Tell us the top 10 things you'd....

JonathanAnon

thebman wrote: »

Broadband isn't cheap, we have the second highest line rental in the world for a very poor infrastructure and really crap speeds. Don't talk about things you don't know anything about please.

I work in IT full time. when I was working with a company a few years ago they paid 14k for two years for a 256Kbps symmetric leased line. Relative to this, and to the expense of calling dialup or ISDN and being charged by the minute, the price of broadband is very reasonable. And dont be so disrespectful ffs.

Executive Steve

TheInquisitor wrote: »

Yes definitely. The world has become a much more dangerous place when criminals suddenly were given rights and all this crap! Murderers, rapists, child abusers, drug dealers deserve no rights. Hangman's noose for them all

The crime rate has plummeted in the past two decades.

Abolish Monday mornings.

TheInquisitor

[cm]tyranny wrote: »

The crime rate has plummeted in the past two decades.

The crime rate per 100,000 people was 2140 in 1980 and it was 2170 in 1999. Plummeted eh?

http://www.esr.ie/Vol34_3OSullivan.pdf

The amount of criminals in jail per 100,000 of the population has more than doubled in that period proving that while the crime rate has remained roughly the same there are much more serious crimes happening now than happened 20 years ago.

asdasd

Elect City Mayors.

Let each City raise tax and issue loans to build local infrastructure.

Reduce sentences for possession of drugs, but increase sentences for public use ( by which I mean on streets etc.)

Create a new Gang Buster Garda unit. Make membership of gangs an Offence against the State.

Increase penalties for anti-social behavior. No ABSOs. Fines and jail for non-payment. There is little point to taxpayers paying for a park, or a boardwalk they cant use because of fear.

Remove concurrent sentences. You dont get to kill the second one for free anymore.

Review all sentences to remove ( what I think) is a liberal bias.

Allow the impeachment of judges by popular petition and vote.

Build more Jails but..

Tear down Mountjoy. The penalty is loss of freedom not slopping out.

Get gardai back on the beat.

Get the Government into venture capitalism in a big way. In alliance with private VCs ( of which we have not enough), invest in startups holding shares which will be divested on IPO.

asdasd

The crime rate per 100,000 people was 2140 in 1980 and it was 2170 in 1999. Plummeted eh?

The standard thing is to go back to 1980, or 1982 rather than 1950 when it comes to crime statistics, because there was a huge increase in the late seventies and early eighties, heroin or other drug related I think.

Saying we dont have a problem because it was worse in 1982 is a bit like dismissing unempoyment, also worse in 1982.

thebman

JonathanAnon wrote: »

I work in IT full time. when I was working with a company a few years ago they paid 14k for two years for a 256Kbps symmetric leased line. Relative to this, and to the expense of calling dialup or ISDN and being charged by the minute, the price of broadband is very reasonable. And dont be so disrespectful ffs.

Its not being disrespectful.

We aren't competing with ourselves a few years ago. Our broadband infrastructure has to have similar speeds and be similarly priced at least to other countries that we are trying to compete with for investment and it is very far from that mark.

So no broadband isn't cheap in the country compared to other countries that we are fighting for investment with and it is wrong to say that it is because some people will buy that crap and think everything is fine on the broadband front when it really isn't and is in fact terrible on the broadband front for Ireland.

So many people still can't even get broadband in this country and others are trapped on mobile broadband solutions offering unreliable connections. Speeds may have improved slightly in Ireland but the requirements of users have outpaced this improvement in speed for many people and businesses that wish to make use of streaming technologies etc... for video conferencing and if your a home user to watch videos and the prices are way higher than elsewhere for the same speeds.

We need more than a small improvement in speed to be usable and there is no reason to expect that demand for bandwidth is going anyway but up.

TheInquisitor

asdasd wrote: »

The standard thing is to go back to 1980, or 1982 rather than 1950 when it comes to crime statistics, because there was a huge increase in the late seventies and early eighties, heroin or other drug related I think.

