really get the attention it merits is that of the long-standing injustice that the Wilson Government meted to the UK citizens of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean when it forcibly exiled them to make way for the US Defence Base there. These islanders have since been in penury and misery in Mauritius, Seychelles and the UK. Despite many attempts through the British courts they have not managed to get their human rights upheld or their rights to compensation and resettlement (which some of them desperately want). I want to see a public campaign that finally forces this Government to DO THE RIGHT THING and show that, despite present indications to the contrary, there is still some moral integrity left in Westminister.

Am I correct in thinking that if an MP does lose their seat, they receive a compensatory payment of £42,000 – tax free?
If an MP resigns over inappropriate or mistaken expenses claims, which would be called fraud if it applied to non MP’s – it is appalling to think that they collect further tens of thousands of pounds as they close the door behind them after milking the taxpayer for all they could get…..the final two fingers up at us all.
I would like to see this practice stopped.

You cite MoveOn and Avaaz as some sources of inspiration.

I think it’s worth noting that MoveOn functions best as a platform for like-minded people to cooperate with each other on issues that they care about. In contrast, Avaaz gathers money from like-minded people and uses it in ways that are determined by the staff.

I’d be very keen for an organisation like MoveOn in the UK. Avaaz, not so much. Which do you propose to be?

‘Hands off our human rights’

Well done to everybody involved in bringing this initiative to fruition – long overdue for the UK.

At some point in the not too distant future, it will be important to have a ‘hands off our human rights’ campaign to stop any roll-back of the rights protection regime in the UK.

Labour introduced the Human Rights Act (HRA), one of their finest moments, but then started to get rather lukewarm when they realised that it could be used by people to defend their rights against Labour’s attacks on hard-won liberties. Now we have the Conservative promising to repeal or reform the HRA, playing to the Daily Mail gallery and advancing a parody of sensible human rights protections.

The HRA must be defended, but better still, further rights protections should be sought – particularly around economic and social rights – to build on the 1950s-era European Convention on which the HRA is based.

I am very excited to see the launch of 38 degrees. I have just moved back to the UK from Australia where I saw the impact of GetUp

I see the potential for real change here!

What is the agenda?
How will the agenda be set?
Who will control it?
How will the group be democratic internally?
How will the wider democratic process be strengthened?
How will 38 Degrees deal with questions where there is difference among the “members”?

This has the potential to be a very good idea. However on looking at your survey questions your (our?) agenda seems somewhat Green/Liberal. This will polarise opinions and reduce the impact we might have.

To succeed this organisation needs not to be apolitical, but must not be linked with existing (potentially partisan) campaigns (eg Climate Change, Fair Voting, Stop the BNP, Animal Rights etc) which already have their own champions.

In my view we should focus on changing things such that there is more direct and local accountability. Suggestions include elected mayors, elected local police chiefs, fewer MPs, stopping regional assemblies, ensuring the EU delivers on the concept of subsidiarity.

These are not party-political issues but might begin to shift the balance of power away from the centre to local communities.

We need to protect ourselves from the free trade/free market feeding frenzy. Where the only winners are the super rich and the losers are everyone else. Our environment is the other casualty. The banking fraternity have been a prime example. The IMF preach one model which is socially divisive, we should be joining with other states to resist the march of global corporations.

MPs have always enjoyed very low levels of public trust. Every poll in the last 30 years has showed that. So to talk about collapsing public trust in politicians doesn’t really make sense. We’ve never really trusted them – the difference is now, when everything is going wrong, we’re finally ready to get angry about it.

An issue I would like to see action on is loosening the grip that supermarkets have on our politicians. Farming and food supply in this country are driven by the interests of huge retail, food processing and agribusiness companies: we need a more diverse and sustainable food and farming policy.

Thank you for this, a UK equivalent to MoveOn.org is long overdue… but MoveOn is explicitly left wing, and you’re trying to be unaffiliated, which I would suggest, is disingenuous and won’t work… already if you read the comments there’s an assumption that reconnecting politics with the people will lead to greater environmentalism/awareness of climate change/green issues in government – when in fact the overwhelming majority of people still don’t hold these things high on their personal agendas.

So what I’d like to see – as someone who holds them very high on my agenda – is that you come out as actively ‘progressive’ in the US meaning of the word, and we/you create an activist base that is left/green without the old frameworks of 19th century socialism which have hampered so much of left-wing politics in this country.

We need radical new ideas, and ways to move them forward. We don’t necessarily need mob rule.

It would seem that most people commenting here, and millions more out there in the Country, wish to get an honest response
to valid questions to Westminster. But, since Ted Heath’s Gov’
abandoned our Sovereignty, and much more besides, when we joined the Common Market, Westminster is just a branch Office of Brussels. As John McGregor wrote in a letter to me in the 1980s, “All I do is sit here and await the directives from Brussels. The British Government no longer has an Agricultural Policy.” That is why you can never get a straight answer from any politician. They work for Brussels.
To my way of thinking, there is only one answer. And that is for the Taxpayers to take control of Taxation. What I suggest, is not only possible, it is also perfectly Legal.
I have spoken to the South Norfolk District Council about this and I have also spoken to Daniel Cox, Leader of Norfolk CC. and I think it is now only a matter of time before a start is made, to remove Westminsters power to levy Direct Taxation.
It is then intended that a Public Service Funding project is used to replace Central Gov’, Taxation and this to be the responsibility of the individual County Council. The administration of all services would be the duty of the District Council. The collection of Revenue would be the job of the Parish and Town Councils. It goes on for quite a bit, so time I stopped. Kind Regards, ATFlynn. (www.atflynn.co.uk)

In principle, I feel strongly that more power needs to be returned to the man and woman in the street. I think we need something better than ‘first past the post’, because at present there are huge discrepancies between the value of one person’s vote and the value of another’s – in fact, it may not be an exaggeration to say that most people’s votes in this country are virtually worthless.

HOWEVER, I am also very conscious that we have a very powerful, largely unaccountable press, substantially owned by foreign businessmen, which is very skillful at manipulating public opinion. No doubt the reason that many newspapers are enthusiastic about the idea of “recalling” MPs is that they can imagine how much fun they will have drumming up public feeling against MPs they decide they don’t like. The press has not distinguished itself in the last few weeks over the business of MPs’ expenses – even supposedly intelligent, responsible papers such as the Telegraph and my own paper of choice, the Independent, have been much more interested in generating heat (and sales) than light.

One solution might be to have more citizens’ juries. Of course, that would give power to whoever was tasked with organising and supervising them; but at least it would severely limit the power of the media to manipulate people. A good example is that (I believe) whenever citizens’ juries have studied issues of sentencing and have been invited to recommend a sentence for a particular, individual crime, they have recommended a *lesser* sentence than the actual judge at the trial did. In other words, the conclusions that a cross-section of the public comes to when well-informed can be very different from those that the same people come to when misinformed by the media.

Its about time people started to get involved in politics, for years it has been known that the three main parties have been feeding from the same trough, read George Orwells Animal Farm. In time the three main parties have become watered down to the point they are more interested in scoring brownie points against each other instead of dealing with issues the public most want addressed.

We the public are treated with contempt, we are treated as if we are not intelligent enough to understand the whole picture, we are talked down to all the time.
MP’s are realising that the public suddenly have this power to remove them from office and show them up for what they really are, oppertunists out to line their pockets at our expence. The people are at long last realising that we are the power and its about time those in power listened.

This country is losing its identity, its power and its wealth.
We pay billions in road fund liscence, only a fraction is spent on the roads; I feel the roads are in a terrible state.

We pay the highest rail fares and get a poor and over crowned service.

The country is in massive debt, but in the last budget labour increased overseas aid, how about getting our own house in order first.
Law and order, well what a joke, the police do their bit then the judges take over, what planet do they come from.

The english pay full perscription charges, the Welch and Scotish dont, An Mp said the English can afford it, abviously he puts his perscription on his expenses, is that not discrimination against the English?

The French think we are soft on imigration, how come!

The EU, we pay in more than we get out.

Basically, we all realise the lunatics are in charge of the asylum.

Im glad people are now becoming aware of what is going on

I believe the whole system needs a dam good shake up and things need to change.

Who am I supposed to vote for on the 4th? I think the whole lot of them are useless but I always vote because other people fought to get me my vote and I don’t have the right to complain if I dont vote.

Care for the elderly is at best appauling
Care for the mentally ill is even worse
Education is not good
The heathservice is failing
The benefit system is a minefield
Homelessness
Knife crime
the list is endless we need to sort this mess out

We need a system that is for and on behalf of all the people that live in this country not just for those who can work out how to work the system for themselves. I believe everyone has a right to a better life, to better themselves but without keeping others down.

i’m joining

I have just joined and I think this is a great idea.

I am a fulltime carer for my mother and I only recieve £53 per week. This applies to all full time carers and most of them may have had to give up full and possibly part time work.
There are thousands of carers in the uk and the numbers are growing. All different age groups in all sorts of circumstances.
As far as I know part time carers do not receive any benefit!!

There is an ongoing campaign to increase the amount for carers, but so far no joy. The carers are saving the goverment millions of pounds. This is beyond a joke.

You never know what life will throw at you and suddenly you can find your life turned upside down.

I don’t know what the answer is to so many of our problems that need to be improved such as public transport,agriculture and tons of other things. There doesn’t seem to be enough money to go around or not at all. So somehow we need to think of solutions and ways to work together and move forward. Communities working closely together. The way we live our lives , education, work, local councils etc needs to be changed or improved with positivity. Involve wealthy people and businesses to help with funding projects etc. Certainly party politics needs some drastic changes or a huge shake up of some kind.

There is too much greed,negativity and control and less freedom of speech and the right to exercise peaceful protests.

Its not just the politics that concerns me but also some companies such as the pharmacutacel,GM crops,codex alimentarius, energy cover up and much more.

I think we the public need to wake up and take action.

For those of you who are interested please take a look at ianrcrane.co.uk website. This is a real eye opener and an education.

To Dave,

If you consider the BNP to be a racist organisation because of their constitution, I quote you here;

“”The same constitution also makes it clear that membership is only open to “Indigenous Caucasians””

What are your views on the following organisations?

> National Black Police Association
> Society of Asian Lawyers
> Asian Students Association
and a multitude of other organisation which have race based membership criteria.

I ask only because I firmly believe that institutions and organisations should have membership affiliated to professions and interests only; race should have no part to play in membership. The natural extension to my question would be if we were to replace the word “black” with “white” in the above organisations, would you be condemning them as you do the BNP?

PPCs
No MP should be elected unless he or she has lived in the constituency for at least ten years. MPs should never be parachuted in to a so called safe seat. The only people that can vote for a PPC should be the local party members, and not head office. MPs should only stand for three elections then stand down. Not put into the House of Lords.
These people are servants of the people like the armed forces, and should live in government flats or barracks when in London. They claim to be there for the benefit of the people but their party comes first.

It’s a small change (but a huge task) to get people caring about all people instead of each person caring about themself – but what a difference that would make!

You say that you are going to instruct members to support certain people at election time. How will this be done with transparency? I can’t see a way that it will.

The end product of this will be 38degrees standing its own candidates at elections. Is this not the obvious outcome of a non-aligned non-partisan political grouping such as this?

Worldwide examples have from the beginning openly supported one political party or another. Moveon.org, for example, was open in supporting the Democrats. I would be grateful from an early stage if the people who run this website would state their political alignment. It seems clear that this is an anti-Labour group. But is it pro-Liberal Democrat? Pro-Green? I don’t think, without this, members of this group are able to really commit to supporting.

I’ve seen that many of the Board members of 38degrees are left-wing, or from leftist organisations, and this worries me. Perhaps if there were people from bodies like the Taxpayers Alliance, or the Countryside Alliance, there as well, it would reassure me more as to the non-partisan nature of this organisation.

Never mind, though. There are issues that you can deal with, real political issues that aren’t popular but need standing up for. How about organising people in favour of lobbying the government to take a more pro-free trade stance at the next WTO meeting, pressuring the EU to reform the CAP and the US to reform their own agricultural subsidies?

We need a European Constitution, one which clearly delimits the roles of Brussels and the roles of the United Kingdom. In a globalised world, the reason we have so little control is that economies cross borders, political authority does not. Perhaps you should campaign for the ratification of Lisbon in a referendum, in order to ensure that the EU can become more efficient and effective, and reminding the Little Englanders that isolationism is not an option in this day and age?

We need someone to say that the House of Lords does not need to be elected. Democracies are not simply made of elections, they are made of a whole host of seperate conditions. A fully appointed House of Lords, with members recommended in equal measure by the government, the leader of the opposition and a jury of members of the public, would introduce a meritocratic element to Parliament, allowing people with experience to be consulted readily by the government. It would prevent people getting election fatigue, as many in America have, with their many layers of elected government, and no greater state efficiency to show for it. Indeed, in the US, they suffer from log-jams of legislation and pork-barrels!

We need someone to campaign in favour of Britain’s real heritage – as one of the most socially liberal, internationalised nations in Europe. A nation of free traders, respect for human rights, democratic government and openness. Before it’s lost in a tide of small-minded people and their small-minded proposals to pull up the drawbridge and turn us into a North Sea Cuba.

Where exactly does all the go… go? I will try to tell you. LSP… Government’s greatest gift to the British people in the past century gives form to what I argue must also be our greatest disappointment. This is my view in my own local democratic context is echoed, authority to authority right across the nation. Here, I ask you, beyond all doubt we had the potential for a real movement for the common good.
Myself and a few community colleagues, hungry for the promised and honest accountable progress on local participatory governance have witnessed, challenged and been actively excluded by our own local authority and to demonstrable social, economic and environmental detriment for our communities.
Now, our Community Minister’s intentions over the past year appears to both ignore and quietly dispatch this magnificent initiative to the realm of the ‘also ran’ and echo the intent at local administrative level. To allow LSP to melt away, we say goodbye to an initiative that will engage with the brilliance inherent in people everywhere and the potential within us all. The test. Can I ask, how many know what LSP actually is? This and its subsequent enlightened implementation, was the key task handed down to your local authority.
Cameron now wants to reinvigorate our democracy at local level… to instil public confidence. Why reinvent the wheel. Why 38degrees, your task for 2009, do we not grasp our ailing LSP network… review it and bring accountability to 8 years of documented local administrations failure by coercion and regardless of political persuasion. Revised LSP must be surely where all our future wellbeing lies. A big task but I have confidence in the 38 degrees initiative.

Dear 38 Degrees

I am about to post the following around the comments pages in the media

This may not be something that you can take on but I wonder if you fancy lobbying a national newspaper as i think that their continued grip on a national voice is required for this to work…

Dear Sir

Your Newspaper has the resources and the profile to almost instantly enable a true, not pseudo-, democracy by simply hiring a few web developers and doing something along the lines of the following …

Create an interactive website with the most obviously popular suggestions that have been put forward in the last few weeks of this debate by the Public.

I would hope that someone interested in ascertaining as scientifically as possible what people actually want would presumably ensure that the most commonly requested changes ranked highest.

Ask people to register and then allow them to recommend, clause by clause, all the suggestions on the website.

Put all the suggestions on. It is not for anyone to choose which items are included. It is for us all.

Conflicting demands of course occur. We should observe contributors offering genuine and intelligent attempts to put compromise options that serve the widest interests. We vote again until the largest possible majority is sustained.

Eventually many hundreds of thousands of people will recommend certain demands on the website giving these demands the weight and legitimacy that they deserve at the top of a list – the most scientific attempt to ascertain the actual public will. Which after all is really not hard. No War with Iraq. No ID cards.

It would be good for our constitution to be written and put to us with all the sources that have attempted it to be included – Magna Carta, American constitution, Switzerland, Charter 88 etc. And for us to read and vote on it all – clause by clause – until the popular demands are refined and promoted and thus rise to the surface, vote by vote in this most Public of all Committees.

This will by its method have substantive claim to be the first Will of the people who choose to participate directly in democracy.

And then leave it running and keep publicising it. Katine was very pro-active. But it starts here and with a people’s Virtual Parliament.

Eventually you will have effectively created a Provisional Government. Ooo scary – hold your nerve.

Popular demands – as defined simply by the popular vote running alongside the existing Government.

And there we have an unelected and highest Third Chamber of Parliament – unelected because we are all in it. Highest because it is the people who have the final say.

You never know – one day people might stop voting for Political Parties. They might decide that we don’t need a First and Second Chamber and instead simply refer Whitehall directly to the required Policies on such a website as this … and sack any Civil Servant that stands in the way of the Will of the People. No more Politicians, just an Executive who either enact or get sacked.

Athenian Democracy evolved to become totally participative. We should not lose sight of the fact that policy and legislation was decided by general vote. And administrative and judicial posts simply by pulling a name out of a hat. The Internet provides us with the opportunity to return to the roots of a true democracy and create a truly modern one.

Below are a few suggestions from us the uneducated masses, also known as the mob, that seem to recur again and again in these debates. It’s not my list it’s ours. Read the posts if you don’t believe it. If one is genuinely interested in popular sentiment they are therefore a useful starting point?

Written constitution (and write it!). Or none.

As always of course options and their converse, along with shades in between suggested by contributors, all stand alongside each other for consideration and recommendation. Only then can the Moderators be genuinely apolitical and not alienate all but their own sympathisers.

Direct Democracy and Referenda on the big issues (e.g. War) – widen free internet access to stop this being a reason not to bother with it – many local libraries already do. Or Dictatorship – everybody fight for power. Of course always offer the converse and the compromises between.

System of proportional representation – Switzerland ? And the converse. And the alternatives. As always.

Devolve local councils even further to neighbourhoods.

Independent Corruption Commission

Limit MP Salary to 70,000 a year. NO expenses.
No member can serve more than 2 or 3 terms to stop career politicians.

“None of the Above” on ballot papers to express dis-satisfaction with the Political Sytem itself.

Abolish lobbyists or …
All Lobby Groups, which solicit Parliamentarians must be made known very publicly.

Local Planning Consent derived locally

British and European Government to enact decisions passed upwards from Neighbourhoods. No more “top-down”.

Mechanism for Constituencies to select own candidates – Primaries? Ability to remove Parliamentarians immediately by statute, for malpractice and lying to Parliament.

