One thing you would change if you were PM.

Just overheard two collegues bemoaning the government. Whilst I have no axe to grind with either the Tories or Labour, when I asked them what they would do instead, they were not too forthcoming.
I would give back the ability for teachers to discipline kids in schools as I think that too many of them are missing this in their formative years, especially when they don`t get it at home either.
I just wondered what other people may change (funny or serious) if they could change just one thing.

[preiffer]

I'd revoke all "health and safety rules" and rely on the simple law of Natural Selection : Those stupid enough to injure themselves by throwing knives at each other or touching live electrical cables die.

Overpopulation, as well as the dilution of the human gene pool through stupidity, resolved in one simple move [y]

[Scrooge]

Originally posted by preiffer
I'd revoke all "health and safety rules" and rely on the simple law of Natural Selection : Those stupid enough to injure themselves by throwing knives at each other or touching live electrical cables die.

Overpopulation, as well as the dilution of the human gene pool through stupidity, resolved in one simple move [y]

http://www.darwinawards.com/

I would envoke a law that made it illegal for people to whine about stuff and their sad sorry not my fault lives when they actually have quite a good one compared to others that don't whinge.

my next law.

The people that whine and whinge about everything about society
blaming whatever government or priminister for their woes and yet NEVER VOTE in any election, would have to wear I a dunce that moans but can't be bothered to vote hat and tshirt!!!!!

Make youths that terrorise people work in chain gangs tidying up the streets and repairing roads rather than letting them off just because they are underage.

Just one thing???[:0]

Make people actually work for benefits.
Pay teachers more.
Cut down on defence spending.
Do away with all the beuracracy the government can hide behind.
Make MPs have speech lessons so they don't all speak like they have a potato in their mouth.

45.

[preiffer]

Ooooh - Good point 45.

Scrap Government/Civil Service employees travelling around the world in First Class on our taxes. [y]

[RichardMannion]

Damn that is hard when only allowed one thing? I could go on all day, much to the displeasure of EGG (but then I pay a lot into society via tax and don't really see anything in return)

Mmm, would be a toss-up between these:

- You want kids, great. Don't ask everyone else to subsidise them, no child benefit or the like. If you can't keep it in your pants and have a silly nubmer of kids, then they are taken from you - like the couple that don't work that have 12 kids and are given a £500k house to house them all (after one of the kids burned the last one down...)

- Benefits can only be claimed for a certain period of time after been validated (except some where people can't genuinely work or look after themself through medical issues).

- Benefits are paid out to a debit card that can only be used to purchase certain items, and this does not include cigarettes and alcohol, flights on EasyJet or trips abroad.

- Scrub stamp duty entirely and whack up tax on cigarettes and alcohol to compensate.

- Cut out the mindless layers of middle management in the public sector (NHS in particular), and stop spending obscene amounts of money on projects that are way behind schedule.

- Lottery money is not to be spent on the 'arts'

- Likewise, phone the IOC and tell them we've changed our mind about the 2012 Olympics. That's a good £10bn+ saved.

- To keep it topical, throw down the gauntlet to BAA, give them hard metrics and make them work. Fail to achieve, throw them out. Anyone that has been to KUL, SIN or HKG will know what an absolute embarrasment LHR is.

Make benefits unobtainable unless you have contributed financially to the country first. No ifs no buts.Benefits were designed as a safety net not a comfort blanket.

Cut down on pay for GPs and/or decentralise certain procedures from hospitals to local clinics to ease hospital congestion and give GPs a chanced to work for their money, rather than the usual "well it appears that you have an infection" after a 15 examination.

45.

[fozzyo]

- Make voting compulsory
- Reduce drink-drive limit
- Increase speed limit on motorways, in conjunction with above
- Require all attendee's at major summits in the UK to have a massage before each session
- Scrap the National Curriculum, lets schools educate kids with what they need
- Scrap school and hospital league tables
- Scrap school tests at all ages apart from GCSE
- Ban private schools, the middle class would soon make sure the school system was sorted out!
- Invest in science and research properly and don't let morals and religion decide research funding policy
- Invest in the arts, make them accessible to all
- Youth centres everywhere
- Hate-crime legislation
- Don't have a Minister who is a member of religion that hates gays responsible for legislation directly aimed at their protection.
- Invest in the NHS, give the control back to the people on the floor and scrap the fifteen layers of management we now have.
- Sort out government IT projects ... why do they keep using the same companies who bid £1million but then get paid £10million because they messed up, again?

Something else I'd do is change the way speed cameras work. If a camera catches you speeding, it snaps you and changes a set of traffic lights up the road to red so you have to stop. If you don't stop you are then charged with speeding and driving without due care and attention and violating road traffic law.