Saying we dont have a problem because it was worse in 1982 is a bit like dismissing unempoyment, also worse in 1982.

I was saying the exact opposite. I was saying there is a massive problem and in fact crime has gotten worse with much more serious crimes now

Stabshauptmann

TheInquisitor wrote: »

Tell us the top 10 things you'd bring into Ireland if you were elected and had complete reign to do anything.(Your manifesto so to speak) I'll start off

1) Build a Nuclear power plant
Why, we dont have a power shortage. Thats very costly idea

3) Legalise all drugs( the war has been well and truely lost)
Because Irish people are renown for their restraint, and because that would reduce their use? Id wager that wouldnt actually bring in that much revenue - modern economic thinking is that smoking and drinking for example actual make a loss for the exchequer in real terms.

4) Increase speed limits on motorways to 140.
What would the cost - benifit be?
An extra 20 deaths a year to save 15mins off your commute?

5) Double jail time for all criminals
Not an efficient way to reach your goals, and very costly.

6) Make reuniting ireland a priority
Combined with your number 5, you'd make Ireland a very dangerous place to live, and very costly

8) Cut VAT to 15%
Huge exchequer deficit!

9) Cut civil service pay to bring it in line with their private sector counterparts. Put a monetary value on job certainty
Its called benchmarking. There is a price put on job security in the calculations.

Controversial?

You shouldnt have said, if you had the authority, more a question of having the funds.

Stabshauptmann

asdasd wrote: »

Elect City Mayors.

Let each City raise tax and issue loans to build local infrastructure.
Terrible idea with our history/culture of local corruption, not to mention the lack of expertise at local level

Reduce sentences for possession of drugs, but increase sentences for public use ( by which I mean on streets etc.)
The possession laws are aimed at drug dealers - theres a threshold system, thats why they're tougher. You want to help dealers and punnish users?!

Create a new Gang Buster Garda unit. Make membership of gangs an Offence against the State.
It exists, and it is.

Remove concurrent sentences. You dont get to kill the second one for free anymore.
Id be very afraid of a zero tolerance judicial system. Its important to have leniency in a system, no two crimes are the same.

Review all sentences to remove ( what I think) is a liberal bias.
Court of appeal

Allow the impeachment of judges by popular petition and vote.
Ludicrous. Have an impeachment system by all means, but Id refuse to live in a society of mob rule where the Sun and the Daily Mail became indirect judge and jury.

Get the Government into venture capitalism in a big way. In alliance with private VCs ( of which we have not enough), invest in startups holding shares which will be divested on IPO.

Wow. I'm lost for words. Venture capitalism is risk business, lets keep market manipulation to a minimum. Good businesses will attract funding through the normal channels. If it appears to you that there is insufficient backing of risk business in Ireland I'd respectfully inform you that most people disagree.

Stabshauptmann

RayM wrote: »

1. Split Eircom into two separate companies - infrastructure and retail - renationalising the former in the interests of guaranteeing top-class telecommunications infrastructure which doesn't depend on the whims of whichever private equity cretins are currently seeking to rape it for all it's worth.
2. Set up a task force for the purpose of building new schools and community facilities, and for making the whole country look more aesthetically pleasing, thus making it more attractive to tourists and generally a better place to live in. Kind of like a big massive tidy-towns committee, except professionally-run and creating thousands of jobs for currently unemployed skilled workers.
3. Legalise abortion.
4. Introduce generous incentives for bio-fuel, electric or hybrid powered cars, and ban the sale of all new cars incapable of achieving at least 75mpg.
5. Create a free National Health Service, funded via taxation, thus removing the need for private health insurance.
6. Compulsory annual medical check-up for all citizens. Failure to attend results in loss of entitlement to free NHS care.
7. Invest heavily in an integrated and fully policed safe, accessible public transport system, funded by increased road tax on private cars...
8. ...Abolish the current motor tax disc format, replacing it with a simple pay-as-you-go system (as easy as buying phone credit), aimed towards generating more revenue from heavier users, whilst not punishing those who just use the car a couple of times a week to go shopping, etc.

