If I Ruled The World, Or A Little Bit of It
1/ TOWN PLANNING
Around here, as I expect it is in many towns in England, houses and flats have been squeezed into every spare bit of space. In places whole housing estates are being built, both on brown and other field sites.
It is the estates that have been on my mind recently as I went through a phase of thinking I’d like to move. So many new builds everywhere, which are costly, but they come with allegedly good eco credentials, and some look quite pleasant.
But what I find about modern housing estates is they lack a heart, or perhaps I mean a soul. There are often open grass spaces, and that’s nice for kids, and sometimes there’s play equipment. But where is the Rovers Return, or the local café? A shop might be good, but on its own probably wouldn’t generate much income.
Humans are social creatures by nature. We need somewhere to encounter each other. More than just a road to close off for a street party to celebrate something that doesn’t come round often, and then there’s the rain to consider. More than just somewhere adults can be because they’ve taken their kids there. (Yes, exercise is essential for children!). After a while the kids will grow up, and there will be families without them, or people left on their own.
In times past, people met up regularly in a church or temple with events in a neighbouring hall. But not enough people go out to worship these days, and besides, we don’t all sing to the same hymn sheet, literally and metaphorically. We just need the hall. But wouldn’t it be nice to sit and have a natter over some refreshment: a pint or a coffee or a fruit juice? Kids can draw at tables, too. People of any age can play cards or board games. How about a quiz?
Being alone is by definition lonely. Living in a community where there’s always someone you can talk to is lovely. How about getting together to raise money for a good cause, or even to help with the upkeep of part of the estate?
Blocks of flats are uninspiring, and for those who don’t work away from home, they can be isolating, too. But they could be the opposite, if planned with more imagination. A big enough block could use a small space for a café or micro pub. Gyms are popular these days and can be social too. Such things can be found in expensive retirement homes, but they can generate their own money. And besides, I wouldn’t charge any kind of land tax on places used for community events if I ruled the world.
And what I’d like to know is why, in blocks for people of any age, instead of just a few concrete slabs outside some patio doors in a communal garden, ground floor flats can’t have private gardens. Just enough to potter in or let the dog out unaccompanied in the cold and rain. Hey, how about small allotments for personal use by residents/owners who live nearer the clouds?
The need to minimise land use means most houses are built over three floors, into what used to be a loft or attic. A good idea for a growing family; not so for aging knees.
Front gardens are a thing of the past as they have been largely replaced by parking spaces. Back gardens are still there, which is good; but they are so much smaller than they used to be and delineated by fencing. There are no hedgehog holes put in as a matter of course, and of course birds can’t nest in a fence. With the death of hedges we lose those little ecosystems where small creatures thrive: the tiny insects, who fed the bigger insects and grubs, who fed the birds. No berries or flowers for the birds and bees.
I am pleased to see the advance of the swift block. Some developers are using these in their new builds. We could definitely do with more.
I wonder if insect blocks could become a thing. Little holes in some bricks to create living space for insects in the way wooden bug hotels are found for sale in garden centres.
If I were the town planner, I’d have hedges restored, even if only along one side of the garden’s perimeter. I’d also insist on at least one tree per garden. I know that’s putting their lives at risk with careless owners, but if it were legislated they mustn’t be chopped down, would that work? Birds could hang about in the area, chatting and singing to their friends in the neighbouring trees and in the hedges, once mature. And of course there would be other things finding homes. Think about butterflies, for example. They need somewhere to lay their eggs and for their larvae to grow, until they free themselves when their wings have grown.
Like we humans, nature’s other animal life needs shelter and food. We also need water. Garden ponds, even tiny ones, are great for this, but they can be a danger to children, and I wouldn’t recommend anything a child could drown in, obviously. Bird baths are good for bees and other insects as well as birds. Remembering to fill them up in dry weather isn’t always easy. Maybe fences could be built with tiny water catchers? To help keep bees and other pollinating insects alive, they only need be tiny. A bit like a handle for opening sliding doors, that sort of thing.
Of course, we need to consider the environment as a whole, and global warming. Reducing greenhouse gasses is essential, they just keep the heat in our atmosphere. When it’s hot, clouds can hold larger amounts of evaporated water for longer – heat rises and all that. So they float along all bloated, bypassing some areas, then flooding others when they finally burst and drop more rain than your cooler clouds would do.