The power to impeach leaders for serious breaches of confidence (Blair as example).

Freedom from Religious Groups.

I will appeal to the Newspapers one at a time and then on to Benefactors. People with money but with the Popular Will at heart. The Secret Millionaires may be the ones who can save us from this emprisoned Planet.

I support the ‘recall’ idea for sure, but in relation to the current issue of trust in MPs, I think there’s a very obvious issue that needs campaigning on. In the same way that we were meant to trust that our politicans were claiming reasonable expenses and we were meant to trust them to submit claims without receipts (because after all they must be trustworthy people since they are MPs) we are also meant to trust that the multi-million pound corporate jobs that our politicians get after retirement are not in any way related to the decisions they make in office while under the influence of corporate lobbying.

John Major is now a Carlyle Group man while Tony Blair is a JP Morgan man. These are of course the financial groups who have been lobbying for years for the financial deregulation that they got under both Major and Blair and which landed us in the current recession.

We are meant to trust that these honorouble men would never have been swayed while in office by the prospect of sinecures with large corporations once leaving office. Well I don’t think we should trust them. Forgive me if I suspect that a man who lied to start a war that killed several hundred thousand people might lie about other things too. And forgive me if I suggest that we should not be *asked* to trust these people. That instead we should simply forbid senior politicians from taking jobs with companies that once lobbied their governments, and should cap their salaries once they leave office at the same level as their (not insubstantial) salaries while in office.

And if the prospect of never being able to earn above £60,000 puts a few people off a career in politics, that can only be a good thing. Anyone in it for the money should not be in it at all. At present we have no way of distinguishing those MPs who can be swayed by money from those who can’t – we are simply meant to assume that all of them are trustworthy.

So in the light of the expenses scandal, it is time to stop trusting that our politicians are pure of heart and incorruptible. Instead we should make the corporate bribery impossible by limiting their incomes and employment opportunities both while in office and once they have left office. This is the greater corruption that needs dealing with in our current political system, beside which a bit of moat-cleaning seems like a minor sideshow.

Then there is the associated “Have Your Say” initiative!!! Forgive my earlier use of English… at a gallop and in a busy season. Further to this, my earlier message was inspired primarily by my experience of the “nothingness” I found as I tried to engage with the “Have Your Say” pages of the Communities and Local Government website… way back around the cusp this year. Those pages I expected to have functioned perfectly adequately… to be both informative to me in my very specific quest as well as clearly being open to ‘being informed’ by concerned members of the public. Instead, as I looked around the topics, I was confronted by a cloud cuckoo land where at best my subject of interest was opaque; at worst there was an unwelcome suite of sweets-melling and unsubstantiated guff from a purely local government sources (possibly with a bit of the VS thrown in)… all designed to maintain far into oblivion, the patina of wretched performance of local governments everywhere… unless of course you in your jurisdiction know different? I haven’t tried any of the other Cabinet Office “Have Your Say” pages… I can’t imagine they would seek to be this blinkered… this un-listening and this insensitive to their people. Why, after generations of at times the best of education programmes… why has the very bedrock of Great Britain’s past greatness… its communities, its peoples and the source of all advance been subverted, ignored or thwarted at every turn by so many local government organisations and for so long?
The voluntary sector (nothing to do with volunteers and everything to do with gate-keeping) is no substitute for the experience and participation of the populations moved only by the need to see common progress… the VS in my experience, simply say what they are expected to say. When Local Government doesn’t hear and sets up the mechanisms not to listen… and when it sets about the presentation of abysmal local practice as “best practice”, it ceases to be the knowledge based structure it really needs to be in 2009. Come on UK… enjoy the wealth that really is our people.

Part public ownership of the banks and significant support for major sectors of industry presents an opportunity to increase diversity and representation on Exec and Non Exec Boards. Public support should be conditional upon employee representation on Boards (similar to Germany’s worker councils) ideally lnked to a level of employee ownership to create an interest in and responsibility for the long term future of the company. 50% female senior managment and Board membership should be required within a given period.

WHY ARE WE LETTING THE BANKERS OFF?!

A recent Channel 4 Dispatches documentary exposed the fact that even now, after the bailout etc. top banking execs are getting even MORE money in some cases then they were before!

How is this possible?

Because they are delighted that we’ve turned our anger on the politicians instead and most importantly, they know that they have us by the short and %&*£(ies. We cannot seem to see a way forward that brings them down without bringing the entire economic system down at the same time. They KNOW THIS FULL WELL and so don’t bat an eyelid.

It is vital that we look at other ways now of doing things. These people must be brought to account somehow.

Why do we need a recall law? Surely the police should be involved now, and if as it appears so many of our polititians are no better than Mugabe and his cronies, they should be facing charges of corruption and fraud, these I believe carry custodial sentences, if that happened then surely these people would have to give up their seats?

why are MPs allowed to remain untill the next general election so that they may leave with a golden handshake and all of the benefits that are associated with this move,when these people have flagrantly abused the system and taken the publics money.it seems that being very seedy has its rewards.they should be sacked immediately then prosecuted for abusing the peoples trust
and taking thier money.

In response to the two previous comments, the problem is that these people defined the rules to begin with and left them wide open to corruption. Although there are some who clearly committed crimes (and we need to make sure they are in fact prosecuted), there are so many more who did things that were morally unacceptable to the public and these people should be named and shamed and dismissed immediately without compensation of any kind.

A perfect example of this is Julie Kirkbride who didn’t see anything wrong with the idea that she and her husband were claiming different residences as their first and second homes ‘because it was approved by the Fees Office’ (a sentence we are sick to death of hearing now because we know it has no bearing on what was right or wrong – and so did they!).

Then she didn’t think there was anything wrong with using taxpayers money to build an extension on one of these homes to house her brother. In this case her excuse is that he babysits her son on weekends. Well lady – the rest of us pay to have our children looked after but the money comes from our own pockets. Many of us work long hours and struggle to juggle work and family life but we do it.

Paying her sister many miles away as her secretary is another one she doesn’t get. Yes, many small businesses are family based but those companies are not publicly funded. Most larger companies have strict rules about nepotism because it is human nature to protect, trust, and favour your family over others. It is also an unfair practice because the public is paying for salaries even though jobs have never been posted to the public.

Those in public office should be held to a higher standard – but this lady still doesn’t get it. The news last night was filled with her cronies saying that she was somehow a victim of a general anger that is going around. How sad that even many of the newsreaders didn’t get what her constituents see quite clearly.

David Cameron’s comments were the most interesting because he kept going on about what a hard worker she was (not a comment made about the other Tories in the limelight so far) as though being a hard worker somehow might make her exempt from her corrupt behaviour.

What a system

I think this initiative is a bit confused, unable to decide whether it should focus on systems matters (voting methods or the structure and nature of power etc; environment and climate – systems issues that underpin everything else) and issues matters (hunting foxes, the post office, etc).

That latter are perhaps more of a more political, ideological hue, than the former. If the systems are right than those concerned with issues matters will be able to act within the system. Clearly now the system isn’t right and does not adequately account for the multiplicity of views and interests, while being too easily compromised by vested interests with plenty of cash – basically big business hence gazillions for the banks, bugger all really for shifting the UK economy to sustainability.

So perhaps 38 Degrees should focus on pushing for better systems – leveling the playing field, opening it up, getting the rules right, inserting referees and all that – and leave issues to the many organizations already out there?

Are parties relevant or necessary anymore – especially the privileges they enjoy as existing players in the system?

Parties arose at a time – a few centuries ago – when communication and information gathering and collection were expensive, slow and require armies of workers and all that. Today with the internet and mobile phones communication and information are cheap, fast and require as little as just one person and a computer. Are parties then an anachronism, obsolete?

Why not let the civil service suggest policy and mediate demands from society voiced through representatives – policy and its laws though would only be enacted, be passed by representatives so the civil service will have to make sure what it’s proposing stands up to scrutiny. Representatives wouldn’t belong to parties, they could aline to causes and issues reflecting constituents concerns, they could form ad hoc groups.

Taxpayers could also guide the focus of policy by having the choice to determine how half, perhaps even two-thirds, of tax is spent. On an annual tax form they could chose how much percent went into which spending areas or ministries.

This way voters would influence policy and the civil service, and in turn the civil service would have to accommodate its desires to the interests of voters expressed through their spending preferences and also the ongoing interests and demands of representatives voting on policies and laws.

Principles laid down in a written constitution might underlie the goals and society’s interests to further guide civil servants.

Society could be further involved with representatives and parliament and the civil service through the internet and mobile phones.

Essentially are present form of government is as they say not fit for purpose. It is a 19th century solution to 19th century problems.

The current banking structure is obsolete. The banks were effectively handed a massive subsidy in the 1980s when the government supported a move towards paying salaries through the banking system. The cellophane enveloped stuffed with cash and a payslip at the end of the week disappeared.

And what did we get in return? Service is rubbish. The regulators have less teeth than a new-born puppy.

The way to go is the likes of Zopa and Wonga. The peer-to-peer savings and lending model used by Zopa has a lot going for it – better rates for savers and borrowers. Now that government owns most of the banks it has the power to restructure them along these lines – we’d all be better off, except that is banking executives because we’d need few of them.

Indeed perhaps retail savings and loans as we know it could be scrapped in favour of a national peer-to-peer market, perhaps owned by the state.

All a bit woolly, if you don’t mind me saying so.

1. We need to abolish the corrupt and anti-democratic political party system, and the antiquated Houses of Parliament, in favour of a house of representatives with independent, elected members who are there for their skills and abilities as people, not some party dogma. They vote according to local issues for their constituents / voters and we need an efficient executive management to run the country, not ‘Whitehall mandarins’ who get into the civil service on the strength of which school or university they went to.

2. No more ‘lords, ladies, knights, princes and princesses, kings and queens’: in other words, no more repulsive class system which is socially divisive and morally reprehensible. ‘Monarchy’ – a ridiculously out-dated notion – to be phased out within 12 months and all lands and palaces taken back into public hands.

3. Equal opportunity and more equitable pay structures nationally so we no longer have poverty. Not ‘communism’ but a fairer deal and better social conditions for everyone: housing, health, pensions, childcare, jobs.

All of this may sound Utopian, but why continue to put up with a system which has failed us and disenfranchised the people for centuries?

The timing is right, and the will is there to make REAL change.

38 Degrees claims to be in favour of ‘people power’, but really, you are against it.

You want more government ‘investment’ in green jobs. Is it not more in line with ‘people power’ to cut spending and taxes and let individuals decide how to spend and invest their money?

You want to reform the electoral system, but many of the proposed systems actually remove power from people and put it in the hands of party whips or centralised party HQs. Which system do you propose?

You say you want to see a new deal on the climate agreed by governments, but is it not more in line with ‘people power’ to let individuals decide what matters and how to act?

You say you want to stop home repossessions, but does it not diminish everyone’s individual responsibility if someone else pays the bills for their bad decisions?

You say you want to stop the Royal Mail being privatised, but why should other people not have the power to compete with the Royal Mail and the Post Office network for business?

You say you are in favour of ‘people power’, but really, you just want more government power.

When you consider most MP’s have second homes in the constituencies, and actually live full time in London, as does my MP, she does have a surgery Saturday Morning from 9.30 to 11.30 and if she does not see you then hard luck. I think we have way to many MP’s most who are living in London treat the rest of us like outsiders, my MP knows more about what is happening in London then my local area, she of course was a parachuted MP working for Blair given a safe seat, so in fact we have nobody to say what we think.

To 38 Degrees David,
If you are going to send these types of email messages out to your members re: warning us to vote to ensure the BNP doesn’t increase seats, please also get the message out that David Cameron is planning a repeal of the hunting ban. In fact, other than Labour (who isn’t doing anything to enforce it), the Green Party is the only one I’ve seen that will continue to support this much needed legislation.

Based on the above and on the alarming lack of conviction from the main three parties on climate change, I’ve moved from a lifetime of Conservative support to Green Party membership.

David,
Re: your note above. I think this initiative could be our first glimpse into the future where all key issues are voted on by the public through online polls using a secure mechanism to avoid identity theft and duplication. This is already happening in an influencial way through social networking sites but someone needs to take it to the next phase.

There would be no need for ‘representation’ in parliament which would significantly reduce the massive costs we pay currently to support representatives who simply ignore us and tow the party line.

The inherent problem in getting this started is the fact that once a good idea appears on the net, competitors get in there immediately and duplicate it. We see this over and over again on social networking sites or ‘Have your say’ forums where there are duplicate forums in the thousands because everyone wants to start their own topic. Then of course there are also multiple social networking sites etc. etc.

There may never be a better time to kick this off but only if we could all work collectively to limit it to one ‘stage’ per country.

People are asking why the police are not getting involved in the ‘M.P’s’ scandal. Could this be because it is a civil matter? In which case would the general public act within the law by siezing the infamous duck pond (in the dead of night), sell it on Ebay and give the money back to the taxpayers?
In his correspondence, Mr Walker says ‘You say you want to stop home repossessions, but does it not diminish everyone’s individual responsibility if someone else pays the bills for their bad decisions?’ I would ask him what he might suggest as alternative action? Throw them out on the streets? Buy them tents? Start a homeless commune? I do feel that he is generalising and am sure those people would be offended to be referred to as making bad decisions. Afterall if anyone has made a ‘bad decision’ it’s the M.P’s, and we have paid for that!

Funny I use to live on a large farm, we use to go out shooting once a week this time of the year to try and shoot the fox cubs, I always came behind the others with my 4-10 shot gun to clean up the animals which had been partly killed. I also use to destroy the part eaten lambs and the ewes which had been attacked during Lambing. The farm once killed a pig, and I saw this and have not eaten meat since, talk about cruel, I then did a stint in the army and to be honest life is shit so fox hunting comes well down my list of worries feeding the world comes higher and making sure the welfare state stays. but hell thats me.

gordon brown will probably go down as the biggest lame duck prime minister that this country has ever had.why did he pump so much public money into banks & building societies?why did he not let them go to the wall(as america with G.M.)HE HAS DONE NOTHING AT ALL FOR THE PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY EXCEPT PUT US INTO MORE NATIONAL DEBT,PROTECTING HIS BENT MINISTERS &MPS ALONG THE WAY,why doesnt he do the right thing and get rid of all the money grabing mps who are bleeding the country dry
and put a stop immediately to all the golden handshakes to these unscrupolous people,i personally think that these people knew what they were doing all along but they decided to milk the system for all that they could get.
i dont think that G.B.will abolish the golden handshakes and handouts because he will have to trim his own payoff when the time comes,he should also stop the pensions that these people leave with.

whilst we are reviewing the mps expenses&salaries its time that we demanded to know the extent of salaries & expenses claims of the BBC,THEY ARE REPUTED TO GO THROUGH 3 BILLION POUNDS OF PUBLIC MONEY EVERY YEAR.there is no tranceparency with the bbc at the moment.iff they have nothing to hide why so much secrecy on salaries etc.

Having just come fresh to your site I applaud what I take to be your aim. However, reading the contributions above I’m struck by their variability: some address matters of strategy and principle – always a good place to start – while others raise individual issues, which can degenerate into something like a list of hobby-horses. (Nothing against hobby-horses: I have a stable of them myself.)

I’d suggest that if your aims are to be pursued in an orderly manner that we can all follow, it can only be done by following a disciplined series of stages.

Stage l is to identify the top issues affecting the country’s future;

Stage ll is to weight each one for importance;

Stage lll is to select those on which to concentrate – no more than five, I’d say;

Stages lV and later involve deciding what specifically to do and getting on with the campaigning and monitoring the result. If stages l-lll are not in place before you move to stage lV, incoherence and possibly chaos will ensue.

And while I have the stage, my key issues for stage l are (in no special order):-

CONSTITUTIONAL

Democratic imbalances between parts of the UK, brought about by Blair’s careless tinkering, inc the West Lothian Question;

The size of Westminster representation in view of the EU dictating 70% of new law;

Changing from a system where the people fear the government to one where the govt fears the people;

Creating and maintaining a truly independent second (revising) chamber of the great and the good;

SOCIETAL

Collapse of respect and trust and their replacement with the tick-box inspectorates;

Failure of the state education system, at enormous cost;

The uselessness of the criminal justice system – 70% of inmates are illiterate and get little education, leaving prison as ill-equipped to earn an honest living as when they went in;

Chiefs of police and hospitals are not answerable to local communities whom they serve but to Whitehall;

No sanctions against bad behaviour in schools or on the streets.

(I could go on, but that’s a sample, to all of which I can supply possible solutions.)

The point I want to make is that, in my view, this process needs skilled facilitation and moderation, not to be a free-for-all, if it is to get anywhere.

Having just come fresh to your site I applaud what I take to be your aim. However, reading the contributions above I’m struck by their variability: some address matters of strategy and principle – always a good place to start – while others raise individual issues, which can degenerate into something like a list of hobby-horses. (Nothing against hobby-horses: I have a stable of them myself.)

I’d suggest that if your aims are to be pursued in an orderly manner that we can all follow, it can only be done by following a disciplined series of stages.

Stage l is to identify the top issues affecting the country’s future;

Stage ll is to weight each one for importance;

Stage lll is to select those on which to concentrate – no more than five, I’d say;

Stages lV and later involve deciding what specifically to do and getting on with the campaigning and monitoring the result. If stages l-lll are not in place before you move to stage lV, incoherence and possibly chaos will ensue.

And while I have your attention (I flatter myself!), my key issues for stage l are (in no special order):-

CONSTITUTIONAL

Democratic imbalances between parts of the UK, brought about by Blair’s careless tinkering, inc the West Lothian Question;

The size of Westminster representation in view of the EU dictating 70% of new law;

Changing from a system where the people fear the government to one where the govt fears the people;

Creating and maintaining a truly independent second (revising) chamber of the great and the good;

SOCIETAL

Collapse of respect and trust and their replacement with the tick-box inspectorates;

Failure of the state education system, at enormous cost;

The uselessness of the criminal justice system – 70% of inmates are illiterate and get little education, leaving prison as ill-equipped to earn an honest living as when they went in;

Chiefs of police and hospitals are not answerable to local communities whom they serve but to Whitehall;

No sanctions against bad behaviour in schools or on the streets.

(I could go on, but that’s a sample, to all of which I can supply possible solutions.)

