10th February 2009
Dear Voter,
These are the things that I will do if you elect me to run the country on May 6th 2010.
Banking and financial services
The first thing to do is to change the emphasis of wealth creation in this country away from the city and return it to its correct place – industry. There is only one way to create wealth. You take materials from the earth and turn them into usable products. Money is not wealth. Products that make our civilised life possible are wealth. Money is just a very useful and indispensable token of wealth.
The City has never produced a single pennyworth of wealth. Industry produces wealth. The proper, and vital, function of The City is to fund industry. There are many things to be done to achieve this. Firstly I will regulate the banks properly. The banks were set up only by government licence. They are the place where we store our accumulated wealth and they should be regulated as such. There is no room for speculation within the banks. Speculation using the deposited funds of private citizens is morally obscene and should be stopped – especially when the citizens have to pick up the bills for the failed speculations without ever having had any possibility of profit from those speculations.
The proper place for speculation is in the stock market where people know their investments are at risk.
Secondly I will regulate the issue of money so as to ensure that the benefits return to the nation and not to private bankers. Currently money is created by private banks that charge interest on the money they create under licence. The return to the people is zero. Why? Interest on money created within the banking system will be returned to the people. A new system of taxation and control of the financial system will have to be devised and constructed.
The bankers will complain bitterly. They always have. Their very lucrative monopoly will be under attack. They will predict gloom and doom and threaten to take their skills elsewhere. Let them go. They have virtually bankrupted the country with their irresponsible speculation and ridiculous salaries. The sooner they leave, the better. The financial system has been deregulated to provide a milch cow of a few very rich people. The debts they have run up and unloaded onto us are massive and have not yet been dealt with properly. I will deal with it by absolutely regulating the banking industry, which is a perfectly proper function of government, and by using the government’s power to issue currency in a wise manner to fund the nation at very low rates of interest.
Industry
I will not institute direct government control of the money supply. That would be akin to nationalisation and that has been proved to be unwise. But the profits from the supply of money will be returned to the people and used to support research and development of potential growth industries. Hot - housing industry has been an effective method of priming wealth creation and will continue to be so if it is done correctly. This does not mean feather-bedding inefficient companies or industries.
This will require rigorous analysis, by the people, of the overall requirements of our nation and using government power to give direction to private enterprise and funding key items. These will include power generation, materials supplies, strategic materials and strategic manufacturing industries. There will be no direct government control of these industries.
The first consequence of these policies will be a reduction in the flood of consumer goods so besetting the nation. Some will see this as a reduction in their so-called “standard of living”. But many of the goods now produced are trash and we can live very well without them. The second consequences will be a reduction in the nation’s production of energy and pollutants. This might allow us to achieve some reduction in the harm we are doing to the planet.
Education
Education will be set free. Education has been a political football for over a hundred years. The first thing will be to remove all targets. Indeed a vital priority will be to remove targets set from above from all walks of life. There is an old saying that you should be careful for what you wish; you might achieve it. By the same token you should be very careful what targets you set for others to aim for; they might achieve them. You can be certain that the end results will never be what you intended. Targets should be self-set and self-monitored. Personal development is always to be encouraged but externally set targets is not the way to do it.There is nothing wrong with sensible examinations and streaming. Holding back high-flyers because some cannot keep up is indefensible. The system should be designed to cope for all abilities. What should never be tolerated is idleness, encouragement of lowest common denominator achievements, and acceptance of lack of endeavour.
Health
The Health service must also be set free. PFI is a disaster. It has just been another scam by the bankers to rip off the taxpayer who has to fund the PFI’s for the next fifty years at extortionate rates of return. The Health Service is dominated by beaureaucratic targets. Medicine and care takes a very distant second place. There are a lot of operations and care being botched just to ensure the tick boxes are filled in on time. Targets are dangerous.
Bureaucracy
Planning law will be drastically revised to destroy the massive beaureaucracy it has spawned. There is no need for most of it. Planning will be restricted to basics like street layout and street services and co-ordination of utilities. Sounds simplistic? It is.
There will be a massive reduction in the number and power of quangos. It is not right that private organisations should exercise the functions of government. Government should be of the people and for the people and by the people, not for private profit and licence.
Defence
My policy on defence is to remain strong. It was the weakness of Britain and France that allowed Hitler to remain in power and to enslave Europe. Do not imagine that such people no longer exist. Strength and vigilance exercised by a constitutionally correct government are the best guarantors of freedom and rights.
Many people will take this document as a left wing manifesto. It is not. It is a return to true Capitalism where individuals are empowered to manufacture wealth and huge corporations will have to serve the people, not their plutocratic masters.
Finally I shall institute a thorough examination of the principles upon which a constitutional democracy should be based and give this country the constitution it has lacked for several hundred years.
Pie in the sky, I know, but this is what we should be doing. Elect me and I will do it.
Yours sincerely
Colin Walker.