That would be a start.

Mat

1. Obtain time machine

2. Go back to - say - early April 1997

3. Show everybody footage of Iraq war, Afghanistan, hoodies on street corners kicking law-abiding fathers to death, the state of schools, the NHS, law and order, a copy of my tax bill, the new EU 'constitution' etc. etc.

4. Ask people if they really believe that 'Things Can Only Get Better'...

Ooooh - Good point 45.

Scrap Government/Civil Service employees travelling around the world in First Class on our taxes.

Hmmm. I fall into that category (HM Forces) and I definitely don't travel around the world in First Class! We have to justify every single penny of expenditure, so much so that until very recently any transatlantic travel had to be signed off by a 2* officer.
I am an officer in the RAF and the accepted level for my air travel is economy, with PE acceptable only if: a) the flight is >8hrs duration and b) you are working the following day. Only once ever has the RAF paid for an UC flight, and that was where I was needed in DC to address an operationally important issue, given 36 hours notice and there were no other seats to be had.

Oh, and there are severe limitations on the acceptance and use of airmiles, lounge access and so on.

And I pay the same taxes as you!!!!

Tony

Originally posted by RichardMannion
You want kids, great. Don't ask everyone else to subsidise them, no child benefit or the like.

Little contentious there [V]

How about a law that states that those who don't want kids don't need to have them but they have to look after themselves in their old age as they will not have made any contribution to raising the next generation

Society stinks but it's the only one we have.

Actually I sort of agree with you about Child Allowance though but I guess my one change would be to alter the tax system so that it increases / decreases the tax burden based on the makeup of a household - e.g. dual income no kids / single income with kids. By all means stop the hand-outs but be a little fairer in terms of where it's being taken from.

FM

[RichardMannion]

Originally posted by FamilyMan
How about a law that states that those who don't want kids don't need to have them but they have to look after themselves in their old age as they will not have made any contribution to raising the next generation

I can see where you are coming from with that, and agree with some of it in the form that they shouldn't expect it for free. But then one could argue that they have made their contribution through council and income tax being used for education.

I get private healthcare for Sarah and I from my employer, but are then taxed on it - even though I am significantly less of a burden on the NHS. [:?]

Now I will be contentious, I love this analogy:
http://www.snopes.com/business/taxes/howtaxes.asp

Thanks,
Richard

1. Obtain time machine

2. Go back to - say - early April 1997

3. Show everybody footage of Iraq war, Afghanistan, hoodies on street corners kicking law-abiding fathers to death, the state of schools, the NHS, law and order, a copy of my tax bill, the new EU 'constitution' etc. etc.

4. Ask people if they really believe that 'Things Can Only Get Better'...

Spot on[y] and they would still vote Labour in around us,even if Prescott was standing:D

[fozzyo]

Originally posted by RichardMannion
Now I will be contentious, I love this analogy:
http://www.snopes.com/business/taxes/howtaxes.asp

That's really cool!

[Neil]

Mat - you were only meant to be allowed to change 1 thing:D - although I agree with everything you have said.

For me, as some others have already said, the one thing I would change is to stop paying all the lazy sod's who can't be bothered to go to work, because they can't "find" a job. That's b*ll*cks, there are loads of jobs, they just can't be arsed to work, and in part who can blame em when the government give them so much money for doing bugger all. Grrrrr, it really gets my goat.

Originally posted by RichardMannion
- You want kids, great. Don't ask everyone else to subsidise them,

Reminds me of one of my drunken ideas - everyone gets one voucher to have a kid, each voucher means we pay X tax toward the common good, each couple can therefore have two kids, but if you want to you can trade your voucher and sell to others who want more ... well that's OK. Sell your voucher and pay less tax, have more than 2 kids, pay more tax ...

OK it's mad and wouldn't work but I certainly don't agree with comments that if you don't have kids you should have no one to look after you in old age. If that were the case I'm not paying for children's health, education, benefits etc. There are many ways to contribute to the next generation, I do through quite noticeable taxes every day of the year.

Seriously though, if I could change one thing it would be to make everybody smile and say hello to every person they meet every day

Originally posted by slinky09Seriously though, if I could change one thing it would be to make everybody smile and say hello to every person they meet every day

That's what Mr. Bliar (sic) did, and look where that got us...

Originally posted by mdvipond

Originally posted by slinky09Seriously though, if I could change one thing it would be to make everybody smile and say hello to every person they meet every day

That's what Mr. Bliar (sic) did, and look where that got us...