Solar panels on rooftops are the obvious answer. Any other places, such as carports and walls facing mainly south can also be used. Sheds, even, feeding electric lighting inside. I don’t know if little windmills for roofs and tall walls will ever become a thing, but maybe. Of course, cars are a real pain in terms of air pollution and noise, and naturally electric cars need to replace the combustion engine ones. So vehicle charging points at each house or parking space are a must.
Of course, now we have the heart in our little town, we also need a circulatory system. We need to bring in fresh clean water, and remove sewage. No more joining a housing estate to existing pipes which can’t manage! New sewage systems need to be built along with the new housing. It can be done, even without chemicals, but of course careful planning of the surrounding area should always be part of plotting for a town/housing estate. Sewage can be treated naturally by means of constructed wetlands, reed bed systems, soil infiltration systems and even oyster beds. But I’m no expert, so I’d employ one if I ruled the world.
There’s often a shortage of water, especially down the east side of England, possibly because more rain falls as it meets the land to the west. I’ve long been advocating for desalination plants and networks of pipes and canals to help here.
Once you’ve got the water’s sorted, you also need vehicles to circulate. This could be an article in itself but suffice it to say there needs to be carefully thought-out junctions to let cars in and out of these new estates, not just one out- and in-let causing blocked havoc. And we mustn’t forget the pedestrians and cyclists.
Continuing our analogy, the estate also needs a skin. Lots of trees around it would be a good idea!
If I Ruled the World, or a little bit of it
2/ Chancellor of the Exchequer
One of my concerns, when it comes to taxation, is that it is not fair. Indeed, some people will agree with me all the time, but not necessarily the same people.
My proposal is that taxation be streamlined, making it much easier to calculate, and therefore cheaper.
Firstly, tax should be imposed on income.
‘What about huge corporations that make billions in profit?’ I hear you complain. Let me point out that profit derives from income, but the figure is arrived at by subtracting the cost of making that income
‘So there’ll be corporation tax?’ asks that group at the back.
Not as such. It would be like this. Pay attention and follow the money.
If the money comes in and hangs about waiting to go out again on legitimate business expenses, then it’s not taxed.
But the moment an individual or group (eg a family) gets a slice of it for non-business use, it gets taxed.
Massive Corporation Ltd sells a heap load of somethings for a titanic amount of money over what it cost to buy or manufacture, that’s big corp profit. But left in the bank it’s potential investment. Taken out of the bank to make the shareholders rich, it’s income to the shareholders, and therefore taxable. Given to a director as a bonus, that’s the director’s income, and taxable. Get the idea?
What about Mr Brown-Jones-Smith and his small business, cleaning people’s windows? The amount of money he takes over the amount it costs him to make that money is his profit. But if he leaves it in the business to buy say, a bigger ladder, or a new shammy, then no tax is due. But what he pays himself is taxable income. He draws out £20 for a pie and a pint, that’s his personal income and it’s taxable.
Do I mean poor Mr Brown-Jones-Smith pays tax in the same way for working really hard as the owners of Massive Corporation Ltd for tapping on a keyboard and yakking on a phone? Yes, except not the same amount.
You may ask, what about Business Rates? What about business rates?! They are only a hindrance to companies or individuals setting up business in a location and hiring people, supplying jobs and goods and services to the local community.
If businesses are viable, they will generate income for the owner, which will of course be taxed.
‘How about Council Tax?’ I hear one person shout. Yes, that tax that makes it more expensive to live in a property. For anyone to live in their own place, or a couple, a throuple, or a family, there are enough expenses anyway. Why price more people out of the rental or home-purchase market with more tax?
Some people won’t like this, but I suggest local services be paid out of the country’s tax revenue, perhaps the amount given to local councils could be based on the number of people, or households, in a town, borough, or parish, plus extra for particular needs, such as a higher than average amount of school children, or elderly needing care. That sort of thing.
‘Okay, okay,’ says the man in the bright orange t-shirt. ‘What about inheritance tax?’
