So what is your top 5 issues you want the government to work on?

[deancasetmoi]

Climate change related top 5 for me

-Solar and wind power investment (bring in jobs)
-degrading soil and mono farming we need a new way.
-Building on green spaces needs to end. something needs to be done about the thousands of decrepit buildings, car parks etc build on them.
-bike lanes
-plant more trees, specifically fruit trees/ but trees/ bushes and give access to local people to pick their own like when you go to a strawberry farm but everywhere. (also to help with flooding, and air pollution)

• Ban convicted sex offenders from changing their legal name or gender. Revoke the GRA issued to anyone with a conviction for a serious, violent, or sex offence.

• Child maintenance to be paid by the State and recovered from the parent who owes it.

• End PIP and resinstate DLA.

• Reinforce safeguarding in schools, and tackle the epidemic of sexual assaults.

• allow farmers to grow hemp as a crop and to help replenish the soil.

Stopping water companies bring able to release shit onto our beaches and into our waterways

thats as far as I’ve got with my thinking

Next 5 would be:

1. focusing on environmental preservation and improvements. Includes the obvious climate crisis (although I'd expect this to be covered by the shifting of allegiances in my 5th point above) but also improving local areas. So yy to green spaces, lots of tree planting and protections (trees in residential and urban areas proven to have massive positive effects of reducing temperatures, coping with rainfall and - wonderfully- improving behaviour leading to huge increases on social positivity). Clean waterways and force water companies to fix leaking systems (again, to also be covered by (5) in precious post). Increase allotments, increase passive design into architecture and landscaping to preserve water and reduce climatic extremes. Etc.

2. defence- we need to rebuild our military to ensure its effective once more

3. education: reduce tuition fees to early noughties prices, chase repayment from those who have moved abroad and international students. Schools to teach financial basics and basics of law and business to every student. Lesson the priority given to exams and allow greater weighting for course work in final marks and resits. Give greater importance to vocational training - so apprenticeships for those who aren't academically minded as an example - and stop pushing everyone into degrees. Remove the necessity for nurses to qualify through degrees and return to vocational training and proper care.

4. reform our asylum claiming system to ensure refugees are treated humanly and in accordance with court of human rights

5. reform how sexual abuse and rape are treated through the legal system to redress the frankly appalling imbalance that currently exists. I don't need to explain to you all what this is!

And because it's important:
6) reduce childcare costs / find a more effective way to ensure children can be looked after allowing both parents to work (haven't thought this one through enough but it would involve legal protections in the workplace / flexible working etc)

7. enact laws to prevent gambling companies preying on the poor (again ought to be covered as part of my point 5 in previous post) - so no more television advertising, gambling ought to be subject to the same advertising rules as smoking

8. & 9) I would also like to see significant prison reform, which is something no government has the nerve to tackle with a move towards progressive rehabilitation. I would also support the decriminalisation of some drugs as a way to a) police drugs more effectively b) open up a new revenue stream for the state

There's a lot of work to be done to unpick the damage caused by the last decade+ of Tory mismanagement.

Exactly. And someone without a British passport might be paying tonnes of tax and a British passport holder might be completely reliant on benefits.

Just announcing a general election would work for me.

Child maintenance to be deducted routinely rather than single mothers having to jump through hoops for it. And serious repercussions if maintenance payments avoided.

Total re-invention of the NHS which is not fit for purpose currently.

Stop letting people choose to work part time and top up with universal credit. Raise NMW by £2 p/h

Solve the issue of people taking incredibly dangerous routes into the UK, causing huge expense to the economy and problems for poverty stricken coastal towns in SE England.

Protect our waterways/lakes and rivers.

Do something about people buying portfolios of properties to rent out. Houses should be homes not an business. More houses would be available for people to buy as homes and the prices become affordable. Landlords have pushed up the price of basic private housing and then renting is the only choice thus pushing up rental prices.
Stop building soulless estates on the outskirts of every town. Fill up the middles/ industrial wastelands first. Make sure planners have to provide garden/ outside space and parking so people can live in them successfully for more than a few years.
Crack down on cannabis. Bad enough we’re a nation of alcoholics let alone druggies.
Build infrastructure. Roads and railways that go between places people want to go. And put lots of trees either side. Not bloody houses where people get lung conditions and noise all day long.

Actually I like @LocalHobo ideas better.🙂

No, I don't believe the tax payer should cover prison stays and legal aid etc for foreign nationals. The money is best spent elsewhere. Much better their own country deals with it.

It's bullet points, so I haven't put loads of details explaining in detail. They would not be welcome in the UK again. Its not about not serving their sentance. I'm sure sanctions could be put in place to ensure the returnee be punished in their own country.

The government (I.e. whoever is in power), or this government (Rishi and chums)?

If the former, then there have been some sensible suggestions above. If the latter, my top five would be:-

1. Stand down
2. Stand down
3. Stand down
4. Stand down
5. Stand down

Problem is, none of the others have much of a clue either 😵‍💫

It doesn't matter if a British resident is on benefits. The NHS is supposed to provide free healthcare to those less fortunate, and why they are on benefits is irrelevant.

