To ask if you have an idea you believe would significantly improve life in the UK?

[ConfusedmumUC]

I’ll go first.

I can’t help but think making someone’s rent payments eligible to prove you can pay a mortgage would go a long way to housing security for so many people. And limiting the amount of properties owned by one landlord / amount a landlord can charge in rent, would also go a long way. I can’t help but think profiteering massively off of a basic need and right such as housing is really not ok.

Im sure there’s a reason why my idea wouldn’t work, feel free to put me right 😂

What’s your idea?

The thing is, there is luck in everything. Even if every baby is born with the same opportunities in life- same house, schooling, amount of money, attention from parents etc. there is still luck! Luck in how intelligent or attractive you are. Luck in how physically strong you are. Luck in the personality you're born with, your ability to see the good in things. Luck in how your brain works, how open you are to risk etc.

So if you started now with a baseline of equality for everyone, a few hundred years down the line some would have more and others less.

We can NEVER have equality. So if one child is much more attractive than all the others, should we disfigure their face to even it out a bit?

I'm all for equality in opportunities. But not equality in outcomes.

The idea that everyone works equally hard is just rubbish. It's partly based on who you are -luck - but also on how hard you work and what you do with the things you are given.

Rent and purchase price cap based on m2 of property, by location. Only way of removing the “asset” status of housing and returning it to utility. If it were calculated at todays prices, then frozen for 20 years, it might just revert to being affordable! (It would never work, though - but something needs to give!)

I agree with this. When I lived overseas in a low income country, I gave two of the families who had been particularly kind to me the same sum of money. One family donated the majority of this to the church and briefly enjoyed their increased status in the village while the other used it to purchase seedlings and exported the fruit with the help of a family member overseas, generating a decent income.

Write proper textbooks for year 1 and up so teachers can spend more time teaching instead of building curriculums. Burn every copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice andMen. If English youth might only read one book, it shouldn’t be a badly written American text. Copy the Australian education system. Pay teachers and nurses more so they will stay.

I can’t believe anyone would suggest burning books as a priority - or at all. Have we so quickly forgotten which regime last advocated that?

Write proper textbooks for year 1 and up so teachers can spend more time teaching instead of building curriculums.

Much as I agree that teachers' workload is tough, I really wouldn't want to go back to mainly teaching from textbooks. We have textbooks, but we don't use them very much, because they are boring and get out of date fairly quickly, considering how expensive they are.

I also think that any policies have to take account of human behaviour and motivation. Eg what drives people to achieve more or work hard?

For many people it isn't the thought of doing good for society - just because that's what drives you doesn't mean it does for everyone.

For the majority of people, like all other animals, it's their offspring. Doing good and better for the future of them and their children.

I know countless people, myself included, who pre kids were pretty selfish and lost. Now that I have them I work day and night and all the hours under the sun to give them the best opportunities in life.

I'm not saying EVERYONE is like that. But many are. And we can't take the ability for people to better their children's life away without severely damaging the amount of work/ effort people put in.

Human nature is human nature. If my baby is crying and your baby is crying, I'm sorry but my innate response will be to comfort my baby.

So all the ideas that we have to improve the word have to take account of how it will drive people to act.

In my personal opinion I think people need to be given more autonomy and responsibility to better their own lives and those of their families/ children/ communities. The worst thing anyone can do is to take a victim mentality. It does no good for anyone, especially the person playing the victim.

And yes life is unfair.

A school place available for every child.

I agree a fair few of these ideas ignore human behaviour and what incentivises many. Plus it’s easy to see the state as an overall good, which it isn’t in full form anyway, but it is easy to grow dependency on it to the detriment of many.

There’s a balance though of course - and each country fits somewhere on a spectrum between onerous state and too little correction

Yes a terrible idea

Remove social media from all under 25s.

Rather than burning books, I would make ever child read “Brave New World” every year of secondary school and write an essay on the dangers of todays society with reference to the book

@RamblingFar

Thats the thing. I went to a good school which is what saved me. Numerous staff, teachers and leadership had faith in me when my family didn’t. Yes my family had money but it was made clear there was no financial support post 18 unless I went to university, which was minimally supported.

I didn’t grow up in a stable home, I was actively encourage to be marriageable from about 11/12 and I begged and pleaded for a desk so I could study at home. I did my homework on a vanity table which was tiny and really uncomfortable sitting on a stool for hours. I was expected to cook, clean and help out with the family business. On the surface my family were well to do. I went to an excellent boarding school for 6th form after spending 5 years at a minor boarding school which wasn’t the best fit for me. My parents chose that school for me because it was only a 45min drive from home. The 6th form school was further away but they had a bus which dropped me off 15mins from the house.

Education matters a lot more than people give teachers credit for. It gave me options I didn’t have. Neglect doesn’t just happen to children growing up in poverty. There were quite a few of us at boarding school who were neglected. Yes my father called and gave me a mobile so he could contact me, but let’s be clear, he bragged to everyone that I had a mobile. I was used as a status symbol.

Books should never be burned. Every school and community needs a well stocked library. It costs money but living in the US, our well funded library has been a god send.

As an American, I believe the First Amendment of free speech, thought, and religion is important. Bad American novels should not be taught to British youth, and those two are some of the worst.

Textbooks last for several years. They ensure all material in a prescribed curriculum is covered. This is important when teachers are teaching a subject they may be less comfortable with. Learning by rote and doing worksheets aren’t bad things, but teach persistence.

Universal basic income

You got you and your children got your vaccination and boosters. Was it OK for everyone else to pay for that for you?

My husband is self employed. I just don't understand why he pays so little tax compared to my PAYE tax.

Better behaviour in schools and jobs for those who don’t want to be there or won’t behave.

That’s just improved social care again though.

Self employed pay less NIC because they're entitled to fewer/less state benefits.

My husband is self employed. I just don't understand why he pays so little tax compared to my PAYE tax.

Is he a company director? If so, he will numerous options to reduce his tax liability.

If you are self-employed and you are paying similar taxes to someone on PAYE then you are either an idiot, have a really crap accountant or don't mind paying extra taxes. And of course, you don't get paid sick pay, holiday and pensions - your boss pays these things and as someone who is self-employed - you don't have one! Are you being deliberately misleading or do you just not have a clue?

Yes agreed so just legalise cannabis the income potential is huge and cannabis is not alcohol it does not cause the same issues as alcohol and class a drugs like cocaine and heroin. For example you cannot really overdose unless you try very very hard, it does not make people violent, you cannot fully become physically addicted so will not get so many symptoms so will not die of a stroke if you stop unlike alcohol, not saying its ideal but in comparison is a much better choice than alcohol I have no idea why they legalised alcohol and not cannabis. By the way I do not smoke don't like it know full well the pros and cons but still it is better than alcohol and should definitely be legalised controlled and taxed.

Complete overhaul of adult social care (reduce bed blocking in hospital)
Reform mental health services (as well as helping general population would massively ease policing and prison overcrowding)
100% free education all levels as well as reinstating meaningful apprenticeship.