The point I want to make is that, in my view, this process needs skilled facilitation and moderation, not to be a free-for-all, if it is to get anywhere.

hello its me again,why will gordon brown not now step aside and let us have a general election,personally i think that the labour ministers will lose out big time if the prime minister decides that enough is enough that is why so many of them are rallying round him telling him how loyal they are when its all self interests really.

There is real anger around at both the banks and the politicians, but much of the comme t on this blog is blinded by class hatred, Govt couldn’t let the banks fail, because it had allowed them to get so big they would jepoardise the systems tha make the country liveable- payment networks, etc however there is a good argment for chopping tehm up inot smaller entities which in furture could be allowed to go under if they got things badly wrong.
Ditto there is a case for simply abolishing much of the City’s activity , where it consists of little more than gambling- ususally with other people’s savings- see the history of Long Term Capital Management. Banking ought to be about mobilising savings to put them to productive use not trillion dollar / Pound gambling a al Soros etc.
Politicians need sorting out, lets have fixed terms parliaments, proper separation of powers, and lets pay them enough to make it possible to both attract able people and remove the incentive to fiddle exes. possiv=byl by building some student type accomodation for MP s near Westminster, maybe by using more videoconfeencing to let MPs work from Home and still “attend” the house.
Government should be more about choosing policies and less about choosing people, I’m not aure how this might be done but it needs doing as we have some very hard choices in front of us in the coming next few years.

It is now time for invesigations into the local councils – come on 38 degrees – push for that and you will receive massive support

Basically there needs to be a real shake up of our institutions – local councils, as well as Parliament.

The House of Lords MUST be elected and the number of MPs reduced.

England to be given its own Parliament immediately, the Scots, Welsh and Irish MPs to be abolished in Westminister. There is no reason why England can be refused its own Parliament.

However to all the communists and pseudo Republicans, I would say shut up and stop harping on about our ‘monarchy’ and the outdated class systems blah di blah di blah y.a.w.n…. The monarch is our Head of State and the envy of many of the world’s countries. A President would perform much the same function, except the monarchy costs around 50p per person per year and a Presidency/ Republic would cost around £7..30 per person per year. The public cost of the Civil List (paying for the monarchy) is around £50m per year. However, the Crown Estates (swapped from the crown to the government in return for the Civil List) last year made £200million proft, which went to the Government in return for the Civil List, meaning the taxpayer made £150m profit out of the Queen.

To those whinging, envious Republicans I would say if you aren’t happy living here under a monarchy, there are many airports with fast planes, waiting to take you elsewhere.

Compulsory wearing of helmets by clyclists and public liability insurance should be introduced without delay.

Every home in Britain to be given free solar panels or a windmill generator FREE of charge to save on fuel bills and energy consumption.

as expected it doesnt look like we are going to see any prosecutions in the expenses scandal these sleazy mps are actualy going to get away with ripping off the public for collectively millions of pounds, and they will continue to do so,they will all queue up to collect thier golden handshakes and carry on lining thier pockets at the expense of the public.they all think that repaying the expenses wrongly claimed is good enough,but it isnt.
if i get caught speeding and offer an apology do i miss out on the good old fine, do i recieve a slap on the wrist saying naughty boy dont do it again,no i get summonsed to court and fined for my misdemeanor.does anyone out there have any ideas to bring these sleazebags to justice?

3THINGS

THING ONE:
Take the power to create money out of thin air away from private banks. Creation of money should be a sovereign responsibility of government (you and me). Money should be created debt free and spent into the economy not lent into it at interest. Our current money system is a debt creation system which keeps most of us poor, and forces the destructive need for growth in the economy. This is the first thing we need to change.

THING TWO:
Change the way we tax ourselves. Why do we think it is okay to tax effort? i.e. work income. Why do we think it’s okay to tax trade? i.e. VAT. We should put the charge onto land. A simple land rental value. Put an end to the destructive non wealth creating speculation in land. Encourage enterprise and wealth creation.

THING THREE:
Distribute decision making to the correct place. Much more at town and district level. More at county level, a lot less at government level. The power pyramid needs to be flipped on it’s head. 57 million people are a lot smarter than a few hundred elected officials.

Party politics will allways be self interest politics. Being a member of a political party should bar would be MP’s from standing for election.
In this day, and age it should be possible for the public to have a say in MP’s Pay and conditions.
New Bills, should be put before the peaple before being passed, this could be done through Digital TV, and the internet.
MP’s would then become enablers, not the problem.

The fundamental failure of the economic system to deliver for all people on an equitable basis ought to be the first item of business for a new parliament elected on a proportional representation basis.
1. When the government is strong, the people are weak – let’s reverse that.
2. Let’s see an end to ‘socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor’.

A Manifesto for the Reform of Parliament

The United Kingdom Parliament is in stasis, unable to act beyond the confines of Party interest, and with its members widely perceived to be acting in their own interests first and the people’s second.

The selection of candidates, the constituency boundaries and the voting system have produced ‘safe seats’ and parliaments which are unrepresentative. Too many members have served for too long and contributed too little. Political dynasties have been allowed to take root. Many members have limited experience of life outside Parliament.

Elections on the first-past-the-post basis disenfranchise a large proportion of the electorate. The majoritarian power structure has produced executives which are unaccountable to Parliament. The office of Prime Minister has been exercised in a divisive and autocratic manner by successive incumbents.

The behaviour of members in both Houses has brought parliamentary democracy in the United Kingdom into disrepute. Many members have abused the trust of their constituents. Parliament has acted to legitimise the travesty that the people serve the Government and the economy, rather than both serving the people. Much recent legislation and executive fiats have undermined the rights of the people.

Full political independence for England, Scotland and Wales from the United Kingdom is in the interests of their culturally distinct peoples and heritage.

The people must reassert their authority and their consent as primary to the legitimacy of their Parliaments. This Manifesto conceives a mechanism whereby this may be achieved.

The Manifesto proposes…

* REFORM candidates committed to fundamental political reform to stand in each constituency in the next general election

* REFORM candidates committed to the highest standards of probity, integrity and transparency

* A interim REFORM all-party cabinet committed to accountability to both Houses of Parliament and to an independent judiciary

* As the first item of business in the next parliament, a REFORM bill that would establish a Royal Commission on Parliamentary Reform, to report within 12 months. The Commission would hear brief submissions from all Parties and parties, and be assisted by public opinion polling as required, with the objective of achieving participatory and democratic structures and procedures in England, Scotland and Wales and associated jurisdictions

* The dissolution of the next Parliament within 24 months and for a further election to be fought under new REFORMED rules of conduct, re-drawn boundaries, democratic candidate selection procedures and a voting system which weights all votes equally.

Proposed by

T N D Anderson BSc BA MSc CMILT
16 May 2009

EDUCATION! Not the Blair kind of education – I’m talking government and politics – in schools – mandatory. I had to take an A-LEVEL in government and politics to get even the slightest bit of knowledge about the system. And even then, it was patchy at best. Please, somebody raise their voices about this! Nobody wants to write to their MP, protest or even talk about government because they don’t understand it! This makes the subject either boring or frightening – therefore keeping the masses supressed and the scariest part of it – without political education, democracy is severely damaged. Surely the EU Elections proves that!

20 years back it was “Tarzan” who told us that someone was running round “whipping up apathy”. The political system at the local level, continues to fear its very shadow… by that, I think I mean all prospect of responsible, informed public engagement!
Historical public sentiment ranges from classic predictions of “it’ll make no difference” and “it won’t change anything” through to resignation… “couldn’t care”… “don’t care”. Expressions of futility, uselessness, disengagement… apathy are fuelled by informed cynicism induced both by the challenged and the inept. Add to this soup, the waves of interference… white noise that delights the media and means we will have little chance of ever focussing on the clear signal for democratic progress.
Despite one brilliant millenium initiative (Local Strategic Partnerships), democracy at local level, has managed to remain primordial by design. Without a functional and sharing structure, it perpetuates the case for the status quo in dysfunctional perpetuity to the loss of communities, nation and of civilization. Much like a pea soup in a cauldron, a system that creates and organises public apathy, is no crucible for responsible citizenship or for true definition of collective progress.
Surely, that mass indifference is a failure of process (voter turn out is a blunt measurement) and extensive exclusion from process has one primary effect… to position the few to further enhance a system that’s not representative of you, me or even those that represent us. It does so because people give up… they walk away and stay away and leave all reason and the self-determination of all progress in the hands of a largely unrepresentative group of people who construct their mandate from selective listening to the wrong people… a myopic elite that, respectfully, really only know very little about anything anyway.
Progress can never evolve from the recorded predilection to reward a noddy culture and to sit on, subvert, intimidate and dismantle the vulnerable strands of reasonable local dissent. Rather, it needs to seek to make the most of the potential that rests within each one of us. In the 21st C, even expediency does not need to actively exclude… why not first engage with those who are interested, who want to be informed and are within easy reach? We now have the technology… it is only the ethos that is missing. My close is coming next.

I turned to this thread on recommendation of NEF. Consequently I expect great things. We all need to identify the new Great Debate. I ask for our society to begin with this great challenge of define what is progress and, because it can be defined, it is performance based and can be measured.
Start first with our own nation’s policy making and decision taking processes… are they as democratic as they are meant to be and can democracy be made to be more responsive and progressive?
Would it no help for us to adopt a humanities version of the “vorsprung durch technic” ethos… maybe “Progress through seeing/ knowing”. Progress as homo sapiens should be… in being individually and collectively sapient. Amidst our populations of millions, we have the invaluable opportunity of concurrent testing and development. Identifying what went wrong… what works and what doesnt.
The perfect Case History: Democracy like economics has proved difficult to study until now I suggest today in 2009. Cutting through the rhetoric of several thousand years, that performance based process was first launched in around 1999 with the gradual introduction of the Local Strategic Partnerships initiative (LSP). Public participation was at its core. As I read it, this remarkable initiative was intent to convert administrative governance into participatory governance and across every single local authority in the country. I engaged with it and tested it on that basis in my neighbourhood. Likewise, Authorities engaged with their duty to this in many different ways.
Amidst our populations of almost 60 millions, we have the invaluable opportunity of concurrent testing and development.
Now, and in exquisite local detail, analysis of almost a decade of documented local claims on performance, offer an indelible insight into the condition of our many local “pools of democracy”. Analysis I expect will also offer the clear, informed basis for change and development that all parties now talk of at local government level.
It appears that the crucible of Democracy has a certain scale… not too dissimilar to that of ancient Rome… in the local detail. With appropriate mechanisms, it is certainly where accountability, responsibility and merit can be tested and find a foothold and where apathy and cynicism can be nipped in the bud. LSP as I saw it, was the most efficient way to share responsibility across our populations… to begin to progressively evolve current administrative governance into participatory governance. My own authority, very much in the hands of 2 parties, still failed its people and the quality of our economy miserably… by not following their duty… not implementing LSP appropriately at the local level… by cooking the books. Good scrutiny tells us you just cant cook the books.
So where does all the go, go? It’s squandered in perpetuity by the inability of our local authorities to share anything with their people… to function as they now should. Its not hope we need its honesty. System integrity and subsequent higher performance in UK can only be built out of the confederacy of functioning local host communities everywhere. To date, we still only have the local administrations without local participation… without appropriate scrutiny and no change.

We need help in exposing Robert Mugabe and his Henchmen to a wider audience, he is literally getting away with murder and genocide! No one really seems to care except the UN and a select few of humanitarian organisations.
Zimbabwe farmers and opposition party members are being violated, harrassed, made to disappear, and murdered.
The genocide committed on innocent Matabele people, needs to be addressed at the Hague and there is a movement that wants this recognised as a full blown holocaust, with which I agree.
Please can you guys get involved with this very urgent cause, the longer we wait the greater the human catastrophy in Zimbabwe.
Thankyou for this great site, at last something where our voices can be heard on a global scale.
Best Regards,
Bushy Watson

Yes Helena. I agree completely with education (and training) but really as an ongoing regime of application in the everyday realm and driven by our curiosity and interest in our context. Information and knowledge breeds confidence and drives out apathy and helps us take on the cynic everywhere.
But in essence, is this not what the roll out of the LSP initiative was all about… to help us to be informed in our daily lives alongside our work, rest and play; to learn about; understand and question the nature and consequences of approaching milestones in our policy world… things that are destined in some way to affect us and our community’s wellbeing. Fascinating programmes like Public Policy Statement reviews; our own Regional Spatial Strategy, Unitary Development Plan processes or Local Strategic Partnerships should by now have been made all the richer with informed contribution by people like ourselves…. but isn’t. Does your local authority really want a well-informed, responsible and confidently engaged public outside of the classroom? Do they have the methods to deal with it positively?
I agree Bushy; it is beyond belief. Whilst all possible efforts are stepped up, we still need to show them what great governance and great democracy really is.
Is it enough that our own European and Uk system is merely a lot less rotten and… does that condition really make us that much better than Mugabwe’s government of elites? Is what we have here, the thin end of a wedge or the tip of an iceberg? History tells us we must never rest on our laurels but to err on caution.
The worst examples of governance only becomes apparent in light of the very best. By improving our own systems we stand a better chance of helping to improve theirs. I agree we have the responsibility to help the people of other nations in any way we can but we also need to help ourselves. As Europe negotiates with Zimbabwe, what system of governance do we propose for them… our own? I know, a good start but we really must do better. Back to work.

Reform Higher Education

There is NO informed public debate about significant decisions.

The public are NOT able to participate effectively in decisions affecting them.

There is NO adequate scrutiny of the decision-making process.

The authorities are NOT accountable for the spending of public money.

The authorities are NOT scrutinised to ensure they do their job properly.

No public right of complaint to the regulators.

NO public right of complaint to the National Audit Office.

Powers of the Auditor General to intervene have been removed.

If you live in Wales lease sign my epetition for:

Public Accountability and Consultation in Higher Education

http://www.assemblywales.org/gethome/e-petitions/epetition-list-of-signatories.htm?pet_id=307&prncl_ptnr=Trevor%20Mayes&clsd_dt=26/4/2009

Thanks

Let’s stick to big issues:

1. A written constitution for the UK

2. Resolution of the West Lothian question

3. All UK elections – including Parliament – by PR

4. A fully elected upper chamber, with an acknowledgment of the multi-faith nature of the UK, with reserved places for ‘Lords Spiritual’ drawn from the major faiths.

I hope that helps!

I think my concern with all this is that it’s not going to strike at the root of the issues. I can understand why you’re starting with the MP Recall, as it’s topical and it feels like you might get a win on it, but frankly, it’s a pretty superficial thing. The beauty of the way MoveOn.org started was the fact that it was a serious issue – getting political conversation on to a topic that actually mattered. Whereas I worry we’re getting involved in something that really isn’t that significant, compared to issues around alternatives to GDP as measures of progress, etc, etc…

Well as you suggest a recall law would be useful, but a total change to the electoral process would probably make your demand redundant. First past the post is wrong. We here both the main parties tell us that it produces strong Gov’t, which they think is ok, while they’re lot are in power. But there are millions of people who’s vote is pointless, and haven’t we had enough of strong Gov’t ( Thatcher and Bliar) Phew give me concensus anytime.

our government appears to have gone into hiding since the cabinet re-shuffle,what has happened to the plans of our leader and leaders of the other parties to clean up politics,do they now think that everything can be swept under the carpet?we the public need some answers,or are we to be bamboozled into thinking that everything is being taken care of as usual.its time that we saw some prosecutions over the mps expenses scandal,and how can mps appoint a new speaker of the house out of people who claim for pot plants on thier expense accounts,its time that mps expenses were abolished completely,we as the public do not have expense accounts and with a salary of over £65000 mps should not have one either,they should pay thier own way as we have to.

I believe all of the current problems over MPs expenses and a vast raft of other issues could be resolved by scrapping the current Human Rights legislation and replacing it with Human Responsibilities legislation. This already largely exists in criminal law and in Health and Safety legislation and ought to be extended throughout our lives.

If we could turn people around and make them live their lives as if they had a responsibility to other people and our planet, instead of being out to get all they can “because it’s my right”, the world would be a better place to live in and would be a better place to live in for ever (well until Mars hits us anyway).

Many of these issues are already available:

1. An American-style democracy: recall politicians (25% of local vote I believe in USA) and elected Lords/Senate, Police, NHS chiefs etc. The UK is less democratic at local levels than USA.

2. The Money Reform Party has proposals for revising the banking system/cost of credit from banks.

3. EIR not FOI allows full scrutiny of all public organisations information: a “scores on the doors” of Your Right to Know for each department with staff levels, costs etc plus investments, bank account reserves etc would improve this.

4. The Taxpayers Alliance highlights many of the problems with the public sector is simple waste and excess (reform required as with trade unions in the 1970′s): defining the proportion of funding for admin/backoffice and frontline delivery would clarify this.

5. Public Secotr service standards/timescales: the UK Civil service is simply glacial in speed

The mix of transparency and accountability (especially online) should improve the system.

Wider isues are:

* broadband and IT access/education – and mobiles/BT
* asbestos in schools
* airport and road noise and air monitoring
* greater scrutiny of monopoly services/utilities eg water companies
* green growth jobs rather than public bureaucracy
* free bank accounts to complement/replace post offices
* DFID deployment of funds for Third World reconstruction rather than First World civil service projects
* improving failed nations and renegade nations eg Burma, Somalia etc

Hope this helps.

Tim

http://www.sincerityagency.com

when is this government going to form policies to help the people of this nation instead of all the interfering into other countries politics. the prime minister and his bumbling government need to get together and come up with something positive to help the people of this country.a firm cut in the people of the public sector who reap exhorbitant salaries and pensions,whilst the rest of us have to make do with what little we have.we need to have some transparency on the salaries and handouts that all of the public sector workforce recieve from us the public.

Having read all (most) of the above, it seems as though 38 degrees is just another forum for individual hobby horses and grievance airing. Without some level of agreement or concensus we will be unable to effect any influence on government or anyone else. We are just an electronic rabble.

Perhaps David Babbs could formulate some kind of electoral form whereby we could vote for a single topic on which to lobby parliament.