It's just bullet points. A foreign national on a residency visa is unlikely to be paying tons of uk tax, but that is going into detail and individual circumstances. That's a white paper, and although I'd be happy to provide more details and layout plans, unfortunately I'm not standing in the next general election:)

Pretty much only the economy, because everything else flows from that.
Maybe set up a Royal Commission to look at changing NHS structure and financial model.
And actually a prompt law to permit assisted suicide would be very welcome, and long overdue.

It's hilarious how many of these are already law/policy and people just don't know.

Cost and supply of housing
Cost of living
Green energy
Better public transport
Fixing the NHS while retaining a public health system

Yes but some will be wanting more or more aggressive/radical action on the same issues - which applies to everything I've posted I think.

Yes, I see the irony, but this is a forum and the Internet can be a useful tool.

The key word here is tool.

for example, The incitement to harm yourself and others, needs control and although this is beginning to get sorted out with these companies taking responsibility.

Just get the basic infrastructure for society right. Invest in
Education
Health
Police
Housing for everyone. Why do we have people sleeping tough?
Green spaces

I would like to see us properly making our own laws and enforcing them in this area. At present Twitter, Facebook etc only pay attention to US law. For example, Facebook is still littered with fake news articles promoting all sorts of scams. UK publishers and websites aren't allowed to carry this kind of advertising (lies) but Facebook doesn't care because they know our government is scared of them.

US multinationational (mostly tech) companies are allowed to do what they fuck they like in the UK and dodge UK tax and our government just leaves them to it.

1, stop pumping shit into our rivers and seas.
2, build lots more affordable and social housing.
3, fincrease funding for the NHS
4, increase funding for schools
5, bring back sure start and increase other early help initiatives.

Housing reform first and foremost. Build far more social housing, stop allowing BTL mortgages because that means landlords raise rents when mortgage interest goes up. People should only be allowed to buy a BTL if they can afford to buy the property outright. And then introduce rent caps. Stop allowing people to buy second homes that sit unused for most of the year.

A wealth tax. And stop allowing these bloody legal tax loopholes so the rich avoid paying it.

NHS reform. I'm not sure of the logistics but it's not working right now.

Invest in our children. More funding for state schools and make teaching an attractive profession again. And good affordable childcare for babies and toddlers.

CMS. Take it directly out of the non resident parent's wages. Harsher punishments for those who don't pay.

I can dream.

Eliminating grift at all levels in politics and business.
Funding the NHS properly
Funding the BBC to equivalent of 1960s levels
Rejoining the EU
Introducing proportional representation

I pay lots of tax (am a net contributor unlike half of the UK population) as someone on the cusp of higher rate tax. I have lived in the UK for ten years but my home country doesn't allow dual citizenship and my parents own a freehold house (as well as freehold office buildings) back in my home country (that I can only keep as a citizen). tbh i already go private for most things so in a way having to pay for NHS doesn't really make a difference!

also a lot of NHS staff are foreigners and its hard enough to recruit them as nhs pay is quite low relative to cost of living compared to other countries like the UK. Asking them to pay for their own healthcare would mean that no one would come and then the nhs waiting times would be far worse than it is. Like it or not, the country relies on immigrants in many essential roles. British people are not willing to put up with unfavourable working conditions and it isn't just pay.

The economy. All else flows from that.

‘tax the rich’ seems simple, but the UK country needs the rich not only to stay, but to come to the UK. To do that it needs to attract them. As it stands, the rich have left and are leaving in high numbers, and taking their money and businesses with them. Although the cry in response tends to be ‘good riddance!’, this isn’t actually a good thing.

More money for Child Protection Servics.
Too many vulnerable children going under the radar.
Tougher sentences for child abusers, sex offenders should be chemically castrated and microchipped so we know where they are at all times. They don’t deserve any freedoms.
Invest in the future generations. The government have fucked this generation over.

The housing market is a mess.
We need more social housing, affordable rents, LL need more checks so they have to maintain properties & in a timely manner. No one should be living in accommodation with mould, damp, leaks, broken appliances etc.
More help for 1st time buyers. Long term renters who have always paid rent on time should be given access to mortgages without all the eligibility restrictions. Certain restrictions in place to stop multiple properties being let as holiday homes/airbnbs

NHS - pay staff fairer wages. It’s an insult to all nhs staff when they hire agency staff and pay them double. Just pay the nhs staff properly and hire the right amount in the first place.

1. Total revamp of housing policy-

(a) State run construction company that would build affordable housing (capped at 5 times average income)- 4 storey garden maisonettes (bottom maisonette would get the garden) and also townhouses. Commonhold/Share of freehold tenure for apartments (as someone who owns a flat where the residents own the freehold, i highly recommend it). This can only be sold onto people who meet the income eligibility criteria (below 50k in the north/midlands;below £100k in the south and London) for the next 75 years

(b) Provision of government loans to housing co-ops so they can buy out their landlords.

2. State run childcare centres and 30 free hours of childcare for all

3. Replace council tax with a property tax based on value of the property.

4. Transition the NHS to a European style healthcare system in the long term

5. Invest in renewables and help fund insulation/solar panels for all homes through loans and grants.