Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

Aside from dealing with the severe financial problems we face, this'd be one of mine:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/ph...our-liberties/

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

I'd agree with that. Labour's authoritarianism was my single biggest objection to their remaining in power. When it (momentarily) looked like we might get some sort of Lib-Lab stitch-up it really depressed me to think that we may not see the back of ID cards, excessive detention without charge, abuse of the DNA database, suppression of the right to protest and all the rest of it.

Second on my list is energy policy - there's a real opportunity here to make great big green strides forward. I would like to see them legislate to change the terms on which the national grid charges for connection and carriage of power from remote areas. As things stand, you can get a subsidy if you connect a wind turbine to the Grid in central London (where there is next to no wind) but it costs a fortune to do the same thing in the Highlands (where there is tonnes of it). This is one of the many niggles the SNP likes to agitate about and I'm all for something that would simultaneously promote green energy and shut Alex Salmond up.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

Agree re- civil liberties

£10,000 tax threshold.

Would prefer a decent look at PR in all it's guises.

Local council funding - based on local income tax rather than house size.

Stop messing with the schools. See what works and encourage more of the same rather than assuming as a politician you know the answers and then deliberately setting the questions to suit.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

Maybe Salmond could be connected - directly - to the National Grid??..... :D

Energy policy is hugely important - we face a serious shortfall in energy generation and the clock is ticking. If we are going to further embrace nuclear we need to get on with the process but I'd like to see other methods exploited too.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

Still waiting for Damien to turn up demanding that £10k personal allowance he's so keen on... ;)

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

Roll back the authoritarianism, get control of the public purse, get some sense of individual responsibility back into people through withdrawal of big brother's support, incentivise work (10k Income Tax allowance is good for this!), disincentivise leeching from the state.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

Get us out of the EU.........

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

Move the British Isles somewhere warmer....

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

I would like to see the long term employed and here I mean the ones who have never had a job or have no intention of getting a job, have all cash benefits removed which would be replaced by a voucher/card system that lets them only buy food and essentials.

Plus all their clothing issued from a central store that does not include the colour black.

No unemployed person should be issued with a passport as they would have no need to be issued one.

Maybe measures like this would actually make these people take a job.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

Something like this?

http://dartdevils.web-log.nl/photos/...1_edited_1.jpg

What do you think your plans would do for crime rates?

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

What would you rather have the present system were all the *******s go cradle to grave without ever working paid for by our taxes, my grandparents and great grand parents would have been ashamed to claim from the state, but nowadays these *******s believe it is their right.

Given the choice would you let your taxes pay for these lazy *******s.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

Yes...

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

So you would happily pay for *******s cradle to the grave, I think that you have you priorities wrong as they should receive nothing, I work for my money so should they.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

HHHmmm - I'd like more money / training in my job centre so they'd be able / willing to help me more.

But I guess that's a whole other story.

Not that I class myself as a ******* or lazy for claiming benefits.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

I rather doubt that you fit the criteria above to say the least as you would like to work just as I do.;)

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

I am still trying to get my course (in computing) sorted from the OU, but it's the job centre that's the stumbling block. I Want to get a decent qualification and get a job for sure.

Anyway in all seriousness, I really would like things like that sorting.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

The reality is that there will always be people that don't work. Either because there is no work, they are bone idle or too stupid. It's not nice, but it's a fact of life.

Depriving them of the most basic necessities will achieve nothing but increase crime rates. I'm all for getting people to work, but your suggestions overshoot the mark by a considerable margin.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

I must say its good to see you being so constructive, being an obvious die hard fan of Labour you must have been gutted when they lost, good to see you being positive :p:

Im just hoping working tax credits stay in, we just manage to fall in to the band for support, thats £80 a month I dont want to lose.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

Repeal the handgun ban that cost £100 million, and reduced crimes committed with legally held handguns by 0%.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

I am talking about the ones who will never work as they feel that it is the right, as I said my grand parents and great grand parents would never have claimed but these people believe that it is right to claim for life.

As for crime, where do you think that a lot of these families get the money for their designer clothes and holidays in majorca or their plasma televisions, not through hard graft but maybe from someone elses hard graft.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

Or having 8 or 9 kids ;)

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

What would that mean to us if they did?

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

Let me try to be clearer. There will always be people that are out to, and successful in, abusing the system. Trying to make people jump through more and more hoops to catch out the cheats will result in a lot more genuine claimants being rejected. Believe it or not, there are people out there who would like to work but have poor skills and have been unemployed for years. They are not going to walk into a job the moment you replace their benefits with food vouchers. Once again, I'm all for getting people into work, but the reality is that there are people that are past that point, and replacing their benefits with food stamps is not going to achieve much.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

I am talking about the shirkers who refuse to work from cradle to the grave, most people at some time in their life are out of work through no fault of their own, I am being specific here and not including them.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

And my point is that if you're going to try to weed out the shirkers you will end up inadvertently punishing a lot of involuntary 'shirkers'.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

Not really as the is a vast difference between being out of work and looking for work compared to having no intention ever to work because our taxes pay their way, a vast difference.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree. I think you're going to have a lot of difficulty identifying those willing and unwilling to work amongst the long term unemployed. I don't think you'll find many takers for the food stamps and dressing people up in jute sacks (my exaggeration) either. It's degrading, on several levels, and we don't do it in a civilised society, in my humble opinion.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

£10,000 tax threshold increase, cracking down on benefit fraudsters and moochers

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

I like the idea of an increase in the threshold for paying tax & £10,000 seems fair - however I'd imagine that would still be reduced by 'perks' such as company cars & private health schemes.

One thing I'd like to see is a review of 'National Insurance' contributions

- firstly any contribution should be allowed to be set against tax liability - at present, afaik, tax is based on earnings before NI contributions are taken - I'd like tax to be based on a net figure after the NI is taken.
- secondly I would like to see the abolishment of the 'upper earnings limit' for NI - and move the liability for payment on earnings above the UEL to the employee, rather than the employer, probably on a sliding scale, but offset against tax liability, as above.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

benefit fraudsters clampdown.
i want to see those who have never worked a day in their lives kicked off the benefit system ,these spongers think its a given right to have their whole lives payed for by someone else, and a proper review of their circumstances would be nice followed by making them repay every penny they have defrauded .:mad: also a good look at job seekers cos a lot of them aren't seeking anything other than the next hand out.

Re: Your top priorities for the new coalition
 

Would like to see a benefit system which makes you better off at work. With more joined up thinking from Housing Benefit, free prescriptions & suchlike being more available at the lower end of the pay scale. These seem to be the most helpful benefits and the reason people remain on benefits rather than working. Sadly these are the ones lost immediately people start working, never mind the fact they still have to survive until the first pay day on fresh air and you are then left permanently in arrears on rent.