Please ignore last input. Have just properly looked at the site. Apologies

My main concern about our political class situation is once we have elected our representative or party just how quickly they become distance to us. Little or no communication is offered on present policy ideas or what our thoughts may be.
Our present Government seems to be a dictatorship in all but name, we have none elected people in positions of real power (Mandelson ect) who have huge influence on how our country is governed, this is the same for the house of lords. We need radical restructuring of the political structure were elected people only have the right to govern us. They must be answerable to us the elected should they be found to be in breach of the rules and deselect if found guilty. We also have to have a set of clear and binding rules for them to work in, so no misinterpretation of the rules can used to benefit them.

It seems to me that accountability is the main concern here. We see enormous golden handshakes for people who fail & continued jobs for people who make fortunes by abusing the system that they set up. The person in the street is constitutionally unable to do anything about it, even though they foot the bill. We all work hard for the money we pay taxes on, and should have some say on how these taxes are spent. The system is corrupt, so working within the rules shouldn’t really count. I have to pay for changing my own lightbulbs, and buying my own loo seats, not to mention my own biscuits and food, so MPs should do the same. They do get a salary after all. Anyone in the real world who fails miserably at a job is out on their ear with no references,and no reward. Hello dole queue. The same rules should apply to all, regardless of position.

Greedy banks and bankers, socially and envronmental irresponsible multi-national companies and corrupted politicans all whom bend the laws and rules to suit their own ends – with no or little accountability.

The public have the power to take control before all is destroyed and corrupted. There are numerous options to redress issues individually: keep control of the banks, tax and avoid the purchase of unethical goods and remove MPs and MEPs from office.

But why not go further? Technology now allows us to govern ourselves…rather than the dated political process we now have why not move it into a modern democracy where ‘idea champions’ propose change and everyone can vote on the issues in hand by internet/phone – and can be both proportional and representative.

Therefore, removing the need for politicans and bringing to account and managing those who gain hugely at cost to a more fairer society.

In response to David Chamberlain who wrote above:
’4. A fully elected upper chamber, with an acknowledgment of the multi-faith nature of the UK, with reserved places for ‘Lords Spiritual’ drawn from the major faiths.’

Why would we want to bring faith into politics? You just need to look at the effect of ‘faith-based power’ on countries like Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Ireland-past-tense, etc. to see that fait is the number one de-st

Sorry, I lost the last line above. Meant to say that faith has been the number one de-stabalising force in the political world for some time and has been a major cause of death and destruction for even longer. Add to the list above of course Isreal and Palestine and the list goes on. Time to stop segregating people by faith and gender and have one set of rules for all.

I think that people must be prepared to respect the right of others to hold contrary opinions. I am definitely not a member of the BNP and cannot imagine myself becoming one however, in a democracy everyone must be allowed to cast his or her vote as they see fit. Whilst the BNP remains a legitimate political party every vote cast for it is also legitimate. People who challenge the right of the BNP members to sit as MEPs are saying that all those who voted thus should not have done! Isn’t this a form of Fascism?
If the policies of the BNP are anathmatical to the majority of the citizens of this country, as I fully expect, then sooner or later the party will wither away or at least moulder as an also ran whose impact is of no consequence. The essence of being English is to live and let live.

all very well the high moral ground on MP’s ,bankers etc but what about the real issues,getting jobs,providing income for families,infrastructure and the country.forget ‘green’ jobs for the moment its a distraction lets focus on th real issues which are fiscal and needed.

Can you stop the NHS being taken over by private companies please? Or at least call a public debate on the matter.

It is happening with no widespread debate or accountability to the general public.

Everyone knows markets are bad for health. Companies have a legal obligation not to patients, but to their shareholders. When the crunch over funding comes, who do you think they will choose?

Yet ALL 3 major political parties are committed to allowing more and more private companies to run our health service.

In the 1997 Labour manifesto they said: ‘Our fundamental purpose is simple but hugely important: to restore the NHS as a public service working co-operatively for patients, not a commercial business driven by competition.’

Now there is a whole directorate in the Department of Health dedicated to increasing competition and welcoming in private providers. And just recently they have provided £22m to set up commercial support units all around the country.

Taxpayers money is being handed over to the private sector (just look at all the failing PFI projects) and noone is calling the politicians to account (the politicians after giving out big NHS contracts to the private sector then go on to work for large multi national health corporations and are paid thousands)

It is scandal on an unprecedented scale and the health of the nation will suffer as a result of it.

Ok the NHS isn’t perfect, but thats because it has been continuously underfunded since its inception (we have always spent 3% of GDP less than other European countries). Labour did increase spending but most of that went on creating the bureacracy that comes along the internal market and it didn’t go to front line services (we now have as many managers as doctors in the NHS??)

The joke is that as we’ve had to ‘bail out the bankers’ , people are talking about reducing health spending. Our health will suffer as a direct consequence of a market failing, and yet politicians are still in love with the market.

The patient participation mechanisms in the NHS are too weak so there is no way to hold NHS decision makers to account.

We all pay for this service, we should all have a bigger say before its handed over to the private sector and gone for good.

Its an easily accesible subject for people to get to grips with – healthcare affects everyone – there are many unions that would get behind it too, they just need a bit of organisation and a leader with a radical voice that isn’t party political.

Come on 38 degrees, if they won’t listen , we’ll make them listen!

Hello.

It strikes me that what we all want and need foremost is proportional representation and the right to call our own referendums. Once this has been achieved tackling the myriad problems in our political system will become much easier.

The foremost problem for any people powered movement is widespread apathy. People can’t take responsibility for themselves if they believe they are powerless. If we continue to campaign for serious electoral reform, it will inspire many more people to get involved.

In the UK our electoral process is confusing and open to fraud.
On most key points, the two main parties agree, so I as a voter will not have any meaningful way of expressing dissent with my vote. As fewer choices are offered, I may vote for a candidate with whom I largely disagree so as to oppose a candidate with whom I disagree even more. Obviously, this means candidates will not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of those who vote for them. This ‘tactical voting’ is clearly a nonsense.

It may also be argued that multi-party systems usually require greater consensus in order to make dramatic changes. Arguments for plurality (our two-party system) often look to Italy where the frequent government changeovers are presented as undesirable. I would argue that frequent government changeovers are now clearly in the public interest as our world continues to move ever faster.

Our local councils juggle their boundaries in order to hold onto as many seats as they can come election time. This is currently legal, but morally dubious. Manifesto pledges are not legally binding and campaign promises are forgotten as quickly as they are made.

So, – a powerful system of PR which empowers the people to call local and national referendums whenever neccessary please!

Thankyou 38 degrees.

Proposed analogue radio switchoff.
This may be a minor issue compared with the Iraq war enquiry or the expenses scandal but, after some thought, I am horrified by the amount of waste and expense this will involve. In my household there are six analogue radios. Three ordinary ones (one 15 years old but functioning well) an integral one in my CD player and another in my vinyl LP player. The sixth is in my two-year old car. All work and I would expect them to continue to work.
Come 2013 (or whenever) all will become useless. If most households have a similar number then there will be millions, maybe billions, even trillions, of useless bits of electrical equipment come switch over date. This, to my mind, is bureaucracy gone mad – the public have already been mis-led over the “free” TV digital switchover (set-top boxes, new recording equipment). If digital radio were so very popular, it would have been massively taken up already. I, for one, am in no position (and have no inclination) to go to the expense of replacing fully functioning equipment or for funding the disposal of all the reduntant “stuff”. This forced change is not necessary and should be opposed.

I think 38 Degrees is a great initiative. I’d like to see it campaigning on conservation and climate change issues – including the impact of soya production on the Amazon rainforest, as well as international development, human rights and open government.

Surely climate change overshadows everything else – we’ve got just seven years to make sure the world’s emissions peak and decline or climate change is very likely to become catastrophic for millions of people. So Copenhagen in particular would be my top focus.

But I think that how we’ve nationalised some of the banks, we’ve got a great opportunity to run them in the public interest instead of in the same way as before but with the public as the main shareholder. So that’s second on my list, with low carbon loans the link between them.

cheers

Here is my tuppence-worth on how to sort of this country. Apologies if you find it vague/waffly/irrelevant.

Some observations:

The job of the modern politician is privatisation. In the long term, this is part of an ideology aiming to hand over control of a society’s resources from democratic institutions to corporations. In the short term, individual politicians assist in privatising all or some aspect of the areas of which they are in charge, followed by a post-governmental career in the private sector. Politicians can therefore be rewarded for doing their jobs badly by running down a state asset to the point at which privatisation appears the only answer. It also undermines democracy since a politician that obtains a job in a newly privatised industry continues to hold power in that area despite losing the election.

The powerful state is not a product of socialism. The modern state, its police forces, armies and prisons, was constructed in the late 18th century to protect invested money.
Democracy followed as a reaction in order to co-opt the state away from corporate control. This process is now being reversed. This will not result in a reduction in state power, just a different kind of state power. The question is not whether or not the state, but for whom the state functions. Is the state an instrument of popular or corporate will?

State and capital are not the only forms of ownership open to us. The old left treated nationalisation as panacea in much the way the contemporary right treats privatisation. They also fetishised its centralising effect, when this was a side effect that worked against its primary purpose of instigating democratic control of resources. However it’s quite possible to have commercial organisations controlled from below without state ownership. John Lewis partnerships and the Co-op are two reasonably successful outfits that operate this way.

Some changes we could make to grab back our country before it’s too late:

A few of these may seem a bit extreme, but in all honesty, if we don’t take measures beyond the tinkering proposed by most reformists, we may as well not bother. We’ll all be having the same discussions in another ten years or so when the next period of party rule breaks down.

We need to break the cycle of corporate patronage of our politicians. If we want to keep our public services state or community controlled, we need to protect them from privatisation. If we want to privatise them, we’ll need to ensure that ministers are impartial in their dealings with the service providers. Therefore, we need to ensure that the details of all lobbying are recorded publicly accessible. We should also put restrictions on the jobs ministers can take after their period in office.

The most effective democracies in Europe are either of small countries or in those that have a degree of federalisation. If we had regional parliaments each representing a population of 5 million say, we could break down the country into manageable chunks. This would keep people from being alienated from the mechanisms of government and avoid the one-size-fits-all problems of the centralising state.

A Swiss style initiative and referendum system would allow people to instigate new policy, block or reverse bad policy, or force elections where MPs or governments are seen to be corrupt or incompetent. This would work rather well with a federal UK, since it policies operating over a smaller areas can be simpler and less comprehensive.

We need an elected House of Lords. Hereditary peerages are profoundly undemocratic and have no place in a modern country and the system of life peerages brought in by New Labour was too easily abused.

We could open up the Stalinist command systems of the corporate world by requiring that companies over a certain size must have employees representatives at the board room level, or subject certain areas of decision making to a referendum.

The real problem underlying all of this is the co-opting of expertise. Modern society can operate at the level it does because of expert knowledge. The question is – how to you let experts control a situation without abusing their power? Both democracy and commercial exchange are solutions to this. A third way of co-opting expertise would be to use the model of legal class actions where groups of individuals hire a lawyer to navigate them through a complex legal procedure. This could be extended so that communities hire an architect or business development expert to deal with a particular issue.

As pointed out elsewhere on this blog, our political system is a 19th century construction. We now have a wealth of communications technology at our disposal which could be used to enable people to control how their country is governed. In addition, we also have psychological and sociological knowledge of how people operate in communities. This is already heavily utilised by governments and corporations in maintaining control of populations, but there is nothing to stop us using the same knowledge to create democratic and equitable society.

The single most important lesson I have learned in 30 years campaigning for NGO’s is not to re-invent the wheel. Yes Climate Change is the most important global issue, but thousands are working on it already, & there are fewer opportunities to make a difference, sadly. Reform of our political system is a critical area & now the time is right – you have a unique opportunity to reform the Lords & Commons & fight for real democracy. Mandelson has real power & is blocking climate policy but who elected him??? (for example). Good Luck – I’ll help you in any way I can.

we need to free Palestine and the millions of refugees need to be allowed back home!!!!

We need to reverse the state control and the increasing global control via super states.
We have been conned in to believing we have no power as a species, we do but in order to use it we need to educate people. We need people to know that they really can make a difference, think more consciously and act. The consequences of not taking responsibility for our own lives is increased control.

The whole world needs fixing, by fixing attitudes, things like climate change will be fixed as a result.

People do need to wake up and ask why is it that a small percentage of people have unbelievable wealth but 1 billion people are currently starving with loads more on the way.
Globalisation, greed, corporate profit all are inherent causes of pollution, climate change etc. We are continually bombarded with ads, celebrity culture and materialism, taxed beyond belief then encouraged to spend the rest of our money on stuff we don’t need.

I like the idea of the Venus Project as an alternative future, the trouble is the people that control this planet will not just say OK, games up.

To reduce the level of state intervention, in many different areas of our lives. Also, to restore the civil liberties which have either been reduced or taken away from us.

A much more accountable Police network, would also be worth campaigning for. Whilst most of us now accept the need for some CCTV (particularly in town centres), it should certainly be more targeted than it is at present.

Abolish the expensive and inefficient quangos, repeal The Human Rights Act and withdraw from the EU. It would also be very beneficial, to implement a far more rigorous immigration policy. This is even more true today, in view of the dire economic climate and poor job prospects for so many.

The power in this country is concentrated within a couple of square miles centred on the Houses of Parliment. Politicians, civil servants, business, media people, banks etc all have their offices in this area. Deals are done openly, but many more are done in private and are often not formal deals, but understandings.

So the top civil servant, the politician, having a quiet drink in his club, at an arts event, fund raiser or dinner party will get to know a businessman and naturally they will talk and understanding will be made.

There is not the need for briefcases full of money in this country as mostly things work on I’ll scratch your back and when I take my generous retirement packet there will be a well paid consultancy or two to keep me in the manner I deserve for all the stress of running the country.

So apart from the Guy Fawkes strategy what can we do?

The real problem with democracy is that after an election you end up with politicians.

And in this country the first past the post system generally elects a dictatorship. To maintain the dictatorship whips whip, bribes of ministerships, seats on committees, trips to investigate recycling in sunny climes and a host of other enducements and controls generally keep the MPs in line.

Since Harold Wilson there has been a move to more centralisation of power. Before that there was just deference.

Your individual MP does not have a lot of power except in matters that do not worry the government or the opposition.

The other problem is that in the majority on constituencies if you do not agree with the party of your MP you are effectively disenfranchised. Most Surrey MPs are not going to support your demands for re-nationalising the railways whereas if you live in Sheffield and believe in privatising sections of the NHS you are going to be politely heard and then ignored.

So how do solve this problem of democracy?

My suggestions are as follows:

1 Reduce the number of MPs. Their main job should be to be involved in the developmwent of laws and the monitoring government budgets.

2 I would have far larger constituencies covering 6 or 8 MPs and voting by PR.

We would then be given 2 votes:

One for a party

One for the individual candidate.

The votes would then divided up according to parties and then the individuals with the highest number of votes would end up being selected for each party.

So the representatives of each party would be the ones who are most respected by the local citizens, rather than selected by the local party or parachuted in by the party’s national office.

It also means that with 6 or 8 MPs representing a larger area that there is more likely to be at least one who you want to communicate with.

3 There would be funding in each town hall for a meeting room for people to meet their MP and councillors. Most MPs’ work is to do mwith local issues. I would encourage a situation where the distressed citizen is quickly linked to the appropriate political support.

With this system the MP would be liked to the local party representatives, which will give him or her an insight into current problems within the country.

4 The English regions to be given their own parliament, with the same rights as the Scottish Parliament. This will then help and encourage local democracy.

I would then argue that these parliaments are given their own tax raising powers. I would prefer that income tax and corporation tax etc was raised in the regions and then a percentage of that was then sent on to the central government.

5 That Education, Health and many other aspects of public spending are taken over by the regions. They in turn would work together to discuss strategies.

So educational qualifications would be harmonised thorugh agreements between the regions.

This would then stop the numerous goal settings and short term schemes being run to help an Education Minister’s career.

Education etc needs considered thought with input from relevant people eg people working in education, parents, academics, local politicians etc.

6 French Mayors in every town. In France the mayor has a lot more power than in Britian. They can also be proactive.

As an example I have heard of one mayor getting the town to buy up some derelict shops and letting them out at low, below commerical rents, to encourage people to move to the village.

7 House of Scutineers

Instead of the Lords I would have a House of Scrutineers. This is after all their job.

How they would be selected:

It would be done on a regional basis.

People would be nominated by individuals, by organisations etc. to form a pool of potential scrutineers. This would get away from just polticians coming forward.

Then using the Athenian method scrutineers would be selected at random.

In the first case they would be given a two year term as Scrutineer. The reason for this is to all the Scutineer to find out whether they are suited to the job and to see whether they do the job properly.

They will then be offered the job for 8 years. The reason for this is that to be effective, independent scrutineer time to get into the job.

After 8 years they will br subject to re-election. this will be however a simple ‘should they remain?’ Yes or No.

8 Voting in parliament

The scheme in parliament of the Ayes to the Right and Nos to the left is a nice historical action, but not suited to the present day.

I feel that all votes should be done electronically and the results shown on the internet. The system would also allow the individual MP to explain why he voted in a particular way.

The vote could be preset so that, for example, a minister going to a meeting abroad would have no excuse not to vote.

This system could be developed so that discussions between politicans on a particular amedment could be discussed, points made, questions asked, and answered, or evaded weeks before the vote and this would then give the ordinary voter the chance to intervene, raise points, express digust or support.

Central government would be only concerend with a few central issues, such as defence, foreign relations and criminal law. The centralised civil service in many areas, such as education and health, would effectively be abolished.

If these points were followed the country would over a few generations move towards a more democratic system with the ordianry voter having more insight and the ability top get more involved.

Can we start campaigning on a maximum wage, something like the Japanese system where the top earner gets e.g. 10x or perhaps 15x the lowest wage earner in the country. Surely this could at first be applied to the public sector, including the BBC, and the banks owned mostly by us. This would put a stop to the obscene amounts now being talked about.
Can we also canvas the top footballers to suggest they donate a percentage of their salaries to save essential manufacturing jobs. Many of the people who follow their teams are losing jobs at a rapid rate.
Thanks a lot, Liz

This comments trail sounds very much like the Judean Peoples Revolutionary Front in the Life of Brian. Come on brothers and sisters make a plan and stick to it.