I agree with many of your points, but you'd have me paying about 60-70% tax. I'd up and leave.

9. Nationalise all banks, for the purpose of benefiting society as a whole, rather than the rich.

Your previous points were very socialist, this is almost communist! If the government had a monopoly on banking we would effectively have a planned economy - especially considering your over tones of targeting banking towards society as a whole.

10. Cut off all loopholes, tax avoidance schemes and tax-reliefs for the rich.

As these holes are found they are plugged. However legitimate relief's are important, its a very cost effective way of directing the economy.
eg Tax relief for using green fuels

Dannyboy83

oscarBravo wrote: »

Bad idea. The driver should be the sole authority on the speed of the car. Besides, all it would achieve is the prevention of speeding on the safest roads in the country.

Jeremy Clarkson also explained why it causes the most dangerous possible conditions for driving.

Basically, by removing a car's ability to overtake (limiting their speed), you end with with a situation known as bunching, where you have one slowcoach at the top of the pack doing 80ish and blocking the whole road, and everyone behind him/her has to do 80ish aswell.

So many cars, driving so close together, for extended periods of time = statistically greatest chance of fatal accidents and pileups.

Stabshauptmann

af_thefragile wrote: »

Here comes the libertarian approach!
1. Increase privatization of government sectors like health, education, transport, agriculture.

Why stop there, why not Police and Defence?


Im fairly right wing economically, but what a lot of people forget is that externalities need to be controlled and priced, and the most efficient way to do this is often through governments, hence why they exist.

The prime example is the need for fair police service.

Market externalities (in particular free riders, environmental, and social cost) dictate that for the market in public transport to operate efficiently it must be paid for by everyone in a population = taxes = government

Education is a very important basic human right. We know the dangers of indoctrination from history >< private individual setting curriculum.

2. Lower taxes. Probably as low as 20% and reduce it slowly over the years to under 10% coupled with increased privatization of health, education and most other services. Reducing total government spending. People get to keep more money they earn and businesses get the opportunity to develop the country.

Businesses get to develop the country? Maybe businesses can set our planning laws? Laws on euthanasia can be set by health insurers?

3. Get rid of the dole. Instead set up a kind of a charity based fund for the homeless and poor. And set up credit union type easy small loan services to people who need loans.

Charity will be least available in times when the dole is needed most - when there are market wide downturns.
Loans will not get everyone out of financial difficulty.

We have a choice, either there is a safety net in society or we allow the weak to perish. ie We allow people to forgo education when they need immediate income - child labour, we allow entire families to become homeless and starve. We encourage a situation where we will become over run by desperate people, where drug use and violent crime will escalate

4. Decentralize power from the center government into the local/county governments. Giving local TD's more power over their constituencies. This way the people will feel more connected and incontrol of their county council. People have the right to protest and rebel against their TD and anything they find unjust in their council. The council can then address the issue.

This would lead to mass migration, inequality amongst regions which would grow over time, and political instability, which amongst other things would be bad for business.

5. As with no. 4, the counties can decide their own laws on issues such as drugs, prostitution, abortion, gay marriages etc. The people of the counties can vote for or against these laws and enforce these laws according to the majority vote. Each county's decision is independent and not influenced by the other counties or the central government.
The counties also have their own local police force. Like in the USA. And there could be a central police force like the FBI, to deal with the serious matters that local police can't deal with.

6. Each counties have their own legal courts to solve their own problems. For big (inter-county) problems there will be the central legal court to deal with it.

You're talking about countries on a smaller scale. Why would anything be any different?

7. Take hard action on businesses forming cartels. Set up audit firms to keep a check on business as to they're not committing any fraud.

