My Own Policies
Posted: Fri 7 May, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, News, Politics, Thoughts 2 Comments »Thank the lord, we’re finally through all the election guff. At the time of writing this, I don’t know who’ll have won the election.
I do think, though, that a plainly-put list of policies and ideas would’ve been a far better idea than the wanky ethereal guff spouted in most of the manifestos this year. And I reckon that if a party had put forward the following list, they’d have had a pretty good chance at getting in. I could be wrong, but I figure it’d be a set of policies I’d vote for, anyway.
The policies I’d put in are (in no particular order, but as they occur to me) :
- Banning HGVs and coaches from the outside lane of all multi-carriageway roads. That would mean HGVs and coaches could overtake etc on three-lane motorways by using the inner two lanes, but wouldn’t be able to do so on dual carriageways and two-lane motorways like most of the M11
- Reducing fuel duty
- Reducing our energy imports by increasing our nuclear-power capacity and promoting green energy
- Making Inland Revenue into an efficient organisation
- Local authority management reductions
- NHS improvements – removing managers, increasing “front-line” staff
- Speaking plainly and clearly rather than evasive waffle
- [Added later, because I forgot] – Electoral reform, making it law that everyone eligible has to vote, but there is a “None of the above” option on the ballot.
- [Added later, because I forgot] – Enforcing use of fuel duty/road tax to maintain/upgrade transport and roads
- [Added later, because I forgot] – Looking at re-nationalising train service, along with investment from the above point to upgrade rail network/rolling stock
How would this be paid for? By (to a greater or lesser degree) :
- Increasing tax for earners of >£100,000
- Chasing non-dom non-taxpayers
- Increasing VAT by 2.5% to 20% – when it was dropped from 17.5 to 15% everyone said it was a piss-poor reduction – so will they complain if it increases by the same?
- Improving efficiency – not by cutting costs, but by improving efficiency and reducing red tape and crap
There’s probably other bits I could add to this, but it seems like a pretty good list so far.
Mind you, I fully expect to be ripped apart on some of these by certain readers. 🙂
Well I agree with all of them…
And I regularly see HGVs illegally in the 3rd lane on the M25 and A12 and M11 3-lane bits. The few traffic police that there are just ignore them.
As for HGVs overtaking on the 2-lane bit of motorways, especially on hills, when they can’t, so take 10 minutes, when I travlled around more (so was more stressed by it) I used to love playing revenge games on them afterwards – get in front once they get back in, and drop right down to about 40, so they’re left floundering before speeding off into the distance 😉
plain speaking is a winner for me. Also am i the only person that thought paxman came across as a complete idiot on the bbc election programme