Stick to political reform, stick to making votes count and stick to getting the man on the street working towards that end and stick to doing it through the ballot box.

We can’t use the man on the ‘Clapham omnibus’ as our term of mass generalisation any more. The man or woman of 2009 is bouncing around in front of their Wii and in this technological age this is just one key to turn. Use media and the net to access the voters and make a change by all means..

BUT, I don’t want a opportunity for change to be kept to a few net politicos astute and aware and angry and disappointed as we are when we need voters en masse to understand how important change is. Where are 38 degrees on mainstream media, where are the 38 degree stickers, where is the 38 degree MOVEMENT for change on the street.

Where are Unlock Democracy, are they just another group of net geeks with a good idea who can only communicatge by keyboard.

Come on, do something.

To start on a level playingfield surely the English MUST have the same as the other three nations in the “Union”. Could you not make it known that Mike Knowles head of CEP(Campaign for an English Parliament) is to be interviawed by the BBC, to go out on
Radio 4 on 3 July-Today in Parliament and the Record Review on TV on 3 July (on BBC Parliament and the BBC News channel) You can email Edward Higginbottom @ edward@english-parliament.co.uk. Thankyou for giving me the chance to express my thoughts on the country I love so dearly.

Please give the individeal more off a say As an innovator i find it amazing that there is no way for me to become involved in the democratic process other than fack consultation

Well done for a great site keep the pressure on and take care

Many interesting topics for discussion here, however, I get the impression 38 Degrees is a talking shop in the making. Signing a petition is not going to change anything. Can anyone think of a single situation where a number 10 petition has been taken seriously by the Government?

The only way 38 Degrees will ever have any real impact or influence would be by organising as a political party and fielding candidates. Until this groups organisers state such an intent I fear the whole concept is a waste of time.

Now that I have got my practicle concerns out of the way the single most improtant issue we face is Peak Oil, Climate Change is a huge problem, however Peak Oil is massive and we have potentially already felt the first direct efects (recent recession). Until the energy crisis is tackled and our economy re-boots everything else is mute. What really concerns me about this is that the Government have no contigency planning for Peak Oil, or at least none they are admitting too. This concerns me.

Want to know something simple and practical you can do to remove this parliament of thieves? Read on.

This first by way of preamble :

In the beginning were the bankers, giving themselves bonuses beyond the dreams of avarice and almost destroying the world’s financial system in the process. An outrage! the politicians howled. This must stop and the perpetrators be taught a lesson they will never forget. And the result? Bigger than ever salaries and bonuses for the bankers (in a year of recession) and a whopping 42% increase for the useless Fiinancial Services Authority.
Then came the MPs and their expenses. Everything from capital gains tax to toilet seats and the mugs coughing up for the lot. When rumbled, a few of the more palpaple crooks walked the plank, but even these not until the next general election, when they will collect many more thousands of taxpayer’s pounds to help them ‘relocate from Westminster’ (and in truth it will be a wrench). But by now revolution was in the air and they (appeared to be) running scared. We are publishing our expenses, they cried, all of them. And their watchword was ‘transparency’….

And they published them, all of them. Hundreds of thousands of blacked -out, futile dockets, while simultaneously came their paltry, whining, lying excuses about why they could give us no more. Then, in the name of transparency, Gordon Brown announced an inquiry into the Iraq war – which was to be held in
private.

By now something had become unmistakeably clear – that we are governed by a pack of liars, cheats and thieves; people who are so venal, who have such contempt for the citizens they govern, that they won’t put their hands in their own pockets even to feed themselves! And at last the truth dawned. There is only one way to restore decency and honesty to public life in this country – WE HAVE TO GET RID OF THESE PEOPLE !

And now for the solution :

After the Lloyds of London scandal of a few years ago just one financier kept his bottle and told the truth. When asked if he felt sorry for the people he had robbed he answered “if God had not wanted them fleeced, he would not have made them sheep”. Now is the time for the people of Britain (and this includes you, gentle reader) to decide whether their genes are predominantly ovine or whether, like the Peter Finch character in the film ‘Network’, you will stand up and shout “I’m mad as Hell, and I’m not going to take this any more”. If you are inclined towards the former, happy grazing, if the latter, here is what you do.

Select a politician. (Not John Prescott, please, I have already instigated this process with regard to him.) Your local MP would be best but this is not absolutely necessary. The choice is a wide one, I would guess anything upward of 400; because, although they all parrot, ad nauseum, the ‘I acted within the guidelines’ mantra – they lie. They did not act within the guidelines. (See my letter to the CPS, attached.) Next you write to the Crown Prosecution Service asking if they intend to bring a prosecution against your selected MP and include a brief summary of his/her transgressions. As is probable, their answer will be no, they don’t,so your next step will be to seek a judicial review,which costs £75, where a judge will decide between you and the CPS. If the judge finds for you, then the CPS must prosecute the case. Another advantage of this scheme is that if the case is held before the general election (I know, I know, dream on) and the MP is found guilty, he is obliged to leave parliament immediately, and will therefore not receive his ‘relocation’ bonus.

I am aware that many people believe that the chances of obtaining a conviction against an MP are small. (And we only need one, after one the floodgates are open.) I disagree. I may be missing something but I think a quick read of my letter to the CPS suggests that John Prescott is unanswerably guilty of fraud. Also the athmosphere of the times will never be more propitious. Put an MP up before a jury now and they will not only want to find him guilty, they will want to rend him limb from limb.

But there is no time to lose. The wheels of the law grind exceeding slow and we need some results before the next election. Here is perhaps the only legal way we can show the politicians that we mean business. I appeal to you to get involved.

(It would be nice if the organization of who is taking on which MP could be taken up by 38 Degrees.)

(copy of my letter to Ms Dru Sharpling of the Crown Prosecution Service.)

Dear Ms Sharpling,
I am writing to inquire whether the Crown Prosecution Service intends to bring a criminal prosecution for fraud, misappropriation of public funds or the common law offence of misconduct in public office against Mr. John Prescott, Member of Parliament for Kingston upon Hull.

The case is open and shut. The ‘Green Book’, which contains guidance for MPs regarding the claiming of allowances, holds two injunctions of primary importance. First, that any allowances claimed must be wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred for the purpose of performing their parliamentary duties and second, that the responsibility for the claim lies solely with the MP. (Thus making ‘the fees office said I could’ excuse redundant.)

Mr. Prescott has claimed, in a total of £6,772.27p. for repair work to his house, £312 “to supply and fix mock Tudor boards to the apex of front gable”. Amongst a plethora of other, equally untenable, claims were the cost of two toilet seats.

There is not a sentient being on the planet who could believe that these claims could possibly be for the furtherance of his duties as an MP. Nor could Mr. Prescott, an MP of many years experience, himself be under the impression that he was entitled to this money. He has therefore applied for and received sums of money to which he knew he had no right. This is fraud.

What Mr. Prescott’s defence to these charges might be I really don’t know. I only trust that I will get the chance to hear it.

Yours etc.

With the digital changeover the public have once again been ripped off. With the new technology (Freesat) it is possible to stop transmision to any single tv set, try not paying Sky TV and see what happens. The BBC could flick the switch to anyone not paying the licence fee but will no doubt carry on sending the threatening letters.

since margaret thatcher introducedthe right to buy council houses house prices have gone out of control and it is the same with private rental system. it is so bad now that are more people living on the streets or in bed and breskfast accommodation.
councils always had the right to sell any surplus property but not with the same discounts.
council housing was to provide housing to the low paid peoplethat could not afford to either buy or pay the private landlords of the day.
as the local authorites now have to pay 40% of their rental income and75% of any sales incometo the relevant government so that the authorityis once more in housing financial shortage.there are good and bad councils and the with housig associations to solve the housing problems needs everybody to work together with councils leading the way as they used to

I have just read about the 12 week holiday for MPs.
Hang on! they work for us we pay them yet they have double the amount of holidays, they also get Easter and Christmas, bank holiday’s. Who voted to give them all these 12 weeks with full pay. they do not work harder, there are a lot of people who work long hours and have stressful jobs also, saying that, I notice a lot of broadcasted events for MPs which I think they get extra for attending go there to nod off. Can we know who there Union is so we also join.

We need ways to fix the democratic defecit that exists through recent legislative change to the planning system. One thing in particular is the need to encourage true community-led local decision making. NOT to remove the responsibility from those elected into power but to inform those few who are in a post of political importance to take decisions based on local opinion and community ideas and ideals.

Re Ben Niblett Post
Why have we just got 7 Years to “save the world” Ben , you want to try a bit of “tub thumping” in emerging nations about CO2 and carbon footprint etc, they really dont give a toss, there’s a lot of tree hugging trendies jumping on the green bandwagon and a lot of money being made in the name of green issues, its all getting very tedious and a real turn off. a lot of people that i speak to are getting very peeed of with all this environmental claptrap.

I think the greatest change we could initiate in British politics would. E to give people the right to call referendums on issues members of the public may be opposed to. Petitions could be a good starting point to initiate these for example. After all, why should we not have a say in the laws we have to abide by.

May I also suggest making it possible for us to rate the comments made by other users of this site? It may help you to gage your members views more effectively too as some
may share the views expressed but not want to appear to be
making repetitious comments.

Power to the people

The site will give you an insight into why we are demanding full official recognition for our proud Sailors, Marines, Soldiers and Airmen who have protected our nation through all types of political turmoil since the Second World War.

It is our belief that an NDM is a reasonable and proper way for the nation to demonstrate to all HM Armed Forces that their service is appreciated. A small token of recognition for putting themselves at the mercy of the Country’s leaders in the hope it will act in the citizens best interests. A medal that can be “officially” worn on parade with pride.

The Veterans Badge is an unofficial MoD offering and it’s purpose is different from the NDM. We see it however, as a first step to proper recognition.

The Chief of Defence Staff, Sir Jock Stirrup said

“We owe a great debt of gratitude to the men and women who serve in our Armed Forces and who have done so in the past. That debt extends to the families who support them and who bear the burden whilst loved ones are deployed away from home in all theatres (Medal or Non-Medal earning). I am delighted that the families of those who sadly die in the circumstances I have described are now to receive some tangible evidence of the Nation’s gratitude in the form of the Elizabeth Cross and Memorial Scroll.”

These are the very same arguments put forward by those who have volunteered or have been conscripted to serve the Nation with all the inherent dangers that accompany it. Those who have fallen in uniform but outside of the qualification of the Elizabeth II Cross, and all the survivors who have served our great Nation have earned the right, in Sir Jock’s words:

“to receive some tangible evidence of the Nation’s gratitude”.

This is a noble an winnable campaign.

i want the british public to show their support and get the message to gordon brown to bring the troops home we shouldnt be out there it isnt our war get them home on british soil they are
being sent to their death by gordon brown with very poor supplies and old and not suitable equpment the prie minster just uses cheap words he says his heart goes out to the families of those who died rubbish he just doest care or understand so we the british public should bring him and the government down they wont listern so we have to make them listern to us we dont want a party who doesnt listern or care about our troops

We need ‘joined up thinking’ and need to create ORGANISATION for constitutional reform, political, financial, regulatory and Judicial CHANGE – in raising the bar and raising standards in all these areas, through thorough planning and building an Organisation with an infrastructure that supports the above.

The primary area that I believe needs to be addressed, initially through being focused upon and fully exposed, is our fraudulent Monetary System – where money is issued as a debt out of thin air, and is creating poverty all around us because of this over-leveraging ‘something for nothing’ mentality that it breeds based on a mindless sales culture that the banksters have adopted and foisted upon the People. The ‘many’ are being controlled by the few, which is an Oligarchy, and the only reason these Plutocrats are achieving this is because of the fact they are well ORGANISED.

The calibre of thinking amidst those in powers beggars belief, for the most part, as most will agree. Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely. The wrong people have taken control of politics, which is bowing down to the Banking Regime – many do not realise that it is this Banking Cartel that is pulling the strings and creating all the problems from behind the scenes, funding ever war, enslaving citizens of the World, depriving People of their rights through the invidious Agenda of the New World Order who are pushing to create “globalisation” and a one-world currency. This goes against the grain 100%, stifles the natural laws of competition, growth, spontaneity, independent thinking, self-government….and crushes all hope of economic reform and ‘green shoots’ because of a virtual totalitarian State. It is a huge topic, which needs to be understood, because we are all dancing to the tune of Lord Nathan Rothschild without even realising it for the most part, and taking our power back means overthrowing these oligarchs who are enslaving the People.

the banks have created and funded Organised crime, ineffective quangos, no-touch regulation that favours the banks, a Judicial System that is infiltrated with a web of deceit and corruption in favour of the Banks and Privy Council, and is stealing from the People through government-organised, Systemic FRAUD – which is everywhere now.

The complaints systems are designed to fail, the army of civil servants with their index-linked pensions have ‘sold out’ their power to the Global Elite, and no one is answerable nor is anyone accepting responsibiity in this devastating and stifling culture that has been created, at the expense of the People who have been ‘had over’ and who continue to be exploited by these Oligarchs for their own Agenda. Because of this, crime is at an all time high, because the Courts do not wield their powers when the banks are behind them pulling the strings – just in the same way that the Bank of England was privatised in 1977 and sold for two nominee shares to the Treasury and to Lord Rothschild, we are still paying for the effects of this today.

We need to take control of our Monetary System, overthrow the Federal Reserve and the quangos like the FSA and the SEC, throw out the peers and Lords who substitute effectiveness for cronyism, and base everything on performance and merits through a carefully planned cleaning-up process that focuses on serving the People and throwing off all the oppressers who are driven by dark forces within the aims for a ‘One World government’ (heaven forbid).

I have been campaigning for years to open up the secret family courts.

I have written to all the politicians and showed them evidence that an American paedophile influenced the operation of the family courts, also that Lord Falconer had conflicting business interests in his capacity as head of the Ministry of Justice when he took the decision in 2006 to keep the family courts closed.

My own MP, Bill Casdh, told me that I was right to campaign about this, but I am sorry to say that he has not, to my knowledge, raised a whisper about this human trafficking scandal himself in Parliament.

This is getting depressing. More and more whiners having a moan about their favourite gripe. Full of sound and sometimes even a little fury but, as ever, still signifying nothing. These are the people the members in the House of Commons bar laugh at, because they know nothing serious will come of them.( And get real, petitions won’t change anything, I sign them myself, but I know the facts of life.) Stop idulging yourselves with this scattergun broadcast of miscellaneous grievances and for Christ’s sake DO something. See my blog of the 8th of July and get writing – not to 38 Degrees, but to the Crown Prosecution Service.

The Barnett formula needs to be changed, after all it was only meant to be temporary.
Consdering that a large percentage of Scots also want it changed, albeit so they can rule themselves.

Other parts of the Country are paying more than they should so that the Scots can give free elderly care & free University, even in England, how weird is that.

David Hunter, how interesting that you feel YOU have got it right but others haven’t. At least 38 degree’s are trying to pull people together & make a difference.

If you want us to contact the CPS, then that tells me that they are YOUR little gripe. Stop being self centred & saying everyone else is wrong but your right, ohh, sorry that’s what an MP would say isn’t it.

I feel I must apologise for the aggressive tone of my piece above. All the causes raised are worthy and deserve pursuing but, with the best will in the world, simply exposing them in this blog will achieve nothing. Concrete and specific action is needed, first to remove this parliament of pickpockets and second, to organise their necessary replacements.

Three comments,

In Belguim it is compulsory to vote. Should you decide not to, then all state benefits and assistance will be denied to that individual for some three years. Australia also has some form of compulsory voting but I do not know what the penalties are.

In most of the civilised parts of the EU, plastic bottles can be returned to ANY supermarket or store and dropped into a machine that issues a ticket, giving the returnee a discount on his shopping, equivalent to the number of bottles that they deposited. Supermarket’s also tend not to supply plastic bags at all. Therefore the feeble attempts of the MEGA store groups within the UK who spin their self appreciation on this ‘ green ‘ issue could soon be exposed as with the ‘ green ‘ MPs who backed this miniscule improvement.

David Hunter has some sound points but most people will have already made up their minds re our MPs. It is the BBC who need to be seriously investigated. In Holland, the FEE/TAX levied for public broadcasting is the equivalent of 20 euros, and it is not a CRIMINAL offense. Yet the amount spent by the BBC on non broadcasting is CRIMINAL.
E.G.The head of programs who resigned over the J.Ross thing has a yearly pension of £150,000 to comfort her. A frontline soldier invalided out from one of T.Blairs wars has a pension of £65. per week.

The key is definitely Electoral and Constitutional reform. You have to make the political system work for us. There is no incentive for those that are in power to represent their constituents at all.

I would suggest that the fastest way to get reform of this nature would be to set-up a political party whose aim is purely electoral reform, and nothing else. No other issue would be considered. This temp. ‘political party’ would get elected on this one issue, with a huge majority, make the nec. changes, then disolve parliament for a new election under the new system.

The only problem would be to decide upon which reforms would be required amongst the ‘members’ of this new ‘political party’. If a basic framework could be decided amongst enough people of like mind, then this could work. I would suggest keeping the electoral reform framework basic, and then those that get elected and form a majority in the House of Commons can debate the necessary changes once in ‘power’. The only requirement would be for every ‘prospective candidate’ to agree to the same reforms, and that they must agree to disolve parliament once the reforms were in place – for the new election.

Comments have some valid complaints: whiners; another talking shop; sign a petition and pray; etc – all symptoms of how powerless people feel. What we can do is remind people that we are not powerless. First, the whole corrupt system relies on our labour: so support for the Trades Unions and getting them to be more secure and ambitious is one thing. Second, our collective citizens’ power as voters, consumers, service users, etc. This can be targeted through suitable mass campaigns. We can make our MPS far more accountable at community level by keeping tabs on how they ‘represent’ us (or not). We can move our bank accounts, savings, even our debts, to more congenial institutions. Many consumer boycotts, some at an international level, have been very effective (see The Ethical Consumer). There is a plethora of other campaigning organisations with which to become allied. Well done for setting up. But why such an obscurantist title (38 Degrees)? Why not just the People’s Union?

While the endless debate over climate change rattles on, politicians seem reluctant to honour the pledges made in 1998 to encourage “comprehensive and reasonably priced” public transport for all.