For a man who favours small government, you've just created a PPR China level of bureaucracy at huge cost. Not to mention a huge contradiction to your next point

8. Government has no involvement in the market. No helping out, subsidizing or bailing out any failing businesses. Formation of a total free market where anyone is free to set up whatever business they like within the confines of the law.

The law is market intervention.
Regulation is market intervention.
Government contracts for the supply of police uniforms is market involvement.

Consider this scenario
All the banks merge over time so there are two super banks in your free market future.
A group of thiefs manage to rob the entire reserves of one of these banks, stealing the life savings of 50% of the population not to mention decimating 50% of the countries businesses.

What would happen?

9. Stricter prison and criminal justice laws. Build a high security prison where serious criminals can get life imprisonment. Not sure bout the death penalty, but euthanasia could be kept as an option for the most serious of criminals.

Ah, I see, sugar coating it makes all the difference

10. Maintain a strict standard for environmental protection by businesses. Fine businesses who fail to meet the standards.

Another contradiction of your small government philosophy.



To be honest I think you've even got your own libertarian principals mixed up, so Id need to explain libertarianism to you properly before explaining the faults to you properly. Nice original post though

Stabshauptmann

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

Jeremy Clarkson also explained why it causes the most dangerous possible conditions for driving.

Basically, by removing a car's ability to overtake (limiting their speed), you end with with a situation known as bunching, where you have one slowcoach at the top of the pack doing 80ish and blocking the whole road, and everyone behind him/her has to do 80ish aswell.

So many cars, driving so close together, for extended periods of time = statistically greatest chance of fatal accidents and pileups.

Bunching only occurs if those people are driving poorly and not obeying safe distances.

TheInquisitor

Kaptain Redeye wrote: »

Bunching only occurs if those people are driving poorly and not obeying safe distances.

Or trying to overtake but finding it very difficult because their speed is limited?

spank_inferno

c'mon Kaptain we can all pick holes in each others ideas.
Its just a bit of walter mitty fantasy politics

gaaaaadddd!! :rolleyes:

Hookey

1. Nuclear power plants - several. Not because we need them now, but because we will (what's going to run all those electric cars?) and as an export opportunity to the UK (which will need them even more)

2. Widen the tax base. Reduce VAT to 15% but introduce rates/council tax like in the UK, but learn from their local government mistakes and cap per capita spend (no council money for assertiveness training for one-legged lesbians and all that crap).

3. Moratorium on social welfare rises for the next five years, to start to get them back down to sensible levels without cutting people off at the knees.

4. Investment in University education but only in the sciences; the arts can look after themselves for a while.

5. In conjunction, low interest state-subsidised loans for technology start-ups.

6. Points-based immigration system as in the US, Australia etc.

7. Removal of any religious constitutional involvement.

8. Move to secular schooling or the option for parents to formally opt-out from any religious indoctrination of their children.

9. Abolish VRT; it blatantly doesn't work and is of dubious (European) legality.

10. Build the DART Underground (even if only for public works reasons to maintain employment; it will pay for itself eventually).

TheInquisitor

Kaptain Redeye wrote: »

1) Build a Nuclear power plant
Why, we dont have a power shortage. Thats very costly idea

3) Legalise all drugs( the war has been well and truely lost)
Because Irish people are renown for their restraint, and because that would reduce their use? Id wager that wouldnt actually bring in that much revenue - modern economic thinking is that smoking and drinking for example actual make a loss for the exchequer in real terms.

4) Increase speed limits on motorways to 140.
What would the cost - benifit be?
An extra 20 deaths a year to save 15mins off your commute?

5) Double jail time for all criminals
Not an efficient way to reach your goals, and very costly.

6) Make reuniting ireland a priority
Combined with your number 5, you'd make Ireland a very dangerous place to live, and very costly

8) Cut VAT to 15%
Huge exchequer deficit!

9) Cut civil service pay to bring it in line with their private sector counterparts. Put a monetary value on job certainty
Its called benchmarking. There is a price put on job security in the calculations.


You shouldnt have said, if you had the authority, more a question of having the funds.

1: Build the nuclear power plant to lower our emmisions hugely and be able to sell the saved carbon credits. Also lower the cost of electricity, irelands energy costs have doubled in the last 10 years. With oil a not so abundent resource we need to plan for the future. Wind power is completly unreliable.

3. Legalise the drugs so you can regulate whats in them , tax them and get rid of drug dealers. If you think the system we have is working now you've got to be crazy. Think about how much we spend fighting drugs, we'll be fighting them forever.

4. There are so few deaths on irish motorways that Ireland isn't even added to statistics because of the wide fluctuations from year to year.
http://www.etsc.eu/documents/copy_of_copy_of_PR%20Motorways%20safety-02.18-final.pdf
Motorways are well capable of handling traffic travelling at 130-140, sure thats what most people travel at now anyway.

5. My goal is to make the the law so harsh towards criminals that they will actually think twice before committing a crime . You rob someone with a knife, immediate 5-10 years in jail. You murder someone, death penalty, you rape someone 20-30 years in jail and maybe the death penalty.

6. It has been almost a century since the country has been divided and what steps have happened to try and reunite the country, nothing thats what. It may never happen with the way things are going.

8. The increase in business activity would offset this likfe what happened in the UK when they lowered their rate in the most recent budget. I'll also point out that in England the VAT rate is 15% so we are loosing a huge amount of money in the border areas anyway.

9. Benchmarking should go down aswell as up. Huge amount of private sector employees have lost their jobs and had huge pay reductions its only fair that public sector employees suffer the same fate. A good 20% cut in their pay is what needs to happen, and up to 50% for upper level managers who are on ridiculous pay for the work they are doing

Edit: Kaptain Redeye i have yet to see the policies you would bring to the table!

corban

1 super prison, with complete individual segregation.
2 develop our public rail and tram system nationwide.
3 i would clear the decks in relation to judges (a lot seem so out of touch) and set minimum punishment / sentences for the majority of offences (allowing for repeat offenders)
4 do whatever it takes to make Ireland completely energy efficient.
5 invest heavily in R & D
6 health care = private, the state contributing to people's health insurance if they are not in a position to do so themselves.
7 drastically reduce the size of the senate and dail, maintain their salaries as they are but get rid of expenses.
8 develop sporting infrastructure nationwide i.e develop stadiums etc capable of hosting major tennis, football, swimming, athletics etc. etc..... tournaments, thus driving tourism
9 (just for me) make it an offence to wear a hoody or pyjamas outdoors
10 begin the laborious but necessary repair of all the water pipes nationwide..

i'd need a lot of money but it would create a lot of jobs so it might work...

asdasd

Let each City raise tax and issue loans to build local infrastructure.
Terrible idea with our history/culture of local corruption, not to mention the lack of expertise at local level

Whatever. We either have democracy or we dont. Local democracy is the best form, and this system works across the US, Germany and most Federal States
Directly elected Mayors tend not to be Party animals, so much. Bloomberg in NY. Johnson in London, for instance.

Reduce sentences for possession of drugs, but increase sentences for public use ( by which I mean on streets etc.)
The possession laws are aimed at drug dealers - theres a threshold system, thats why they're tougher. You want to help dealers and punnish users?!

Users on the streets. The anti-social elements.

Create a new Gang Buster Garda unit. Make membership of gangs an Offence against the State.
It exists, and it is.

cool.

Remove concurrent sentences. You dont get to kill the second one for free anymore.
Id be very afraid of a zero tolerance judicial system. Its important to have leniency in a system, no two crimes are the same.

Who the hell said anything about zero tolerance? The concurrent sentence is when someone kills two people and get two life sentences but serve them both at the same time = 1 life sentence. It is absurd. The second ( and subsequent) killing at the same crime spree is free.

Review all sentences to remove ( what I think) is a liberal bias.
Court of appeal

I mean review the mandatory sentences at government level. We are pretending to be the government here, not the court of appeal.

