Manifesto
The World is in crisis and, although we’re told economies are “picking up”, everywhere the squeeze on living standards tightens. And still Government wants to spend vast sums of money on grandiose plans for new works (HS2) and wars (Afghanistan, Syria) whilst ignoring fundamental failures and inadequacy. The concept of profit and, overbearingly, “future income streams” drive a destructive competition ethos which hostages essential facilities and products to maximise commercial benefit, rather than meeting needs. So a power supplier seeks to increase its income by selling as much as it can at the highest unit price it can achieve. It sees profit today as more important than:
- Sustaining supply into the future ie not overusing a diminishing resource.
- Aiding customers to reduce their use – they prefer to build new power generating stations, even though reduction in demand would obviate the need for the new power stations.
This is typical of the direct conflict that exists between the interests of private companies, or any “corporate” group, and those of the general public. We cannot tolerate circumstances where the profit motive and efforts to boost share value run counter to those of general public good.
The following are priorities to emerge from this conflict, with directions for change included:
1 – A new annual levy must be placed on companies also trading overseas and so operating under more than one tax governance. Levy to be proportionate to the amount of trade carried out by the company and to be calculated by the government revenue sections, payable annually as a condition for operating within the United Kingdom.
Aimed at companies such as Google and Starbucks, it will also catch such as Tesco as well as a number of MPs, especially Tory ones, if the legislation is well crafted. Which it will be!
2 – To provide funding for post industrial ecological and landscape regeneration, to move to fight climate change and to restore buoyancy to the environment, I propose an international Carbon Extraction Levy, CEL, charged at the point of extraction, to be additional to present day carbon usage levies. CEL funds to be managed as far as possible for on the ground, practical projects, on a global basis, in the form of establishment and/or maintenance grants.
3 – Working with this there is a pressing need to re-gear the land-use strategies, moving away from livestock to increased arable as well as restoring forestry and woodlands. European Union farming is all structured under the Common Agricultural Policy, which pays annually an allowance based on farm size. Land designated woodland/forest is not eligible for such payments.
Payment to larger land owners should stop and smaller owners/holders be encouraged to develop agro-forestry systems. Farms should shrink, and carbon fixation and biodiversity both be increased. Importantly this will also greatly increase rural employment opportunities and a “real” rural repopulation.
4 – Health and nutrition are two further areas of crisis, principally because of the commercialisation and commodification of the processes and the “top down” administration and monitoring essential for the system’s operation. A network of industries are involved, each independent but linked together.
The prime exemplar and principal culpable sector in this is “vaccination”, the theory that a series of prophylactic administrations of voodoo style admixtures of microbial fragments and physiologically damaging chemicals can prevent the recipient from in the future succumbing to certain specific ailments.
With this system so deeply entrenched in medical orthodoxy, the public consciousness and an extremely profitable supply chain industry, as well as media, legal and other social administration groupings (police, social services, schools etc) there is an extremely strong resistance, and cognitive dissonance, to amassed reams of evidence/data showing a vast range of damaging outcomes follow as collateral damage, from immediate, short or longer term death to autism spectrum disorders, asthma, allergies, pulmonary conditions, digestive problems, eczema and many more.
Furthermore, there is no evidence for the effectiveness of these preparations!
Detailed objective research is urgently required in this area, where now all such works are managed by and for the pharmaceutical suppliers. I propose a moratorium on the development of new vaccines and the provision of an ample budget, say the £100 million so freed up, to fund said objective research.
5 – Nutritional problems leading to obesity and diabetes are an increasing strain on both individuals and society, with the USA leading the way. There, there is already a diabetes rate of around 30% and the increase lies on an exponential curve, racing up to 100%. Obesity is showing a similar pattern.
Indications are that they, too, are a part of the collateral damage arising from vaccination, however matters are exacerbated by modern diet. In particular, wheat and allied flours which raise blood glucose levels faster even than table sugar and sweets, which stoke adipose fat deposition and then glucose excretion through the kidneys as diabetes.
I propose that the producer industries, agriculture and food manufacturers, are brought in line to finance alternative food crops and the production of profoundly healthier foodstuffs. Again researches here can be funded by levies on these industries, which provision to charge them for future health care costs.
6 – There should be a set of structures based on the provision of energy, as discussed in the introduction. To this end all current housing stock should be retrofitted to a very high standard, to reduce heat loss to as near zero as possible, whilst installing solar water heating as standard everywhere.
This work to be financed by the generators before being granted permission to build new generation points. If this means they have to take on thirty or fifty year finance to be paid back slowly, slowly by their total customer base, then so be it.
All new housing is supposed to be zero-carbon, zero energy loss, but care should be taken to ensure the longevity of such provisions. Planning guidelines should smile upon innovative designs, such as Bag End style Hobbit homes and building schemes where there is provision for food growing, water capture and local composting.
7 – There must be a realisation at United nations level that war is a primitive, destructive, grossly detrimental and wasteful process, to be avoided at all costs. Huge efforts must be made to eliminate the influences of the armaments lobbies and so end the endless cycle of reckless, wanton destruction – as typified by the US “Shock and Awe” assault on Baghdad or the shameful NATO strikes for eight months on Libya. Innocent people must no longer perish to support this inhuman industry.
8 – On a lighter, but linked, topic I propose the funding of the renovation of the Victorian Pier in Colwyn Bay, Conwy, Wales and seek to raise additional capital to match already promised funding and so bring the total to the fifteen million or so pounds that we need.
This will give the town and community back its much missed focus and will galvanise actions mooted to revitalise the town and its hinterland. Not long ago a year round hub of activity, when restored it will offer a very wide range of attractions, ranging from a focus on green power supplies and marine environmental exhibitions, through standard pier fare such as cafes and restaurant, a long boardwalk out into the Bay, fishing, art exhibitions and workshops to drama, performance and live music venues (Elvis Costello, for example, played there in the 80s).
The restored pier will raise local morale and, also, a substantial income for the area. This rebuild to be an exemplar of the concept that communities require focus, respect to their history and the continuance of a human friendly infrastructure. There will be many more such works around the country, providing much needed opportunities for a range of working inputs by local people in ongoing manner.
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