LOL

Actually, I recall a Terry Wogan R2 programme from the seventies saying the same. My lovely Grandmother (from Lancashire which I know is not Yorkshire but hey ...) took it on board when staying with us down south. Just as she would at home, she'd go out and smile and say hello, only to be met by mad stares implying she was some sort of lunatic[:?]

Originally posted by slinky09

Originally posted by mdvipond

Originally posted by slinky09Seriously though, if I could change one thing it would be to make everybody smile and say hello to every person they meet every day

That's what Mr. Bliar (sic) did, and look where that got us...

LOL

Actually, I recall a Terry Wogan R2 programme from the seventies saying the same. My lovely Grandmother (from Lancashire which I know is not Yorkshire but hey ...) took it on board when staying with us down south. Just as she would at home, she'd go out and smile and say hello, only to be met by mad stares implying she was some sort of lunatic[:?]

It's a mistake we gregarious Northerners often make when visiting you chaps 'down south'.

But with repeat visits we learn: don't smile at anyone; don't - for the love of god - engage anyone in conversation, especialy on the tube, they'll have you committed in minutes; and remember - catching someone's eye, smiling, nodding and perhaps venturing a convivial 'How do?' will result a restraining order being placed upon you by the recipient with the added and very real risk of being charged with stalking.

Originally posted by mdvipond

Originally posted by slinky09

Originally posted by mdvipond
[quote]Originally posted by slinky09Seriously though, if I could change one thing it would be to make everybody smile and say hello to every person they meet every day

That's what Mr. Bliar (sic) did, and look where that got us...

LOL

Actually, I recall a Terry Wogan R2 programme from the seventies saying the same. My lovely Grandmother (from Lancashire which I know is not Yorkshire but hey ...) took it on board when staying with us down south. Just as she would at home, she'd go out and smile and say hello, only to be met by mad stares implying she was some sort of lunatic[:?]

It's a mistake we gregarious Northerners often make when visiting you chaps 'down south'.

But with repeat visits we learn: don't smile at anyone; don't - for the love of god - engage anyone in conversation, especialy on the tube, they'll have you committed in minutes; and remember - catching someone's eye, smiling, nodding and perhaps venturing a convivial 'How do?' will result a restraining order being placed upon you by the recipient with the added and very real risk of being charged with stalking.

[/quote]

I remember with some fondness the look of bemusement on pair of my fellow consultants' faces when, escorting them around Manchester (home territory), we were addressed as "me ducks" by a bloke asking directions

Paul

Originally posted by mdvipond
1. Obtain time machine

2. Go back to - say - early April 1997

3. Show everybody footage of Iraq war, Afghanistan, hoodies on street corners kicking law-abiding fathers to death, the state of schools, the NHS, law and order, a copy of my tax bill, the new EU 'constitution' etc. etc.

4. Ask people if they really believe that 'Things Can Only Get Better'...

One could easily say obtain a time machine, go back to say the mid eighties, watch the way the Conservatives consistently drove us through boom and bust on a regular basis. Privatised industries that we now moan give us crap service. Oh nearly forgot black Wednesday, ah yes, interest rates well into double figures..... the good old days huh

Jon B

Originally posted by slinky09

Seriously though, if I could change one thing it would be to make everybody smile and say hello to every person they meet every day

Better take a trip to Bermuda then, Slinky Bermudians are well known for being friendly to others. It took me a while to get use to the concept of a cordial 'how you doing?' greeting when I first arrived, but now it's second nature. I've always said it doesn't cost you anything to be polite to others. Still, when I'm back in England I have to remember to completely ignore everyone I see and look down at the ground instead[:(!]

Originally posted by Jon B

Originally posted by mdvipond
1. Obtain time machine

2. Go back to - say - early April 1997

3. Show everybody footage of Iraq war, Afghanistan, hoodies on street corners kicking law-abiding fathers to death, the state of schools, the NHS, law and order, a copy of my tax bill, the new EU 'constitution' etc. etc.

4. Ask people if they really believe that 'Things Can Only Get Better'...

One could easily say obtain a time machine, go back to say the mid eighties, watch the way the Conservatives consistently drove us through boom and bust on a regular basis. Privatised industries that we now moan give us crap service. Oh nearly forgot black Wednesday, ah yes, interest rates well into double figures..... the good old days huh

Jon B

Or - to follow your argument careering down its rickety path - you could go back to the 70's, when the trade unions held the nation to ransom and Labour drove the country to the brink of financial ruin. I could go on. The 1820's, for instance, were pretty rough under Wellington, especially if you were Catholic. Ah, the good old days indeed. Mind you, I'm led to believe the streets were a lot safer then than they are now. And that was before the advent of the mighty 'Community Support Officer'. Cripes.

Now, where did I put my D:Ream album...