They sit back and ratchet up fuel taxes, but at the same time allow rail fares to increase beyond the rate of inflation. Britons pay more per passenger kilometer than anywhere else in Europe, in many cases rail season tickets exceed the cost of accomodation.

We urgently need the government to do more to ensure that British public is not ripped off each and every time they need to travel somewhere.

Frankly, I must admit that what David Hunter says is right. The only people we have to blame are ourselves – for tolerating these Right Dishonorable layabouts for so long. It’s been obvious to me for some time that MPs have got it made – and I certainly don’t just mean those expenses…! They’ve calmly fixed themselves up with a salary that’s far too high anyway – and all for an even better-than-part-time job with hours entirely to suit themselves…!! In fact, it seems the only time these guys must really feel the need to do anything at all is when they’re actually called-on to turn up at Westminster and show support for their leader. The rest of the time they can pretty well spend more or less as they like – which may or may not include the odd visit to the HOC for a snooze…!

It’s no good simply hanging on until MPs return from their long, long hols – meekly waiting around for them to call an election and do their bidding at the ballot box ALL OVER AGAIN…! No way…! We, the people, should kick them out, re-draw the nation’s constituency boundaries and set up brand new rules, regulations and salary ceilings before offering those seats for tender to a brand new set of eager Parliamentary representatives…!

Sure, it all sounds pretty flippant and desperately needs thinking through. But, hey – we’ve got at least 12 weeks to do it, haven’t we…?

Direct Action:
Gordon Brown promised a reform of Parliament and the way it functions. Just like his promise to tackle the expenses issue he has backed off and now reform seems to have gone off his ‘radar’. We need to put it back on!

I propose that we, the citizens of this country assemble in Parliament Square on 12th October, the day the MPs come back to ‘govern’ us (after a long break!) and we deny them entry to Parliament UNTIL they acknowledge and accept our ‘manifesto’ for Parliamentary Reform.
This Reform would contain specific requirements to, for example, give more authority to the Committees, reduce the power of the Government (in Parliament). This will need research to be done but a great deal has already been proposed by, for example the Hansard Society.

The expenses scandal was meant to have changed the way MPs behaved and viewed their role and responsibilities – even now they seem to believe that they can ignore public opinion given the evidence of the way they blocked changes to the expenses issue on Tuesday 21st July.

We cannot let this opportunity slip away.

We should be shame-faced – people in Iran are on the streets protesting at an illegal regime and risking their lives. We have a Parliament that ignores us. We MUST get their attention.

DIRECT ACTION IN PARLIAMENT SQUARE ON 12TH OCTOBER – NO ENTRY WITHOUT RESPONSIBILITY.

How many female births were there between 1950 and 1955 ?

Why ?

Because each of them will have their state retirment age moved.

So what ?

A female born in 1951 will loose 1 year of state pension – about £6,000, in 1952 – 2 years about £12,000and so on until 1955 when they will loose 5 years – that’s approx £30,000.

This is blatently UNFAIR. My wife has paid in exactly the same as a person born in 1950 yet receives £30,000 LESS out.

This has been phased in far over a much too short a time period. Another example of a government lacking in thought process. I don’t have any issues with equalising the retirment age as far as state pension goes but to arbitarily do it over such a short period is far too punative.

What are the sums ? How much has the government stolen ?

One of the biggest shortfalls with the NHS seems to me too many chiefs and not enough indians!! Less paper pushers more doctors and nurses a definate must. I am also extremely sickened by the attitude of the home secretary towards gary mckinnon the man who has aspergers who has lived in this country for most of his life and hacked into pentagon computeres to find proof of alien existence! what is this government coming to when ignoring the advice of their own advisors:The Home Secretary has been warned by his own adviser on terror laws not to allow the extradition of autistic computer hacker Gary McKinnon

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1197702/Terror-law-boss-backs-Gary-McKinnons-fight-New-support-Aspergers-victim-facing-extradition.html#ixzz0M4nPVNT8

I have been at this game for more than 30 years, I have seen hundreds of well founded businesses disappear for whatever reason. There has been a strenuous effort by people behind the scenes to eliminate British manufacturing. With this gone we have no means of earning sufficient money to pay off the “International bankers. Tell me, from where and from whom did Gordon Brown borrow so much money on our behalf when there is an “apparent” financial crisis? Use your imaginations!
Second point: From my long experience the only way to be a successful country, business, association, club whatever is to motivate the people with securety of knowledge that what they are doing is going to be rewarded with benefit in kind and that they are not going to have their rights abused. So before anything else there must be JUSTICE for everyone, or, as my big red Routemaster bus says “JUSTITIA OMNIBUS”. Justice is the key, secure that and everything else falls into place.
Now I am going to shock you folk who think we are going to cure global warming. The steps necessary should have been followed from back in the 60s when we had the “Clean Air Act” and nothing much followed except that most polluting activities in manufacturing were despatched to other parts of the world in the great NIMBY campaign (Not In My Back Yard) just in case you forgot. Even if we had the resources, which we clearly don’t, we still would not have sufficient time to correct global warming. Oh yes we may enjoy a short period of tropical climate before the end, but it is too late folks, we are set upon an exponential path to oblivion.
Governments are doing precious little, for example, off-shore wind farms, what? At least 30% of those turbines output is lost just in transmission losses. The turbines only operate within a narrow band of air speeds and have to be feathered at wind speeds over 40knots. It is a fact of fluid dynamics that when the speed is doubled the power is quadrupled, so let us say that a wind turbine will produce 250 Kw with a wind speed of 20knots, then there will be 1000Kw at 40 knots (knots = nautical miles per hour)
There is a far better way to extract powere from the wind, but the powers that be don’t want you to know that because they are making lots of dosh out of the 30% wasted power in transmission which woulkd not be lost if we employed aerodynamic ducted turbines encorporated into existing buildings and built into new ones. Thus there would be zero impact on damage to the environment and landscape and the available power would be right on the doorstep so to speak. Such turbinbes were designed back in the ’70s but ETSU (Energy Technology Support GRoup) based at Harwell had vested interest in nuclear power so he last thing they wanted was competition from natural sources. Does anyone remember Professor Salter and his wave power generator, the same thing happened to that, it was debased by massaging the financial figures to show it was uneconomical. Now those same financial boffins have “wrecked” the global economy or so they would like us to think!

I’ve recently come to an appreciation of the difference between the American Constitutional Republic and Democracy. The former is based upon the Rule of Law, while the latter is based upon the Rule of Parliament.

Even though we have an English Bill of Rights 1689, most of it seems directed towards the Rights of Parliament, and not the rights of individuals.

Unfortunately, even though to my mind the USA has a better form of government, most Americans seem happy to let it slip between their fingers, as they allow their leaders ride rough-shod over their Constitution.

Hopefully, some members of this website will give some thought to what we have to do to assert the Rights of Individuals, as opposed to the vested interests of groups, organizations, or poltical parties.

(Don’t Tread on Me!)

You are taking a non-partisan position – maintaining equipoise between all candidates in elections. Whilst not compromising that position, might it be possible to take steps that even up the field for small parties and Independents who do not have the massive resources and influence of the usual suspects?

The Independent Network, dosomethingaboutit and others are also active in the same broad area of popular political activism – any scope for collaboration, cross-pollination or co-operation at some level?

A coordinated effort may bring benefits.

The absence of jobs in the manufacturing industry is a direct result of automated technology taking the jobs. At the turn of the last century human labour was the greatest factor in a product’s ‘worth’. As the amount of human labour needed to produce a product diminished, new industries were created to employ people. The service industry began to replace agriculture, mining and engineering in the 50s. Since the 80s the service industry too is gradually becoming automated. New ‘information industries’ are beginning to appear, though the employment they currently create is a tiny fraction of the job losses we are currently witnessing. If the robots are taking all the jobs, why do we still need to work? The Capitalist system demands ‘Cyclical Consumption’, hence ‘Employment’ to create ‘Consumers’. If we’re not employed, we don’t have money so we can’t play the game. Succesful corporations deliberately manufacture goods with a built in ‘Obsolescence’ or shelf-life. ‘Disposable’ items are more profitable since they must be replaced. Products which require regular maintenance generate more profit. The competitive nature of the game accelerates the rate at which we pollute our planet and destroy what would otherwise be infinitely renewable resources of food, air, water and energy.

Our monetary system (capitalism) rewards ‘scarcity’ of natural resources (or ‘stock’) and therefore denies the existence of a very real ‘abundance’ of renewable resources and green technologies in order to drive profits. We need to take a long, hard look at capitalism and the need for it to evolve. There is too much wrong with a system which rewards greedy, immoral behaviour. If we don’t go to the real root and branch of the problem now, we may never get the opportunity again.

The compelling documentary ‘The Corporation’ puts the corporation, the dominant institution of our time on the psychiatrist’s couch to ask “What kind of person is it?” http://www.thecorporation.com/

The Venus Project inspired Zeitgeist Movement has some incredible emprical data on the effects of these corporation’s behaviour on our societies, cultures and on our planetary resources. http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/The%20Zeitgeist%20Movement.pdf

We need to solicit a global response to the issues these films and movements raise. We need to be involved in deciding what new industry is created to employ our collective human potential. I propose the obvious, a real green industry.

Then when the greening is done (if it’s not too late), a ‘Happiness’ industry.

The power of the Government Whip’s office need’s to be cut back because MP’S should vote in the interest of their constituents first
but now they put interest of their pary before constituents

Why have the Politicians who used the tax payers money illegally squandering thousands maybe millions of £’s not been bought to trial? Are there different rules for them?
Why is so much of the taxpayers money spent on protecting the royals and their rich lifestyles? Old age pensioners who fought in the wars can’t even afford to pay for their heating etc., this is insane.
We need a deterant against crime. When a criminal takes another persons life, with goo behaviour they get out of prison sometimes after a few years, this is scandalous. Life in prison is too cushy as well.
If everyone had decent housing, education, decent wages we would live in a nicer Society, but the people that rule don’t give a damn.

Why are Southern Ireland having to have a second referendum in October?
Why can we not have a referendum?
Is this because we may vote NO???
Who makes the rules???
Where is our democracy??

Why do the police have so much paperwork to do?
Would they not be better employed patrolling our streets instead of doing so much paperwork. Can they not employ office workers to do some of their paperwork?

Does anyone from 38 Degrees intend to make this a discussion by actually replying to/commenting on contributor’s posts?!

Britain will never be truly democratic until we make the people sovereign – and that means getting rid of of the Crown and all the powers that go with it.

Finite resources mean the infinite economic growth is impossible.
Will the Government acknowledge this and devise a way of living within our own means before we eat away at to much of the planet.

agree with Sam Cudsworth, where are you 38? How about a proper forum,…and some stat porn! Nothing’s gonna get this revolution revolving like some good old fashioned feedback….

Jon Kerslake, ‘finite resources’ would not be an issue if we were prepared to do more than just tinker with the capitalist system. We have the technology to sustain our atmosphere, energy, food and water (the ingredients for life) on earth infinitely. Fat corporations however are choosing to maintain the status quo, short term profits, cyclical consumption, long term instability/fiscal and environmental apocalypse.

Reigning in these psycopathic bastards will certainly involve making transparent corporate and industry lobbying in Government, but then without tackling the cause of the problem (capitalism itself) we’re not going to win the war.

How come Graham Smith has got a picture of himself up eh?

I think we need to do something that prevents people from continuing in public office when they move from one party to another during their term of office.
This happens at all levels of government.
Recent point is in East Lothian where two councillors elected in 2007 for the Lib Dems have since resigned from that party and joined the SNP. They’ve retained their place as Councillors and, what’s more been kept on in the Council Administration. The people who voted for them in both wards are now disenfranchised – they voted for a Lib Dem Councillor and now don’t have one.
There is no compulsion on people who do this to resign and seek re-election in their new party colours. I strongly feel this has to change, its not democratic.

Do you believe that all ex-servicemen and women should be treated equally in the recipt of service pensions and have no cut off date of 5th. April 1975

Im fedup being botherd when I drive anywhere, The cost of fuel! the cameras!! The private parking wardens that blight are towns and citys!!! the empty buses plying are roadsgoing places were nobody goes!!!! Why tax things rather than deal with real issues(work shy and so called sick, over 65s who spent all their wages now in recipt of housing bennifit thus reciving more of our tax than they could ever earn!) Please can we have some common sense from the nutters who run this place.

Decriminalise marijuana!

Number 10 e-petition

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Vitamins

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to oppose the adoption of the Codex Alimentarius (WHO/UN) proposals for restriction of the presently freely available herb/vitamin/mineral food supplements.

More details from petition creator

The principle of self medication with herbal/vitamin/mineral food supplements would be restricted to ‘prescription only’ status, if the Codex Alimentarius is applied in this country.

Since the NHS priorities are ill health diagnosis and treatment, the good health preservation that supplements provide will be inaccessible to the majority of our population and the cost to the NHS will increase, and the health of the population will decline.

Further Info
Codex Alimentairus is a law designed to hand over the control of natural remedies to the pharmaceutical giants. One more attempt to regulate us – with potentially dire consequences. Unless we take this last opportunity and act now we will not be able to buy vitamins or health/nutritional supplements without a doctor’s prescription – they will be banned from 31st December 2009.

You may think this can’t happen, you may think why haven’t I heard about this before. The reason is that there are vested interests, giant multinational pharmaceutical companies, and its not in their interest that you know about and oppose this. They and our lawmakers in Europe are banking on public apathy. Despite considerable pressure already exerted our government is still planning to implement this law – UNLESS THERE IS MASSIVE OPPOSITION IT WILL GO AHEAD.

Like many health and safety matters this was started with good
intentions, in 1962 by the United Nations, to establish international free trade foods but has become a major threat to our civil liberties and freedom of choice.

As the song says: YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’VE GOT TILL ITS GONE

Stuart, thanks for the heads up on the Codex Alimentairus situation. I am a herbalist and had no idea this was going on. To be honest I am speechless at present but I am sure I will find plenty to say about it on my blog.

Why does it say ‘Only people power can sort politics out’ on the 38 Degrees masthead. This is patently untrue. A million people marched through London in a protest against the Iraq war and the politicians simply ignored them. How long do you reckon it will be before 38 Degrees can present a petition to Dowing Street with a million signatures on it? And even if you did, what makes you think they would take a blind bit of notice?
The only time the ordinary citizen’s opinion counts is election time and, as the old saying goes, if voting changed anything they would have banned it long ago.
No, the only way to get anything changed is through the law courts. Heather Brooke found this out the hard way after years of fighting to get the Freedom of Information Act to apply to MP’s expenses. We need to see these thieves prosecuted individually – it’s the only way to purge the system.
This is the action 38 Degrees should be striving to achieve. We need a strong campaign in the knowledge that, at the end of it, we will have got something done. Many citizens acting together has a fine ring to it, but it is a hollow ring. You must make up your minds whether you want to bandy empty slogans about or actually be an effective agent of change.

I would like to see action to cut the cancer out of our public bodies and other institutions.
By cancer, I mean the insidious Common Purpse Graduates, who are responsible for much of the wrecking of Britain, and the nauseating Political Correctness spouted by Council CP employees.
I advise all who read this to visit:
CPexposed website, Stop Common Purpose, and DWPcorruption.
Inform yourselves about this dangerous marxist organisation, which is infiltrating many areas of government, media and public services, doing things for the Greater Good.

i have to agree with david hunter in todays goverment words alone wont make much difference alone if twinned with action we can make a huge difference

I would like to see a campaign against the people who try to destroy our economic climate. The people against progress.

The campaigners against D.Trump
Do they look at the big picture, do they see a future for Aberdeen. These same people went against our Western route, the Airport expansion and now D.Trump.
His course will bring much needed jobs and money into the area.
I am also against the politicians that voiced there opinion rather than that of the constituents the are meant to represent.
Aberdeen needs progress, Aberdeen needs jobs.
D,Trump is not here to destroy he is here to enhance. I would be affected by this and i welcome what could be the biggest tourist attraction Aberdeen have seen in a long time.

N Fraser

There may be a campaign somewhere but it isn’t very effective, for the continuing availability of tungsten lightbulbs.

Hang on, I hear you saying, but aren’t we all trying to go green? Yes, indeedy, but for some of us, going green has to take other forms as we are light sensitive and the replacement ‘energy saving’ bulbs give us: rashes, migraines, nausea, seizures, dizziness, etc. I want people to use energy saving bulbs whereever it makes sense, which for most people is everywhere, but I also want for my own workplace and my home still to have access to tungsten, without which I shall be in candlelight or daylight alone.

Think about it – even then those people like me (and there are thousands, tens of thousands with Mears Irlen Syndrome, Lupus, Migraine, and other light-sensitive/flicker-sensitive diseases) will struggle with public spaces, other people’s houses, shops and offices, etc. At least give us the opportunity to take bulbs with us so we can sit in comfort, instead of banning even their import (so we can’t even go abroad ourselves and bring back our own stocks). Aren’t we entitled to our health and well-being?

38-degrees, please take up this cause. It seems counter-intuitive and I (along with many others) am not arguing against energy saving in principle (in fact I’m all for being as green as I can be in other ways), just looking for the right to continue with the only light source that my eyes/brain can handle.

DEFRA is the department handling this. They seem to think that people with these conditions can make do with lights that have a double layer of cover which reduces their ultra-violet spectrum. But for some of us, UV is not the (only) problem, it is the on-off nature of the power source (exactly what makes it energy saving). Ie it is not a continuously burning light like tungsten, but a pulse. It is the pulse that affects my brain, even though most people cannot see it. While some of the new lights are slightly better than others (ie can be tolerated for longer) all affect most of us.

Imagine never being able to relax sitting in your own home, but finding your mind swimming, eyes pressured, head splitting and gradually becoming nauseous, then your muscles freezing up and finding yourself unable to walk straight or read, losing your memory and eventually being in this state perpetually, having mini-brain seizures from time to time – all just from sitting in your own front room with the light on. DEFRA has no idea. We need to make sure people with this range of diseases are able to access the light sources they need to stay healthy. Please help.

I think David Hunter is right…and I fear even sites such as these do little else than perpetuate the illusion that they will make a difference. like the radio 4 today programme, they pretend to tackle hard issues head on, but really are just part of an elaborate game that actually serves to maintain the status quo. I have decided to unsubscribe.

