Wednesday 22 September 2010

What is 'proportional' anyway?

As I see it at the last general election the results panned out thus:

Party%age of Vote%age of Seats%age of governmental power
Conservative36%47%70%
Labour29%40%0%
LibDem23%9%30%

So while I support AV as a better way of selecting an MP than FPTP, I think talk of PR (proportional representation) based on seat numbers is currently entirely misguided, and has been for most (if not all) of its history.

Who cares how many seats you have if you have no power over government?

So lets get our MP selection sorted out (#YesToAV) and then there is a whole new discussion to be had over how our selected MPs go on to represent us in government.

Monday 20 September 2010

The Work-less needn't be Hope-less

Deregulating private casual labour - legitimising cash in hand.

Private citizens making small payments to other private citizens for work/service/products should not have to contend with the full burden of employment and taxation law. In fact I beleive they should not have to contend with any law whatsoever.

Any citizen should be able to pay up to (say) £30 a week to another private citizen with no strings attached. Any citizen should be able to receive such payments from a number of citizens up to a total of (say) £100 a week with no strings attached.

People wanting to offer small services like hairdressing, gardening-labour or selling small items would be allowed to do so off their own bat with no further ado. People at the bottom end of the economy could get started in making a living honestly, honourably and legitimately with minimum of fuss - no tax, no payroll no overheads.

The UK has to urgently create many jobs for people who have been workless for a long time, and create opportunities in the private sector for large number of public sector employees who will are likely to find their current jobs cut as part of the deficit reduction programme.

Once we are again a nation of workers, there will be ample opportunity for people moving up to make their contribution to taxes etc. But the priority now is to get people in to the working habit and to reduce their dependence on the taxpayer.

Small business is the only way to create jobs quickly - we need to get moving - and we can't start too soon.