Your top ten policies.

[srb7677]

Perhaps Plymouth could stop spending 8% of your money on helping people keep well and stay healthy (more than they spend on rubbish disposal and parks) and divert it to providing free bus passes.

https://new.plymouth.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2022-03/Council_Tax_Leaflet_2022.pdf

Helping people keep well and stay healthy is kind of important.

The biggie there is adult social care which swallows up 42 percent of the council's budget, whilst only 1 percent is spent on building housing when the doorways of our city centres are littered with the homeless.

Clearly, funding for free busses for children needs to be decided and mandated and funded at national government level as it is with pensioners or councils simply wont do it, especially Tory ones.

[Barry]

It is also grossly regressive and unfair with poorer people paying substantial chunks of their income whilst the better off pay vastly smaller percentages. Even a mansion only attracts three times the council tax of a bedsit.

I myself working all the hours I can get pay about 6% of my total take home pay in council tax alone. If I earned less the percentage would be far higher.

A tax should be levied on individuals, not the property they live in which results in some people paying nothing at all, but should also take some account of differential incomes.

As for concessionary bus passes, they were never free here in Plymouth for schoolchildren, and are now not subsidised at all. Parents are expected to find £900 a year per child for a bus pass. This is unacceptable extortion when school attendance is mandatory and socially a necessity for the welfare of the child for the rest of his or her life.

Perhaps Plymouth could stop spending 8% of your money on helping people keep well and stay healthy (more than they spend on rubbish disposal and parks) and divert it to providing free bus passes.

https://new.plymouth.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2022-03/Council_Tax_Leaflet_2022.pdf

[srb7677]

This is just rearranging the local tax system and would be costly to administrate. The current system works, so don't fix it. It also encourages people to downsize when they stop earning, freeing up larger houses for those who really need them.

It is also grossly regressive and unfair with poorer people paying substantial chunks of their income whilst the better off pay vastly smaller percentages. Even a mansion only attracts three times the council tax of a bedsit.

I myself working all the hours I can get pay about 6% of my total take home pay in council tax alone. If I earned less the percentage would be far higher.

A tax should be levied on individuals, not the property they live in which results in some people paying nothing at all, but should also take some account of differential incomes.

As for concessionary bus passes, they were never free here in Plymouth for schoolchildren, and are now not subsidised at all. Parents are expected to find £900 a year per child for a bus pass. This is unacceptable extortion when school attendance is mandatory and socially a necessity for the welfare of the child for the rest of his or her life.

[Barry]

Quoting my original ten, I think I will come up with another ten....

1. Abolish the council tax and replace with a local tax based upon income in some way, a tax upon individuals and not buildings.

2. Levy NI contributions at the same rate for all income groups and remove the NI exemption for pensioners so that the better off ones make the same contributions as the rest of us. Use the proceeds to increase NHS spending and funding for adult social care.

3. Introduce a universal basic income for all, funded by a land value tax and taxes on unearned income.

4. Abolish the tv license and fund the BBC out of general taxation.

5. Decriminalise drug use and treat it as a health issue rather than a criminal one.

6. Fuel duty rebates for those who need their cars for work, or to get to work, or to get around at all if they live in rural areas.

7. Cyclists should have to use cycle lanes where these are provided instead of the road by law.

8. Bring local bus services back into public control, with subsidies to make them cheaper and more comprehensive  to provide viable, reliable, and economic alternatives to cars.

9. Grant the Scots an independence referendum.

10. Free local bus travel for schoolchildren and students.

1. This is just rearranging the local tax system and would be costly to administrate. The current system works, so don't fix it. It also encourages people to downsize when they stop earning, freeing up larger houses for those who really need them.
2. No, scrap National Insurance and put it on general taxation, which will helpt to reflect the true level of taxation in this country, which is very high.
3. So this would be another property tax? Sheesh.
4. Agreed.
5. No. Perhaps with cannabis, but not with narcotics and class A drugs. There is already help available through the NHS for addicts. Addiction is really destructive and needs to be reduced in society.
6. Not sure.
7. No. Some cycle lanes are not fit for purpose and have obviously been designed by car drivers. Cyclists know which cycle lanes abruptly end at junctions and avoid them.
8. Yes, I agree, and make them accessible to everyone with a bus stop within 5 minutes walk of their home.
9. The Scots had one and decided to remain in the UK. I don't mind them having another, but the SNP should pay for it.
10. Doesn't this already exist? Don't they get concessionary bus passes?

[johnofgwent]

Quoting my original ten, I think I will come up with another ten....

1. Abolish the council tax and replace with a local tax based upon income in some way, a tax upon individuals and not buildings.

2. Levy NI contributions at the same rate for all income groups and remove the NI exemption for pensioners so that the better off ones make the same contributions as the rest of us. Use the proceeds to increase NHS spending and funding for adult social care.

3. Introduce a universal basic income for all, funded by a land value tax and taxes on unearned income.

4. Abolish the tv license and fund the BBC out of general taxation.

5. Decriminalise drug use and treat it as a health issue rather than a criminal one.

6. Fuel duty rebates for those who need their cars for work, or to get to work, or to get around at all if they live in rural areas.

7. Cyclists should have to use cycle lanes where these are provided instead of the road by law.

8. Bring local bus services back into public control, with subsidies to make them cheaper and more comprehensive  to provide viable, reliable, and economic alternatives to cars.

