If you suddenly became the leader of the country, what’s the one thing you would change?

[bluescreens]

As the child of an elderly parent, I’m frustrated by what appears to be pointless bureaucracy when dealing with local councils. When anything goes wrong with my dad’s care, I spend the equivalent of hours (sometimes days) being passed from team to team, trying to get someone to take ownership of the issue and work with me to resolve it. If I were PM, as this is so personal, I’d tackle this straight away. I’d also do a proper, comprehensive review of the NHS and ask the tough questions, with the goal of reforming it while (at the same time) keeping it free or at least very low cost at the point of use. Obviously I’d use my magic money tree to fund all of this! 🤓

This is a semi lighthearted thread - but if you were leading the country, what would you tackle first?

Hm. It's a toss-up between Proportional Representation or property reform, making it prohibitively expensive, through taxation, to profit from hoarded property.

Men would have a curfew.

-Restructure the NHS including reviewing reduction of wasting money

-Focus on legalising assisted dying

Build some bloody houses

I would raise minimum wage and ensure social care workers and teachers earn more

Bring Utilities back into public ownership and run them for the benefit of the people.

Was just listening to the news and every single horrible thing happening is caused men. Shootings At Browns uni and Bondi beach, Ukraine, Russia etc etc. The government have announced a New strategy for VAWAGs, with things in place by 2029 😤.
NO, we need urgent investigations into wtf is happening and why it’s happening every single fucking day!

Substantially lower (through nationalisation?) train and transport costs and improve infrastructure, hoping house prices would cool in turn.

Yes, this too.

Street cleaning! This country is so utterly scruffy

Serious one: Ensure legalisation of assisted dying (& not just for the terminally ill).
Slightly less serious (only slightly!): Ban eating in the theatre!

Yes, but how would this become government policy? Is it something about rekindling a sense of civic pride and associating yobbery with shame and shunning? Just thinking aloud.

Given the shit job the government are doing with the NHS and asylum hotels etc, no way would I trust them with our utilities tbh.

— NHS changes (try to stop wastage, help self sufficiency and improve times). No more £300 light bulbs or prescriptions for ibuprofen 😂

— Council Tax reform (prioritise neglected locally funded services) so potholes fixed, local amenities restored etc. Less money given to random council boards or committees and instead used to help the local area.

— People who are fit to work but can’t find a job (not people medically unable to work) will be given training through funded apprenticeships in trades if they need a career and helping local councils improve local areas e.g helping cleanup playgrounds, graveyards, local areas of beauty with flowers planting etc if someone is just between jobs. No more mucky streets and street signs!

Lightheartedly, I’d make it illegal to make those horrible candles that smell like cleaning products. Also no more extra charge for a full sugar drink at restaurants! I would also add two more bank holidays to the winter season just because I miss them past August. Perhaps a small law around people that bring smelly food into cinemas too.

I will help you with that especially by making water non profit.
It's a water. We are sending billions to ountries with drinking water issues to have drinking water while we charge stupid money for drinking water here.
There is area in Italy IIRC where water is locally owned and any profit gets redistributed back.
I had a mega hissy fit after seeing our bill and net profit for the company (doesn't sound much but it's something like 40 discount per household /business). Every little helps🙈 and that's not even the biggest water company

I’d ban porn, strip clubs, OF, the full gamut of exploitation of women. I think without this violence against women will never end.

Lighthearted - I’d triple the budget for traffic police and make them drive around all day pulling unsafe/illegal driving.

Prioritising the assisted dying legislation and making it as robust and compassionate as possible.

Build some nice houses, not just the utilitarian rabbit hutches that are going up near me. Proper design of new spaces with green spaces, parks and community living at the forefront.

Make 4 day weeks the norm.

Adult cyclists would need registration after testing, insurance, should be identifiable with number plates, and should be obliged to pull over for traffic if they have held anyone else up for more than 30 seconds.

I'd change income tax thresholds, so everyone could earn up to the minimum wage without paying tax; move the 'higher rate' to £100k plus and the 'additional rate' to £200k plus.

I would fund this by introducing huge taxation for people who have second (or multiple) homes; I would bring back the two child cap that Labour have just removed. I would also introduce an extra and ridiculously large income tax level for people with ridiculous incomes - i.e. CEO types whose salaries and bonuses run into millions. I'd make it so any income over 1 million, you paid 99% of it in income tax.

End homelessness.

Big public information campaign and enforcement measure in place to try to reduce anti-social behaviour, e.g. dropping litter, flytipping, graffiti, persistent noise problems from neighbours, listening/watching stuff in a public place without headphones so everyone else has to hear it too, talking through the cinema/theatre performance, not offering a seat on public transport to someone less able to stand, the list goes on.

Police to focus on genuine crimes and to have the resources to do it quickly and well. Burglary and shoplifting to be treated as crimes that actually need investigation, not just handing out a crime number. If people were convicted for these and got some sort of punishment/treatment that prevented them from re-offending this would start to pay for itself.

Legalise all drugs but control the manufacture and distribution systems very tightly and tax them hard. Aim would be to cut out a huge source of income for organised crime gangs and create legitimate employment and tax revenues. It might also reduce the harms done by these substances. Some of the tax would be ringfenced for addiction services.

Ban surrogacy in all circumstances.

Pump a lot of money and expertise into supporting parents with young children. This would save a huge amount in the future as it should reduce the number of children who end up in care and/or not doing well at school.

I could go on, but I'd be here all day.

Ah yes I forgot about banning surrogacy. That definitely needs to happen.

Find someone else to be leader. I’d be absolutely useless.

In the remaining few minutes, I’d abolish the British Empire names in the honours system and commission a responsible citizen’s jury to come up with alternative names (not Medal McMedalface).

When I read the title I wondered if Keir was maybe looking for inspiration. 😂