Allow the impeachment of judges by popular petition and vote.
Ludicrous. Have an impeachment system by all means, but Id refuse to live in a society of mob rule where the Sun and the Daily Mail became indirect judge and jury.

Mob rule = democracy by your definition. You can also vote if you dont buy the Daily Mail, and indeed I would not even stop guardian readers from voting. The idea of elected Judges is relatively common in democratic theory, I merely support impeachment. It should be difficult - 60% of vote.



And we dont have enough capital. Most of it went into housing. A lot is going into savings now - there are very few VCs in Ireland. The idea - which we kinda do already - is that the goverment goes euro per euro with the private VCs who are still risking their money. The companies pitch to the VC's, the VCs can get government funds to reduce, but not eliminate, their losses. In the worst case, if the company goes bust, the VCs lose 100% of their investment.

This means, in reality, that the VCs will invest what they can afford ( in good prospects) and the companies will get double the money, facilitating capital flows to new businesses. Bureacrates make no decisions on where the money goes, nor do politicaians - the VCs do and it is backed up by spare government cash.

Stabshauptmann

TheInquisitor wrote: »

Or trying to overtake but finding it very difficult because their speed is limited?

If they are following someone doing the speed limit why do they need to overtake?

DTrotter

Anyone found voting for someone because they come from a FF/FG house, his father was a nice man etc shouldn't be allowed to vote again.

Stabshauptmann

TheInquisitor wrote: »

Edit: Kaptain Redeye i have yet to see the policies you would bring to the table!

If I had the time...
Heres 5ish


1a. Reform of the Gardai.

I want to improve cost effectiveness by replacing Gardai in clerical functions with vetted civilians. This will also help in my aim (which would also require increasing recruitment) to increase the numbers of front line gardai.

1b. Increase Gardai visibility
It is proven that increased police visibility leads to lower crime. Deploy Gardai in teams with reserves. It allows us to spread out the number of Gardai over a greater area while avoiding the problem of unqualified reserves mishandling situations.

1c Target anti social behaviour via plain cloth Gardai
Very simple, and used by the drug squad at present. Have plain cloth Gardai patrols who fine / arrest people for littering, drinking in public, violent and threatening behaviour.

its a very cost effective way of increasing the effective gardai on the street. A group of scumbags is less likely to shout abuse at passerbys because they dont know if they are police. You dont litter because you dont know who is watching. You dont run a red light, because you dont know who is behind you.

2. Enforce existing laws on white collar crime, and existing financial regulations I believe the laws and regulations are adequate, just not enforced

3. Bring back 3rd level fees
There are too many people going to college for the craic or as an extension of school, who just piss away the opportunity and derive no benifit from the experience.

4. More better, cheaper, public transport

5. Tax Reform
5.a Reduce the reliance on stealth taxes
eg Vat, Customs, Bin Charges, Motor Tax.
These taxes dont go towards specific services, they are just added to the pile. Id appreciate a simple, straight forward tax system that didnt distort the market (VAT).
Obviously this would increase income and corporation tax, but not in a way to change the net take home pay / protif / exchequer income.

5.b Create more tax bands
To more equitably distribute the tax burden and raise funds for my afore mentioned increases in expenditure.
Tax all income, including social welfare.
Remove most tax credits.

5.c Insert binding principals into the tax code
These exist in accounting and financial regulation. Taxes should be filed in compliance with the letter, and the spirit, of the law.

A none of the above option in elections, mandatory 5years for illegal possession of a fire arm, many more, but the 6.01 news is starting

TheInquisitor

Kaptain Redeye wrote: »

If they are following someone doing the speed limit why do they need to overtake?

We were not talking about someone doing the speed limit we were talking about someone doing 80 or 90 in a 100 km zone. Now i can go to 100 and slowly get past the slow coach or i can go to 110 or 120 and be quickly off the other side of the road.

