19 April, 2006

The Manifesto

A group of British Neo-Cons have come up with their own version of PNAC, which they have entitled “The Euston Manifesto” (any idea why they’ve named it after a train station?). I’ve had a look through it and it seems to be an attempted justification of TWAT with (an oddly placed) mention of support for Open-Source software. It has quickly been spoofed with The Houston Manifesto.

Anyway, to try and counter this, I’ve come up with my own manifesto, but I’m not sure which train station I should name it after: possibly the Piccadilly Manifesto (the one I use most often), or the Mill Hill Manifesto (after where I grew up).

Preamble

We the undersigned have a fresh vision for the future of the UK and the world in general. We believe that the following ideas, which admittedly, need fleshing out, are a good basis for an optimistic future of the UK.

Article 1: Democracy in the UK

We believe that Britain should finally become a functioning democracy, which entails having two Houses of Parliament (elected on a voting system which accurately reflects the public’s voting intentions), a written Constitution and a Bill of Rights.

Article 2: Freedom of Ideas

We believe that people should be free to put forward ideas, without fear of sanction (including those ideas known as “Holocaust Denial”) and that their ideas should be there to be freely challenged by others.

Article 3: Freedom of Assembly

We demand that all restrictions on the right to protest passed since TWAT was started, for example, the banning of protests within 1 km of Parliament, should be scrapped, as they have no place in a democracy.

Article 4: The Right to Liberty & to a Fair Trial

We demand that the ancient right of Habeas Corpus should be upheld, and that laws such as control orders or infinite detention in HMP Belmarsh should be scrapped forthwith, as they have no place in a democracy.

Article 5: Right to Privacy

We demand that the Identity Cards Act 2006 and the National Identity Register should be scrapped with immediate effect, as there are no proper reasons for them to be created; it will be a massive drain on the UK’s economy; will be a prime target for criminals; the technology is shown to be fundamentally flawed and the legislation is full of loopholes.

Article 6: The War Against Terror

We believe that the current way of pursuing The War Against Terror (hereinafter called “TWAT”), should be ended with immediate effect.

We believe that we should be tackling the causes of “terrorism”, namely the following:

  • Invading Middle Eastern countries in order to install regimes which will do our bidding,

  • Supporting Third World dictatorships, and

  • Sorting out the Israel-Palestine problem once and for all.

Article 7: The War on Drugs

We believe that the War on Drugs should also be ended with immediate effect and prohibition has been shown to be a complete failure.

We acknowledge that there are three main aims of the current drug policy, to ensure that:

  • There is very little, if any supply, of the substances,

  • The prices will be extortionate as a result of the above, and

  • The remaining quantity of the substances will be of very low quality.

We note that the effect of the current policy is that drugs are freely available to anyone who wants them; that they are of a very low cost and are of a relatively high quality.

We believe that a solution to this is to legalise, regulate and tax those substances that are currently prohibited, which would eliminate a major source of gang violence and violent crime against people and property.

We believe that heroin should be placed on prescription as well as providing safe places for its injection and that acid, grass, speed, E and coke should be available from licensed premises (in a similar way to tobacco and alcohol). We do not believe that crack should be available; however, as this is merely a very poor quality version of cocaine, once cocaine is legally available, very few if any people will actively seek it out and so the marketplace will eliminate it.

Article 8: Prostitution

We that prostitution should be legalised and regulated like in Holland and Germany as it would mean that they would no longer be exploited by criminal gangs and they would be able to work in safe, clean premises.

Article 9: Copyright

We believe that the concept of Crown Copyright should be abolished on the grounds that the taxpayer funds all “Government Papers” and so they should not have to pay again for documents created in their name.

Article 10: Public Transportation

We believe that the government should reverse it current short-sighted policy on public transportation, based on increased numbers of busses, and should give the go-ahead for the tram networks in Liverpool and Leeds (as well as other areas in the UK that have come up with feasible plans for them). We welcome the go-ahead to fund the extension of the Manchester Metrolink.

We also believe that the government should fund the building of a high-speed, magnetic-levitation-based train network, linking the major cities throughout the UK.

We also believe that the government should authorise the Superlink idea instead of the waste of time and money that is Cross Rail.

Signed

D-Notice

No comments: