If You Were PM What Would You Change?

[ChronicOnVodkaAndTonic]

Just that really. If you had the power to change our country what would you change/do?

And what, in your opinion needs a compete overhaul?

For me it's NHS...

It would be nice if billionaires paid some tax. I'm not a communist but probably anyone with more than say 800 million could share a bit more. If someone could only make that happen. Or maybe you really really need that 900thmillion....

Brexit wouldn't have happened, and we would never have left

1. Renationalise everything that was nationalised before. (Schools, utilities, transport, medical)

1. Massively increase salaries of nhs, teachers, fire and police etc

1. Invest in local and independant businesses

1. Solar panels for every home and business premises.

1. Social housing building program

1. Subsidised uni, free for essential jobs like nhs

1. No private schools. But instead things like forest schools, steiner, montessori etc be a choice for all parents. No Sats or gcses. Emphasis on life skills till age 16, specialist subject schools 16 to 18

1. Rewild all golf courses

1. Allotment spaces as a human right

10. 3 or 4 day working week. Universal basic income for all. Robots and AI to do the grunt work.

11. Emphasis on voluntary work.

12. Higher taxes

13. Close tax loopholes

14. Maternity reform, free doulas, 3 years leave as standard. New focus on post partum care

Reverse Brexit ( beg to be let back in).
Stop populist rhetoric.
Invest in green energy.
Support Community Ownership and Community control of services.
Decriminalise cannabis and some other drugs.
Release most non-violent offenders on short sentences and stop all prison sentences under 2 years going forward. Focus on rehabilitation, training, and counselling instead of prison.
Build lots of social and affordable housing mixed up with commercial housing.
Tax the rich more. Up the thresholds of tax so less burden on lower and middle earners.
Stop privatising the NHS and slowly re-nationalise it.
Re-nationalise water and utilities and trains.
Bring in more apprenticeships.
Get rid of all segregated schools (religious/single sex/private/grammar) but do it over time. Massively improve special needs provision.
Invest in grassroots sports and fitness not just for the talented but for all.
Overhaul for food industry and tax the hell out of UPF and subsidise fruit and veg. Teach people how to cook simple meals.
Stop being being able to self-identity their gender and keep single sex spaces single sexed.
Encourage under 16s to have simple mobiles. Not allow mobiles on school grounds.

I'd fix the roads -all of them. And I'd ban gender self ID, men in women's toilets/changing rooms/sport etc and start treating gender dysphoria as an illness.

Number one thing I’d do is stop non doms buying houses here - we need our houses for homes not money laundering 🤬

Tax wealth more in line with income

The entire government. The appalling mess education is in really is something else.

I'd make sure benefits covered reasonable living costs and free school meals for all kids. I'd subsidise childcare properly and open up nurseries. I'd make sure people with disabilities got the support they needed financially. I'd makes sure people could properly claim asylum instead of having to get on boats. Then I'd compensate all the windrush/post office/infected blood victims within 6 months done and dusted

Do you mean in a fantasy world in which you weren’t constrained by economic, political and global realities, or the real world as it is now?

Property shouldn't be an investment vehicle. It should be for homes. Ban foreign ownership if needs be.

Reverse Brexit.
Then call GE.

I am always mystified on threads like this when someone always pops up to say pay teachers and nurses more. Do these posters actually know how much teachers and nurses actually earn or are they just parroting the rhetoric peddled by their unions?
We could all do with a bit more money but listing as a priority paying people with STARTING salaries of £27-30k more seems ridiculous to me.

No one could stand for political office without having spent at least 10 years in a non political job. This could be reduced to 5 years for someone who has worked for that period in a NHS/teaching/Public service role.

There needs to be an end to people going from a degree to a job for a political party/lobbyists/trade unions and into political office.

Peers should be split into working and non working groups. Put a limit on the number of peers in the House of Lords and any peer not attending say 50% of the sessions (80-100ish days per year) is demoted to non- working status. No more working peers to be appointed until number drops below the limit. There are almost 800 members of the house of lords but average attendance has been less than 500 for 70+ years. No more resignation honours for PM's mates for some time.

Salary rises for MPs must not exceed those for civil servants/nhs/teachers

A). Universal Basic Income. It would help stop people falling through the cracks. Additionally studies show it doesn't disincentive work but actually does the opposite and helps people get into and stay in work.

Also, there's currently fewer total job vacancies in the UK (916,00) than job seekers (over 1 million), and that's not even including people on sickness benefits).

B) Improve the NHS. Quicker waiting lists and better early diagnosis and referral system (I know several people with physical health issues that were originally misdiagnosed as mental health problems).

C) Better social care system with proper investment and effective supportive help.

D) Incentives or legislation to encourage businesses into employing and retaining sick and disabled people.

D) Benefits system that provides sufficiently and is empathetic. Punitive systems make people more ill and less able to work. Also recognise the value of carers (who save social services a lot of money).

E). More social homes (including more disability friendly and accessible homes), and end RTB.

F). Return state pension age to 65. Life expectancy might've increased (although I think that's no longer the case?) but many people's health isn't good enough to keep working. Also young people won't be able to get jobs if older people aren't retiring.

Legalise assisted dying.

As for a pp, I’m glad my tax money isn’t spent on free doulas.

1.Tax the Rich
2.Universal Basic Income
3.Nationalise all utilities (power, water, telecoms)
4.Get rid of all privatisation within the NHS and pump it full of funding especially for mental health services
5.Rejoin EU

Where will all the money come from for this? See point 1 on the list and, long term, point 5.

Increase the threshold for free school dinners.
children shouldn’t have to suffer because their parents can’t afford meals.

Does anyone have any figures for how much extra money 'taxing the rich' would bring in? It seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting here - paying more into the NHS, universal income, privatisation, increasing nurses' and teachers' salaries, free school meals, better social care, lowering the retirement age, more spending on mental health.
And who exactly are 'the rich' anyway? What would pps' threshold be? £20k more than they earn I imagine

Proper land and wealth taxes so income and purchase taxes could be reduced, this would reduce inequality massively.

Invest in clean energy and home retrofit - ditto.

Turn job centres into actual job hunting help, also small business support and essential training provided in a local one stop shop.

Lastly spend on public health, preventative and drop in services. False economy not to, will save masses down the line.

Well I'm quite lazy and get easily overwhelmed so if I was PM I'd probably announce free ice cream on Fridays for everyone and hope that the civil service can work everything else out for me.

That's probably the best policy tbh.
There's lots of suggestions on here about spending money but not many about raising it to spend (apart from taxing the rich).
I think we all know what could be done, finding the money to do it is the tricky part

Introduce French style super-tax on the wealthy.

Renationalise everything that was sold off, starting with utilities and public transport.

Get rid of right to buy, and launch an enormous (job & industry boosting) social housing building project - a 10 year project to build 2 million homes to replace those lost to right to buy.

And as someone upthread said, change the law effectively to stop non-doms using property in London to launder money.

I’m not sure you need to raise public salaries much if you have a well funded exchequer and can push housing prices down. I’d sooner work on bringing down the cost of housing (everybody’s single biggest outgoing) than risk more inflation by raising salaries. I don’t think you should have to pay fees for teaching or nursing degrees though, so they should not have any debt.

I would also raise university fees in line with inflation before they all spiral into bankruptcy.

I would make it mandatory to vote (subject to a small fine for non-compliance) but I would also remove the barriers to voting that many people (particularly disadvantaged ones) face, and I would ensure that every ballot paper had a ‘none of the above’ option so that protest votes could be properly recorded and declared.

I’d sack everyone in cabinet and start again.

Then I’d overhaul the NHs by getting rid of all the middle faffers and paying actual health staff more. Ensuring the focus was on actual PEOPLE rather than saving bed days ( which is all they care about) I’d move on then to GPs but that would be a harder nut to crack.

id overhaul benefits so it was never ever that you are better off not working. There are loads of jobs but so many people make benefits a lifestyle choice rather than a last resort and that is not cool.

after I’ve done that I’d want an overhaul of every school that is failing as an academy - the local authority should take over the running of them until
improved, these are not business, so they should be run like one.

id be supportive of an immigration system similar to places like Australia,ie you are most welcome if you add value but this isn’t a place for you if you want loads of financial and housing support, I would want our citizens to be thought of first.

Women are women and men are men when it comes to sport, prison, toilets and changing rooms and I would not be bullied into a ‘people have periods’ way of living - or that men who are now women are better at being women than
actual women ( which is what labour seem to promote)