Also speed limiters are pointless because the only place you can't speed is the motorway, the safest group of roads, while you can still speed on all the other classification of roads

asdasd

As it turns out Kaptains ideas were good, mostly.

turgon

Kaptain Redeye wrote: »

4. More better, cheaper, public transport

They have been trying to do this for decades, and failing. Dont you think its time for a new approach?

Kaptain Redeye wrote: »

To more equitably distribute the tax burden and raise funds for my afore mentioned increases in expenditure.

The top earners already pay 80% of total tax take apparently, you want them to pay more?

RobFowl

TheInquisitor wrote: »

Tell us the top 10 things you'd bring into Ireland if you were elected and had complete reign to do anything.(Your manifesto so to speak) I'll start off

1) Build a Nuclear power plant
2) Legalise Abortion
3) Legalise all drugs( the war has been well and truely lost) not yet!!
4) Increase speed limits on motorways to 140.
5) Double jail time for all criminals Prisons too full already , too many minor offences and white collar crime never punished enough
6) Make reuniting ireland a priority LaLa land stuff :rolleyes:
7) Cut the minimum wage to E6
8) Cut VAT to 15%
9) Cut civil service pay to bring it in line with their private sector counterparts. Put a monetary value on job certainty
10) Enforce the laws on white collar crime with proper jail time

Controversial?

Apart from that +1

Piste

To all you raving nationalists out there, what do you actually mean by "reuniting" Ireland. Do you realise that Ireland was a group of independent kingdoms which were in competition with each other before the Brits came?

Maybe instead of singing "a nation once again" you should be singing "a series of independent Kingdoms once again"

thebman

turgon wrote: »

They have been trying to do this for decades, and failing. Dont you think its time for a new approach?

I don't think they have been trying this for decades in this country TBH. With VRT it never paid the government to get people off the roads.

I don't think people want public transport anyway so I kind of agree with you. Why would you want to be on trapped in cattle car with people you don't know breathing and coughing and god knows what all over you if you had another choice?

People want to travel in cars be they electric or whatever else. If you try to force people to do something they don't want, you'll only end up with one result.

kraggy

Really shocked at the number of people who would legalise abortion.

Anway, here's mine, in no particular order:


1. Extension of closing times for pubs and clubs. Pubs/clubs allowed to pay for extensions til 2am, 3am, 4am and 5am with the charge increasing as the closing time gets later. More income for the government from both increased sales (VAT) and the extension charges.

Off licenses allowed to open til 2am across the board. No extra charge.

2. Legalise marijuana: Government-produced and government sold marijuana only. Resin not permitted. Jobs in manufacturing and sales. Tax it to the hilt. I'd gladly pay extra for it.

3. Increased sentences that are mandatory. E.g. found guilty of rape = 20 years, no exceptions.

4. Serious sentencing for animal abuse. No fines for abuse. Prison sentences only.

5. Prisoners to have NO physical contact with visitors. Talk through a phone via a screen like in the movies. Visitors only once a month. No mobile phones. No tv. No internet. Prison should be a deterrent, not a rehabilitation as it is viewed today. You don't have much rape, theft, gbh in Saudi Arabia.

6. Decrease minimum wage.

7. Immediate decrease of 30% in unemployment payments and 50% for those on welfare more than 3 years. If you didn't get a job 3 years ago, you obviously didn't want one. You're not scabbing off society anymore.

8. End to single mother's payments. People in receipt already will continue to get payment but no new claims. You'll soon use a condom or pill then.

Single parents in receipt of payment at the moment should be allowed to hold on to much of their payment for first year or two after finding employment. Too many single parents decline jobs at present because they'd be financially worse off. This is wrong.

9. Parent's fined €300 euro if their child is outside unsupervised after 10pm. i.e. curfew for under 16's. They should be at home getting ready for bed, not out drinking Buckfast with scobes down the road.

10. Make public transport a priority. Get the people who designed the train system in Berlin over here. We can't do it ourselves.