Don’t do it, Desmond! We need intelligent people on board, people who can see through the game. We also need 38 Degrees . (Have you seen the other political blogs? They are dismally puerile and filthy.) What we and supporters like Neocoyo (3rd Sept.) must do is to convince the powers that be at 38 Degrees (Hello!) that a campaign to get as many MPs as possible in a court of law is the only effective way of reforming this parliament. When you are up in front of a judge the game stops.
The composition of Parliament is the bedrock of democracy. This is where everything begins – from seeking an autonomous Palestinian state to Trident submarines to tungsten lightbulbs. A chamber full of ego-driven thieves is unlikely to make the right choices for us. If there was another way I would gladly subscribe to it, but there is’nt! If we could get just one MP in court it would terrify the living bejasus out of the whole pack of them. But it must happen before the next general election, so lets get going!

I’m campaigning for economic reform proposing a paradigm which places humans before debt based on abstract numbers – a people-centered economic development approach.

We function as a business with a primary social objective and have spent 10 years engaged in activism in Eastern Europe which started with sourcing a microfinance initiative in Russia. Following on in Ukraine we’ve campaigned on behalf of disabled children in institutions described as “Death Camps for Children” and for economic intervention in the form of a ‘Marshall Plan’ to end the vicious cycle of poverty and corruption.

Over a month ago I asked aloud whether anyone from 38 Degrees was going to actually participate in the discussions in their blog. I see that the answer – though not from anyone at 38 Degrees – is a resounding ‘no’.

When I write to my MP – yes, one of those terrible people who aren’t accountable to us – I at least (always) get a reply…

I had really hoped that 38 Degrees would be a new kind of inclusive campaigning group but there’s no dialogue and just tired online petitions (when have they achieved anything?!).

Come on 38 Degrees, prove me wrong!

Hi Sam,

Just to reassure you, the small 38 Degrees staff team do all read the blog constantly. We also read all the facebook comments, and all the comments on things like our petition forms, polls, or the NHS personal stories people offered. We spend a lot of time looking at what 38 Degrees members think, because it’s only by all working together in a way that works for thousands of us that we can have an impact – listening is critical.

I guess we haven’t been replying on the blog that much because it feels like a member-led space and it’s useful for us to simply watch what people are saying rather than coming back on everything – if we intervened all the time wouldn’t there be a risk that this would mean staff shaping the debate more? It’s early days and we’re still learning what works best and what people want – maybe we’ve not got the balance right here yet.

As for petitions never acheiving anything, I think the thing that makes a difference is lots of people coming together in a strategic way to push for change in a sustained way, and petitions are an important part of that. Our first petition on a Recall Law, which we delivered to Party Leaders back in July, helped to drive Recall onto the political agenda – that’s a great achievment for all of us who signed it, but it’s not enough on it’s own, and when parliament returns in October we’ll be looking for new opportunities to push forward on Recall. Our Iraq Inquiry Petition landed on the desks of every MP on the day of a crucial vote, and we had feedback that it played an important part in persuading the government to accept hte inquiry should be in public – though we still need to be watchful to make sure they keep their word. Our “stand up for the BBC” campaign, still only a week old, has already attracted the attention of Number 10 and been welcomed by the National Union of Journalists – but we’ll need to follow up with back bench MPs if we’re going to stop “top-slicing” being included in the Queen’s Speech.

As well as signing petitions thousands of us have contacted MPs directly, communicated to our friends about campaigns, shared our personal stories about the NHS, and taken part in polls about what we should do next. Definitely over time though we should be thinking about different tactics and ways of campaigning – and the more of us there are (21,000 today and rising!) the more powerful the campaigning tactics we choose will be.

Another thing a few people have mentioned is that some of the more interactive features of the web site, like the blog and comments on polls, feel a bit hidden and could be better integrated in the site. We’ve taken this on board and are working on improvements so that the blog is more visible etc – all that should be ready in the next few months.

So, there’s a rare comment from me…what do other people think, should me, Hannah, Johnny and Nina be commenting on the blog more?

cheers,
David

It seems to me that the campaign to ‘stand up for’ the BBC is completely counterproductive. The idea that a petition to the government that aims to ‘protect the BBC from unfair criticism’ is in itself fundamentally undemocratic. There is much to criticise about the BBC – the blatant agendas, the substitution of news fact for manufactured bathos and false outrage, the wholesale regurgitation of prepackaged PR releases as news, etc. Where would you draw the line that marks fair from unfair? Fair is a playground word. Only children and immature adults complain that the world isn’t fair.

To ‘protect’ the BBC from criticism raises it above reproach and beyond accountability. It’s own so-called access programming already does that, by placing the public in an inferior position, patronising them shamelessly and always (and I mean absolutely ALWAYS) having the final word in any debate. The fact, like most other broadcasters, the BBC lapses into the lazy interpretation of ‘balance’ as a manufactured false dichotomy of one ‘for’ one ‘against’, trivialises and oversimplifies most serious issues beyond rational debate and into verbal jousts.

There is no denying that Murdoch’s hypocrisy should be combatted, but not by turning the BBC into some sort of sacred cow. It should be combatted by petitioning the government to take action against Murdoch’s media empire and attacking his market dominance. Of course, that would be to ask all the political parties to bite the hand that feeds them.

Bottom line – The BBC used to be trusted…. it no longer is.

As believers in the power of the people. we feel this is a brilliant site.
What we, guardians of the green and lovely spaces would like to see is a return to the ideals of the past when politicians and the people understood the necessity of keeping Green Belts safe from urban sprawl and enacted The Green Belt laws.
Presently, many of the remaining green belts are under threat in England & Wales by greedy developers and landowners who see a way to turn a huge profit at the expense of the environment and… the people!
No nation can claim sovereignty if it relies on another (or many) nation(s) for its food. Our concern is if these green belts are used to build new housing, huge stadiums and retail businesses, then where will food be produced if the UK finds itself in a food shortage?
Unfortunately, the present govt. seems hell bent on using this invaluable land to profit those who can build upon it, with the approval of DEFRA and its head, Hillary Benn. Is this some plot to eliminate the British farmer?
At the end of the day, it is the people who loose the most, whether that be wild green spaces, or the knowledge that if food production becomes a necessity, then local farmers can help alleviate any shortage.
It would be a boon if 38 Degrees would help to stop these short-sighted proposals and assist in keeping Green Belts just that…GREEN!

I cannot believe the comments made by N Fraser (September 3). Do they honestly think that our local community will see any of the money generated by Donald Trump’s plans? If he had any interest in our local community, would he have changed the name of Menie House, a name which dates back to the 18th Century, to something he prefered?! By doing this he shows complete disregard for the history of the area!

I’d also like to inform N Fraser that i’m totally against Donald Trumps plans, however i strongly believe we need a WPR and an extension to Aberdeen airport (including a rail link to it!)

With regards to it being a tourist attraction, if you are nieve enough to think that any visitors to area will be able to afford to play on this course, i think you are very mistaken.

Need i also remind people of the environmental impact of this development. Although many people do not care about the welfare of many bird and animal species in this area, i do and i think it’s disgusting that this issue was simply swept aside and very little consideration was given to it. You say Donald Trump is not here to destroy, that’s exactly what he’d be doing!

Why are 38 degrees supporting the BBC. The BBC is as corrupt and selfish as any other media organisation – the difference? we are taxed to support them!
They are spoilt and outdated with their hands out waiting for their next fortune to be handed over.
They are not ethical in their practices, remuneration and accountability and a news and entertainment organisation should not be supported by a ‘serious’ lobby group.
Remove the BBC support from your pages please, you seem both influenced and pressured from others. This is not a conventional political issue, it is subjective and as such makes 38 degrees severely compromised.

The good old Telegraph hit the expenses cats again this weekend and for good reason if our folks are dying whilst they feather their nests. I’d like to see an extra campaign running to see who gets what from which lobbyists as I’m sure that this would reveal as scandalous an abuse of privilege as their expenses.

I would also ask that you drop the current campaign to “support or protect the BBC”

The BBC’s actions for a long time now have been questionable, and they need to be held to account – not be protected and deemed to be above criticism.

If you want a petition about the BBC start one which strives to limit the salaries it pays employees. The monopoly money figures paid, at our expense, is at the core of it’s bad judgement and loss of direction.

My idea for a campaign is a revamp of the criminal justice system. At this moment our prisons are overcrowded with non-violent inmates whose crimes have been generated through either addiction or poverty or both. THe prisons are currently just a training school for criminals. The overcrowding means that help is not being given to those who really need it. Also the most dangerous criminal are being given reduced sentences and being released back into the community although the danger they pose to that community remains unabated. I propose that people who commit non-violent crimes should should become economically productive as well as being rehabilitated. For example our communities are being flooded on a regular basis and prisoners could become an important resource to repair and shore up vulnerable localities. Prisoners are bored and largely unoccupied, and it would be a far more productive and esteem-building use of their time to help repair and improve communities that they have harmed. The current community service scheme is ineffective and has not been shown to reduce crime. Day-release from secure accommodation for important work would ensure that low-level criminals would neither be free to commit more offences, nor would they be spending all their time being trained in more effective ways of committing crimes by by higher tariff offenders. A healthy lifestyle is the best way to recover from substance misuse issues and depression rather than being locked up for many hours at a time. Several evenings each week could be spent on rehabilitation issues with a view to prisoners being able to find and keep a job, live a law-abiding life and become emotionally more stable and self-motivated.
Prison should be reserved for those who pose a risk to the community such as sex offenders and those who commit serious acts of violence.

IT IS people pressure that makes a difference, taking individuals through the courts presupposes they have commited a crime and we know that MP’s rarely do that – they don’t need to, they stick to the self made, self regulating rules! The rules that allow them to take pointless trips abroad at our expense while adding no value! They do not have to report to the public any work undertaken, they are trusted! Did God create two species of human, one- the public who can’t be trusted and have to have a contract of employment and one- the MP’s who can be trusted and have no employment contract ?

So Joanna Alhallak thinks that people power makes a difference – she thinks that government policies can be changed by petitions. Okay, name one! The million march on London stopped the Iraq war dead in it’s tracks, didn’t it? It is risible to read the self-congratulatory piece in 38 Degrees on Gordon Brown’s U-turn about whether or not to hold the inquiry into that war in public. It is far more likely that he did not know of the petition’s existance – petitions with more signatures on them are handed into Downing Street EVERY DAY!
As for her blandly confident announcement that it would be a waste of time to drag MPs through the courts, she doesn’t know what she is talking about. She doesn’t know because she has not bothered to find out the facts. The primary rule in the Green Book (the book of guidance for the claiming of MPs allowances) is that all claims must be ‘wholly, exclusively and necessarily’ incurred for the purpose of performing an MP’s parliamentary duty. Let’s take an MP (not at random) and check this out. Let’s take Keith Vaz. Mr.Vaz lives in Stanmore, Middlesex, a 35 minute tube journey away from Westminster. But such an crushing daily trek is obviously too much for the delicate Mr.Vaz, so he required a flat in central London – which he duly obtained, largely at our expence. Receiving tens of thousands of pounds from us with this little wheeze, however, was nowhere near enough for the enterprising Vaz. He proceeded to buy a house (in Leicester!) which he filled with furniture (£16,000 worth, and guess who paid for it) before switching his 2nd home designation back to the flat in Westminster to collect a few more grand. All ‘wholly, exclusively and neccssarily’ incurred in the pursuance of his parliamentary duties? Yeah,sure. Maybe Joanna Alhallak sees no point in charging Keith Vaz with fraud, but I do. There is not a jury in the country that would not send him down!
So let’s stop being so damn naive. These people are playing for keeps and they laugh at a few innocent (or just lazy) souls telling them what naughty boys and girls they have been. Ms.Alhallak is seemingly unaware of the irony in her own piece when she complains of MPs taking freebies to the South Pacific, long after the almighty row over their expenses. Yes, they are still at it! Imagine! And after all the fuss we have made about it, too! These people will cling on to their illegal priveleges like grim death. Their fingers must be prized off them in a court of law.

Good Morning Good People

Well meaning words like many on this site are fine, well intentioned and principled debate and airing of those views are fine too. However, in my experience they all too often lead to virtually nothing, the only exception being that more people possibly become better informed, but at the same time become even more frustrated by the fact that nothing is going to change.

Let’s take the recent MP’s expenses scandal, huge amounts of media coverage and some fist class debate, amongst the subjects discussed was changing the voting system from the current “first past the post” to proportional representation, which to my mind is an absolute and immediate must. But, what has happended, media interest has subsided, the political spin machine has diverted the nation’s attention to other matters, and Fuhrer Brown has announced that there will be “changes” to the voting system discussed in the next parliament.

Now, call me cynical if you so wish, but the expression “kicking it into the long grass” springs to mind. Political and establishment self interest dictates that the current first past the post system provides those in power with the simplest form of retaining control over the nation and that the two main (increasingly convergent) political parties always hold the reins of power.

A truly representative PR voting system would for the first time in this country, have the ability to create a truly representative democracy where the interests of all elements of society can be addressed. Unlike the current so called democracy, where the powers that be and vested interests stifle and consign genuine interests and concerns to the proverbial bin, never to be addressed again.

Our current democratic model theoretically allows free speech, luadable you may say, but it is of no use whatsoever having free speech if those in power are not required to listen or act, and with our current system this is the case, they do not have to listen, they do not have to act because they know that come what may the existing machine allows them to do virtually whatever they want, the invasion of Iraq being the perfect example.

A new voting system based upon PR, needs to be in place prior to the next general election, otherwise the encumbents will simply carry on as before. A PR system will not create a fragmented form of government, the British as a whole are a pragmatic nation and would not tip society over the edge, lemming like. A PR system would ensure that the current “job for life” and non-accountability of polititicans and civil service mandarins would come to an end and that the UK would benefit from being a true democracy, in every sense of the word.

It has to happen now, not be talked about for the next 25 years but be impemented immediately. If 38 degrees can achieve this then it will set itself apart from all other “activist” organisations and it will provide what this country has been crying out for, for over a thousand years.

And please, do not get me started on green issues, I cannot believe the short sighted self interest of those that oppose wind farms because it destroys their views, if advances such as wind farms are not taken up, there will be no views to be had, the entire world and it’s societies will degenerate into chaos within the next coupe of generations, if not sooner.

OK, 38 degrees, the ball is in your court, show that you are different from the rest (however well meaning), becuase to date no-one has really made a jot of difference. I am not advocating anarchy because every society requires governance, just not the governance that we have been putting up with so far.

I look forward to seeing real action on PR emanating from 38 degrees which changes the whole shape of our democracy, I look forward to seeing it happen now so that 60 million people can benefit now.

Should I hold my breath? Past experience says no, will 38 degrees be the catalyst that this country is desperate for?

IS IT SAFE?

HOW SAFE ARE THE VACCINES WHICH ARE MEANT KEEP US SAFE?

I am concerned at the Government and Department for Health’s reluctance to properly investigate the safety of vaccines which are being given to vulnerable people.

1. The soon to be launched Swine Flu vaccine has been proven to contain deadly toxins (mercury and squalene) linked to autism. Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis. Mercury is banned from all paediatric vaccines and there is no known safe limit in humans so why is this toxic heavy metal being used in a vaccine which will be given to at risk groups? Squalene is implicated in Gulf War Syndrome and is known to cause auto immune illnesses. Again, why is this included in a vaccine which will be given to over 11 Million Britons who are considered ‘at risk’, most of whom are already in compromised states of health. Is it a means of killing off the elderly and infirm and thereby negating their drain on the public purse of a cash-strapped government?

2. The tragic death of 14 year old Natalie Morton has raised more questions than have been answered about the safety of the HPV vaccine Cervarex. Why did the UK government and health agencies choose Cervarex over the more effective Gardasil which is used extensively around the world and has a proven track record of safety and effectiveness. Cervarex is not licensed in safety conscious Canada who opted for Gardasil.
If Natalie Morton’s death was attributable to cancer, why was she previously non symptomatic and why did she only die after the vaccine was administered?
Why have we not been told what had happened to the other girls who complained of being ill after receiving Cervarex?
Particularly in light of the death of Natalie Morton, why are these vaccines been issued to girls without any consideration to past medical history?
Why are these vaccines being issued to girls in a conveyor belt fashion in school sports halls, without privacy, questioning of medical history or without any interventional backup for anaphylaxis such as emergency crash drugs, defibrillators or resuscitation equipment which would be available in GP surgeries, community clinics or hospitals?

Again, I ask IS IT SAFE?

The two major political parties are now playing a ‘who can cut public expenditure most’ game in the run up to the next general election.

I would like to remind them that they are both responsible for the financial mess we are all in: the Tories for deregulating everything and New Labour for not having the guts to put it right.

Now we are all suffering, but those responsible have got off scot free. The bankers still have their silly big salaries and bonuses and the MPs their expenses and guaranteed pensions.

What happened to democracy? If I could get rid of the whole lot of them, I would. But I can’t.

The State Pension needs radical reform in order to make it fair to all. Politicians don’t tackle it is it’s tomorrows issue.

As well as being one of the lowest in the Western World, it is complex to understand and administrate and doesn’t account fairly for all sectors of the community. New announcements today promise more ‘tinkering’ but no strategy.

I believe we need to see a non party political body of skilled experts prepare recommendations which have…something that will have teeth rather than cost millions and get filed.

I know it’s tomorrow’s issue, but it will ultimately affect all of us as individuals and we have a right to influence how it is administered.

In reply to David Hunter (September 29):

I am all for the idea of presecuting MPs if this is at all possible. There is no doubt that the odious and right dis-honorable Keith Vas, and many others, acted dishonestly in their trousering of public money.

The real question is: have they broken the law? I know they have broken the ‘rules’ laid down regarding the claiming of ‘legitimate allowances’, but is this the same thing as breaking the law? If it is then what would be needed to bring a prosecution? Maybe in the form of a test case prosecution of one MP for starters? If this is possible, I for one would be happy to contribute something towards a fund to make it happen.

Good to hear from the 38degrees bods on the blog I think. Good reasoning re: allowing discussions to develop/not ‘shaping the debate’. It would be insightful to hear you guys’ opinions on the debates/issues being raised here. I personally would be interested to hear if anybody in the office saw zeitgeist yet? Awesome film…3rd part was the most unbelievable/terrifying…has anybody else heard about the whole tesco/RFID tech thing over here?