9. Grant the Scots an independence referendum.

10. Free local bus travel for schoolchildren and students.

#1 caused a few riots back in the day, did it not.

#10: If you REALLY want to kill private transport ownership, why not go the whole hog, increase income tax to 40 to 50% to cover the upcoming tax losses, make petrol and diesel sales to private individuals illegal and make buses and trains free. You can then re-introduce fares six months later when the riots have died down. You will of course utterly exterminate the economy but the left don't really care about its existence do they.

The problem with buses is not the cost but the non availability.

Right now in Wales, one in five of us have a free bus pass and could get a one third off rail travel card.

But no 60 year olds are giving up their driving licences.

Why ?

Because there are no fucking buses at the times we need them

[srb7677]

This thread is an opportunity for any members to put forward the top ten policies they would most like to see implemented, in no particular order.

Here's mine...

1. Nationalise the water, gas, electricity, and railway companies.

2. Abolish university tuition fees and replace with a graduate tax, to be levied on all who went to university, including freeloading politicians like Blair.

3. Rent control and security of tenure in the private rental sector.

4. Massively ramp up social housing construction whilst restricting the right to buy.

5. Abolish excessively exploitative employment contracts like faux self-employment, the gig economy, and zero hours.

6. Amend the taper for Universal Credit clawback to make it more generous and link it with taxation, so that no one loses more than 40p for every £1 earned.

7. Make pay rises in line with inflation a mandatory minimum unless ballotted employees agree otherwise.

8. Raise the minimum wage to the level of the real living wage.

9. Introduce PR for national and local elections.

10. Lower the voting age to 16

--------------

I could easily have come up with dozens more but I said ten.

Quoting my original ten, I think I will come up with another ten....

1. Abolish the council tax and replace with a local tax based upon income in some way, a tax upon individuals and not buildings.

2. Levy NI contributions at the same rate for all income groups and remove the NI exemption for pensioners so that the better off ones make the same contributions as the rest of us. Use the proceeds to increase NHS spending and funding for adult social care.

3. Introduce a universal basic income for all, funded by a land value tax and taxes on unearned income.

4. Abolish the tv license and fund the BBC out of general taxation.

5. Decriminalise drug use and treat it as a health issue rather than a criminal one.

6. Fuel duty rebates for those who need their cars for work, or to get to work, or to get around at all if they live in rural areas.

7. Cyclists should have to use cycle lanes where these are provided instead of the road by law.

8. Bring local bus services back into public control, with subsidies to make them cheaper and more comprehensive  to provide viable, reliable, and economic alternatives to cars.

9. Grant the Scots an independence referendum.

10. Free local bus travel for schoolchildren and students.

[Sheepy]

Is that covered in the bit you highlighted? Thought so. Morning after pill and similar.

I bet you are glad you came up with them, anyway beautiful day nice breeze let nature take its course.

[johnofgwent]

If you've never experienced chop chop square in Saudi I can assure you it isn't something you want to see twice.

I have not had the pleasure. Although I have heard plenty about them from colleagues who were working in the kingdom when I was a much younger man.

I'm not convinced I'd be interested in being a spectator other than for two particular individuals. I'd pay to see them. And another is almost certainly in a grave now having got off Scot free. I don't subscribe to Barry and Toots' comforting ideas of a final punishment for misdeeds.

 But unless I am misinformed, there is an option for victims to receive blood money rather than require the full weight of the law be upheld.

I'm not sure what I'd do with one of those three.

The other two have to feel the axe. Although I'll settle for one having their genitals removed.

Its far clearer when it isn't a hypothetical case.

[Nick]

And public executions

In Trafalgar Square.

There is no evidence that the death penalty deters crime, but by God, think of how it would boost the tourist trade. To say nothing of the TV rights !

If you've never experienced chop chop square in Saudi I can assure you it isn't something you want to see twice.

[Good old]

It may be there is no evidence that the death sentence would reduce murders, then again there is little or nothing to say it definitely would not. 
If that was all there was in having it I would support it.  A life  for a life if nothing else is even handed.  But that is not all there is to it, the police and judiciary cannot be trusted with the right to terminate any life. All to often the death sentence has proved to be nothing more than the murder of another innocent. And any number of innocents have been imprisoned for murder they never committed since it ceased to be used, and they would have died. 

[cromwell]

A ten year old girl was raped in the US,she had to flee her home state in order to get an abortionbecause of the new ruling.

Predictably Fox News and others shouted fake news.....it wasn't,the apologies haven't been made

[T00ts]

Matthew 7:1  

[cromwell]

Oh I disagree.

There is plentiful evidence serious crimes are committed by repeat offenders

A short rope and a long drop removes all chance of repeat offending.

A life sentence removes that chance,however if it then emerges a lifer is innocent they can be released.

[johnofgwent]

There is no evidence that the death penalty deters crime

Oh I disagree.

There is plentiful evidence serious crimes are committed by repeat offenders

A short rope and a long drop removes all chance of repeat offending.

[cromwell]

Meet in the middle.

Barry can execute murderers and Ollie can murder babies.

You can't say fairer than that

And thank you for the judgement Solomon but I wish to neither murder anyone or condone state murder.