Brown’s Biased Corporation is def a bit of a duff campaign is the Beeb is as someone else put it here ‘no longer trusted’. (Is any media really still ‘trusted’ these days?).

b4 i go – To all the haters/apathetics/defeatists on this blog who don’t believe in people power – you guys just need to get up off your arses and start making yourselves a bit happier. Every single advancement humanity/society has made has been as a direct result of people power. It’s not some airy fairy hippy bullshit idea, it’s scientific fact check your (our) history.

Peace 38ers – VIVE LA REVOLUTION!!!

Hey, mr Babbs,…how about a campaign to fix Capitalism then? Proper root n branch reform!

Capitalism IS the least worst system,…so far. However, it still isn’t working for everybody, on the contrary…the system (as is) is making humanity become vain and greedy….constantly consuming crap, imho.

Surely all that is needed to fix it is the maintainenance of a strict, FAIR ratio between top and bottom earners? Such a methodology would still yield the benefits of capitalism (competitive marketplaces, tech innovations, better standards of living) without the ill side-effects (greed, corporate irresponsibility, over-consumption, wars).

National referendum to determine what is ‘fair’? I reckon 10:1 is probably about right, but then I’m sure there’ll be nuff rich c*nts arguing for 100:1!!

This is more like it – we have almost got a discussion going! I am glad that Jolly Roger is as eager as I am to see MPs prosecuted for fiddling their expenses, it is always encouraging to find an ally – especially one who is willing to contribute to the cause. I can only hope that his conjecture about whether the MPs actions constitute law-breaking will not make him infirm of purpose. The answer is, of course, yes, they have broken the law. Since the Green Book contains the only official statement on MPs expenses it follows that must comply with the rules within it. If this were not the case there would be no limit to what they could claim, and for what other reason have they all stated that their claims are within the guidelines. It would be a brave MP indeed who went to court with a defence declaring yes, he had broken the guidelines, but no, he had not broken the law. They have applied for, and received, money to which they knew they had no right. This is fraud. And, however amazing people seem to find this, the law of fraud applies to MPs just as it does to anyone else.

Another correspondant, calling himself Heavyman, urges all those who have written on the 38 blog opposing the ‘people power’ mantra to “get up off your arses”. Well, I think it was me who began the attempt to broaden your actions into litigation so I’m taking this personally. Heavyarse recommends that we check out our history where, apparently, we will find that”every single advancement” humanity has made has been “a direct result of people power”. Oh, yeah? Possibly the biggest demonstration (in Britain) of people power during the 20th century was the 1926 General Strike in support of the miners. After it was over the secular saint Winston Churchill (Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time) sent them back to work longer hours for less money. Result! Going farther back the Chartist Movement was tremendously popular and held massive demonstations. The most important demand of the Charter itself(published in 1838)was universal male suffrage. And when did this come along? Why in 1918! (Women had to wait another ten years.) We will draw a veil over the more recent march through London of a million (or was it two million) people in protest against the war in Iraq. Even Heavyarse must know how that one turned out.
The only occasion (that I can recall) when people power really worked was the civil rights movement in America, but no doubt a torrent of relevant cases will now come pouring in!

The way we vote has set the rules for politics. It’s left our MPs free to enjoy jobs for life in safe seats. It’s handed our governments massive majorities without any real mandate. And it’s left us, the voters, weak.

We’ve all seen what happens when you leave politicians to their own devices. Real change is needed, but just like the bankers, we can’t expect MPs to deliver when the old rules suit them so well.

At the next election we need the chance to cast our vote not just for a new parliament, but for a new kind of politics. We demand a referendum on a new voting system that really put voters back in the driving seat.

Politics is too important to be left to the politicians.

Political parties produce a manifesto before and election. Too often, once they get into power, the manifesto pledges get forgotten but lots of legislation finds its way onto the statute book that was never mentioned in a manifesto. This is totally undemocratic, as the people have had no chance to vote on these policies not in the manifesto.

I suggest that before any legislation is alowed to come into effect it must either have been published in the party’s manifesto, or a referendum has been carried out on the issue.

You ask:

“Are a new Recall Law to give voters the choice to sack their MP, home repossessions and stopping the BNP in the European Elections good places to start ?”

Why would you wish to stop the BNP ? While I fly no flag for this group, I recognise their right to exist and to put their ideas to the electorate. Agree with them or not …. we cannot have a democratic society while we are stopping any political grouping from putting their policies before the people.

I find it a bit patronising too, that you don’t think I have the intelligence to make a sensible decision myself without you having to help me by “stopping the BNP”.

I may disagree with what the BNP stands for, but I will defend their right to say it in a free and democratic society.

I also consider myself, and most other people, to be intelligent enough to make our own political decisions without outside interference. If you have a gripe about the BNP’s policies then engage them in debate and show them up in their true colours.

What you are suggesting, “stopping the BNP”, smacks of fascism and the actions of Hitler against any who disagreed with him.

Do not go down that road.

I’ve just submitted the following to egov’s No 10 petition site: I would welcome support from 38Degrees and its members if/when that petition is published on the site.

Ideally I’d also want 38Degrees to add this as a campaign item in its own right so that all MPs can be suitably informed of our opinions on such matters: these types of abuses of legal process through gagging injunctions are increasing significantly in number and should not be permitted to continue, however this particular issue is of greater significance than most others since it impinges directly on our right to know and monitor the activities of our representatives in The House.

****************************

The Guardian newspaper has today been served injunctions preventing it from reporting specific proceedings of The House..

The same orders also prevent it informing the public about who sought these orders or report which proceedings may not to be reported.

Such injunctions are an abuse of legal process and hard won principles by commercial litigants hiding their activities from appropriate public scrutiny.

Such abuses of the law should not be permitted to continue, and specifically not in the context of the activities of The House.

The public has an absolute right to know the activities of its representatives within The House and, in particular, it has the right to know the proceedings of The House within the chamber. The media at large should have a similar and absolute right to report those activities.

We request and petition that the freedom of the press and other media to report the proceedings of The House at all times be enacted into law.

I would like to see some positive action to ensure the financial institutions which happily grabbed at taxpayers money in the last 18 months or so, pay it back before the end of 2010. All the major party leaders are talking of public sector cuts (which will hurt the poor and lower paid the most) when what they should be doing is getting our money back. I have started a No. 10 petition to this effect should anyone wish to sign.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Bankpay/

My thanks to 38 Degrees for creating the campaign on the subject of Press Freedom.

May I also take this opportunity to point everyone at the matching egov petition, which can be found at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/PressFreedom/#detail

Where oh where to begin.
Top of the list must be…
We-the-people and politicians are of the very same stuff. Simply because at present it seems as if there is an ‘us and them’ divide we should not cater to it by requesting that ‘they’ do something for we-the-people. We must demand change and work for change at the ballot box of this upcoming election. Ignore the big three partys who think themselves the only option we have. Elect a local Independent, or turn our minds to the smaller party that has made headway in our constituency. “Vote for option 4 or more.”
If we had a penny for every promise that we have had from politicians that have come to nothing there would be no deficit.
We-the-people MUST cease to be polite and altrustic towards those slick messengers and take the role of government back into the hands of common folk for the common good in the Commons AND the second chamber..

I’m totally disgusted to read that Lloyds Bank is requesting another £5bn hand-out, which is actually likely to be given to them, no questions asked.

This at a time when Gordon Brown is planning horrific public service cuts, selling off assets & council houses.

When are we going to get our priorities straight? Campaign now please!

I totally agree Pip T. I have a petition at No.10 about this which you can sign if you like. You can see this from my facebook page as when I tried to post a link to it here it didn’t get past moderation. . Look forward to more signatures.

Curb supermarket spread with stringent planning law. Enough is enough. There will be a monopolisation of food production and consumption in the foreseeable future. We need to promote small business, back the economic viability of town centres, invest in markets. nurture local identity in all it’s forms. Supermarkets invade, suck out the economy and life of a town and replace it with inconvenient queuing, lack of choice, corporate dullness and bland anonymity. Vibrant town centres are social and economic necessities and are decimated by supermarkets.

My petition to make the banks repay the money they happily grabbed at after they ruined our economy reads:

As the financial institutions seem stabilised and some banks are now generating huge profits the government should ensure all the money lent to the banking and finance sectors during the difficult economic period should be repaid, in full, by Dec 31st 2010.This should mean minimal public service cuts which will almost certainly effect the poor and disadvantaged more than the rest of the general population. The banks we own a stake in should also be mandated to lend money to the public at reasonable rates and make borrowing possible again.

Please sign it if you feel strongly enough.

Mr Hunter.

I am supposed to be the juvenile here, you are showing me up with your adolescent twitterings! I am wholeheartedly behind any ‘broadening of action to litigation’ – I just happen to have a gripe with defeatists and apathetics who disparage our greatest defensive weapon – ourselves. I assume that as you proceed to concede the civil rights movement in America and predict a ‘torrent of relevant cases pouring in’ that at least your subconscious accepts the validity of my statement. There is hope for you yet.

I attended the march our Government ignored in 2003. I am also well aware that in addition to the UK general strike of 1926, the miner’s strikes of 1912, ’72, ’74, ’84-’85 ostensibly achieved nothing. These examples of human solidarity have indelibly entered the UK’s popular culture and consciousness, as have more recent incidents, such as the shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes, the murder of Ian Tomlinson, the ‘policing’ of the G20, the Kingsnorth demonstration and countless other examples of our Government making complete totalitarian cunts of themselves.

I do not believe that these incidents are evidence of hopelessness, or of our collective impotence, rather they are examples of how terrifying the concept of People Power is to those who value money over humanity. This is not to say that every single time we come together the forces of darkness will be quickly and easily vanquished – far from it (believe it or not, I am not completely naive). Put simply (for you): working together is our only chance at ‘winning’ (a fact that you have already accepted on some level as you are calling on ‘people power’ to broaden 38 degrees actions to litigation…).

Finally before I go, a short pop quiz for you Mr Hunter: Which historical figure said:

‘First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win’ ?

Answers on a postcard to:

The Heavycave
Nowhere,
Imaginationland.

Oh and yes, (much more importantly) mr Neuschul is bang on with his egov petition, I’ll have to track it down myself though.

38 degrees moderators, people should be allowed to post such links. Restricting their being posted is on one level, ironic and amusing in this context. In all seriousness though, this type of restrictive, controlling behaviour is precisely what i spend my time railing against. We must resist Big Brother with all our will.

Solidarity,

HEAVYARSE

Tony Brown Talks about the ‘Why tax things rather than deal with real issues(work shy and so called sick, over 65s who spent all their wages now in recipt of housing bennifit thus reciving more of our tax than they could ever earn!) ,

Well I guess I am one of them. Hit by a drunk driver at 8am lost my home, my business and now have to spend hours just laying around or sitting in a wheelchair. What is the answer to pepole like me, let me and my family starve to death on the strret? our just put me down like we would a sick dog(and no I don’t think puting a sick dog down is always the answer)

I have tried for 7 years to do something positive, I am a local councilor, an unpaid director of finace of a CIC a OU Student. Non of the things I do can I receive Payment. I am now setting up a CIC to try to help others get out of the ‘benefits trap’ and be able to work from home.

In doing so I found a scheme that could help many others, but it needs a few adjustments. The scheme is called ‘Trail Trade ‘

1 It needs to be available across the country.
2 It needs extending to allow people longer to get started.

So you want to help, how about asking your MP to press for an ameded verson giving a person 2 – 3 years on the scheme rather the 3 – 6 months. It is something we can use to help ourselves, or maybe I should just be happy with my lot and await the final injection.

Steve Blake
http://www.designedbysteve.net

Like a lot of folks I would just love to get really radical and tear down the whole decayed capitalist system. But In truth I think that if we are to really turn things around, then you have to take the mass of ordinary people with you and that approach is just plain frightening to most people. Another thing about human nature that is eminently true is the ‘Animal Farm’ syndrome – those that overthrow tend to be worse dictators than those they have replaced.

Good point(s) Karin.

We are decades (if not generations) away from seriously tackling the problems capitalism presents us today. There are also serious risks involved, but the risk of not making some well overdue repairs may supersede them. (i.e. it may be tolerable to suffer a brutal Orwellian dictatorship if that dictatorship is implenting the changes necessary to reverse the destruction of our planet).

I believe it is this mentality which the NWO intend to capitalise on in their quest to centralise the power structures of the earth. As terrifying as this could be, it could equally also be the key to solving many of the problems we face. If not all of them, (providing they’re not bloodthirsty space lizards…).

The RFID implants/global ID databases/one world currency COULD make everybody on the planet safer, happier and healthier. They could also be used to subjugate the earth’s population to a nightmareish 1984 type scenario. Currently we know very little about the NWO’s agenda. For all we know, they could have evolved into cuddly enlightened buddhists with respect for the sanctity of human life…possibly….

Anyhoo…38′s latest campaign to sue the Government over the RBS bailout is ballsy – avaaz are making a massive noise pre: Copenhagen and Stop the War’s march on the 24th may have a bigger turnout than 2003. All precisely the sorts of action which let UKGOV.plc and NWOcorp know they’re gonna have a fight on their hands if they don’t clean up their acts.

Has anybody on the blog/in the 38 office heard about the Georgia Guidestones? Now that is some fascinating shit…

http://www.radioliberty.com/stones.htm

Steve, – sorry I missed your post above Karin’s (tiny monitor here). Big up yourself for being a strong-willed, resilient, determined human being. People like you who have overcome adversity are an inspirational example to the rest of society. If you’ve made it 7 years and achieved all this you owe it to yourself, your family and the rest of us not to succumb to the needle. (With respect – it’s your life obviously, I’m not dictating to you, just speaking my mind….) that was an emotional post bro…

Stay strong.

As Sam Spade told Miss O’Shaunessy … I’ll say this one more time and then I’ll leave it alone. Petitions are pointless (especially internet petitions) and people power is an oxymoron. In the town of Eastbourne a couple of months back the Tory councillors who run the place received a petition of 20,000 signatures from the citizens. They ignored it. Now, if they can ignore such a petition in EASTBOURNE, what are the chances of altering government policy with a 38 Degrees (internet) petition with many fewer signatures. There is a method of bringing MPs to book – by charging them with fraud in a criminal or civil court – but you have made it perfectly clear that you have not got the stomach for direct action.
So I’m off, if only to get away from the rantings of Heavyarse (what is he on?) who seems determined to take over the entire blog.
Goodbye, and good luck.

With apologies for only having read the last posting:

So David Hunter, do you throw your hands up in despair and walk away?

You’re right about the inadequacy of the current situation so something needs to be done – and I back “Direct Democracy” – local & binding decisions. Works in places from Switzerland to California and clearly Eastbourne needs it!

Internet petitions and networks have a place in motivating action – but only if people also get in on the ground and actively start to influence their political parties locally.

What does your local MP say on direct democracy? Suggest you get in there with who you want to see win at the next election and get some pressure on/campaign locally.

Libdems – obviously for electoral reform and the only one of the 3 major (English) parties where candidates are selected by the local party and the manifesto thrashed out by party members at conference.

Labour being vague so put the pressure on….Tories have direct democracy on their policy list but will their funders let them? (takes a load of power away from big business, lobbyists and national newspapers – in fact perhaps direct democracy should be campaigned for under the slogan “Free the Westminster 635!”)

I agree with everything Karen said.

Hunter, you really are an idiot, – I’ve already said I agree fully with your calls for direct action/litigation as have others on this blog which I’m ‘taking over’ (wtf does that mean btw!!?). What have you got against the idea of people coming together to collectively change our world for the better by pooling their ideas/opinions/perspectives/? How can you actually believe that ‘people power is an oxymoron’ while arguing for us to collectively take our corrupt MPs to court? What are YOU on buddy? (My guesses are lager, football, porn and the typical bellend’s favourite, ‘motors’ – let me know how I did, I’m interested, really!….).

imho the primary success of any petition is that it gives the people who signed it (and everyone else) an idea of how many people agree with their perspective. Petitions are a powerful rallying tool and a broadside for the recipient, even if they are not always ‘succesful’ they are always effective.

Hunter is right to point out that petitions are largely ‘ignored’. He is incorrect however, to assume this is a reason not to sign/get involved.

“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” (Dave, it was GHANDI!…google him, fascinating guy…).

Our MPs are probably preparing for the ‘fight’ bit now…as they’ve already ignored and ridiculed us. Time to suck it up people.

‘Heavyarse’ raotflmao. Now, how to imaginatively twist ‘Hunter’ as a retort..aaah…Cun…..no….hang on,…this is immature and unproductive….deep breath…..ok.

Peace 38ers.

—end rant—

Why don’t we campaign for Democracy, to replace the kleptocracy under which we are now ruled.

Politics of the future

The Politics of the future, should consist of an ongoing vote for we the people who set the mandate for our governance and the politicians are there just to act on the will of the people.
A true Democracy where we the people get to vote on every important issue that affects our lives, both locally and nationally.
Technology now allows everyone access to the internet and through other media and the internet, we the people would be aware of any decisions to be made on our behalf and have the opportunity to vote for or against that decision.
All of us would become politicians and all of us would have a say in the running of the Country.

No doubt, handing power to people will at first bring about some unique problems, but over time when everyone finds that working towards a better future for everyone is so much better than trying to take advantage for short term gain, which would in a true Democracy be ultimately self defeating.

Politicians at all levels would be just one of we the people representing the wishes of the people, there would be no parties controlling things for the benefit of themselves and their followers and pushing through policies that are detrimental to we the people.

True Democracy governance by the people for the people

It is time for a bloodless revolution, time to rid ourselves of the party system of politics all of whom claim to work for the people. History shows this claim to be a lie.
Anyone can be the catalyst for change, talk to your friends and workmates and see if they think they could run the Country better than the politicians. I think the answer will be a resounding YES.

It is time our politicians really represented the wishes of the people, true Democracy is our right it is now time to fight for that right, do not vote for the career politicians or the party politicians, if there is no one else available then put yourself forward and join with like thinking people.

for all governments to ensure every citizen has food and shelter

free from oppression

as their primary tenet

a department of peace