Now, that can be tricky when it comes to inheriting things like your mum’s wedding ring, or your grandad’s thimble collection, that have sentimental value. I don’t believe in taxing sentiment. But it’s a different matter if you inherit Aunty Edie’s bulging bank account. That could be considered income, unless you can persuade a court you are sentimentality attached to it and are not going to spend it.
But what if the inheritance is in the form of a family home or business. My very humble opinion is that if you’ve been living in the home, or working in the business, it’s a case of status quo, no tax on something you are going to continue to use in the way you did before.
If you’ve been living in the home, but want to change it, now a family member has died, fair enough, provided your new place is the same value as the old.
Now, so far we haven’t counted payment from an employer, so we’d better do that.
The thing is, this would be the same as all the other types of income, like your business bonuses or dividends.
Everyone would still have to have a tax code according to their set up. This, under my reign, would be calculated as the amount you need to live on: housing, fuel, food, basics like TV and wifi. Obviously It would vary according to your circumstances, like if you have kids to look after, or a non-working spouse, the dog, etc. So with me as Chancellor, your tax-free allowance would be more generous than we’ve been used to. Not loads, but a bit kinder.
How would this tax cut be paid for? By raising the amount those with the highest incomes pay. Simples.
If you don’t have an income as much as your tax-free allowance, you don’t pay any tax.
This could also get rid of the nonsense of paying tax on the state pension or benefits. It’s just extra cost to the country to pay someone from the tax pot and then work out and collect an amount back.
Now, who pays what amount of tax? I might like to swap amounts and percentages in real life, but for our purposes here, let’s not confuse things by trying to be accurate without any data to back it up.
Income between your personal allowance and £50k, you pay tax at a rate of 20%.
Then you pay a higher rate on income between £50k - £125K, that would be 40%.
If you’re lucky to have an income above £125k, income above that up to £1 million could be 45%.
On annual income over £1 million you pay 50% tax.
I anticipate grumbling from some rich people here.
It’ll get louder when I say what I’d do next!
As I’m Chancellor, if you have an income over £50 million, you have to cough up tax on that part at 55%.
Oh, come on. £50 million a year! What’re you going to spend it on? You’ll still keep nearly half of your income over that. You are a very rich person.
And think of the good your money could do for the country. Back to decent health care for everyone, even prescription medication and lenses, and dental treatment. And the country could afford more dentists, too. Kids would be educated by well-qualified teachers, in buildings that were big enough and didn’t have concrete cancer. Potholes could be filled. A nice life, eh?
And if you lost your job, you could still earn enough tax-free to pay your normal things, although nothing fancy, like membership to a premier league club, or a fortnight’s holiday in the Caribbean every year.
If you couldn’t earn that amount, well, that would be a job for the welfare department, not the chancellory.
Just to fill in some gaps, here are some other measures I’d bring in. You might like these.
Because everyone is paying tax according to their income, homeowners wanting to move house wouldn’t pay stamp duty. I’d chuck that right out. Consider, Mrs Applebottom has become a widow, and she’s left with a three bedroomed house. The children have flown the nest. She’d feel more comfortable in a two-bedroom flat; no more stairs. But by the time she adds not only the solicitors’ and estate agent’s fees, but stamp duty, she’d use up any equity from changing from a three-bed to a two-bed. She wants a spare room if the kids need somewhere to kip for a while, or to use as an office or hobbies room, so visitors don’t have to see all her detritus. Why not? She’s all on her own these days.
And there’d be no more leasehold properties. Commonhold could work, rather as is being suggested. Poor old Mrs Applebottom would have to add several thousand extra to lengthen her lease before she could sell her three-bed place, making it even harder to downsize. And then where are the people just starting families going to find the three-bedroomed houses?
Then there’s the BBC. Oh, bliss, to watch the telly without adverts interrupting the flow. And some of the programmes are worth saving. But how would I, as Chancellor, pay for it? Product placement and sponsorship. Maybe an increase in the amount of merch for sale. OK?
Another charge I would like to see very reduced, or abolished altogether, is tuition fees to work towards qualifications. As a country, we’re short of doctors, nurses, radiographers and all kinds of healthcare employees. We need people who can design buildings properly, so they are safe, and we won’t have another Grenfell. Perhaps if it was affordable to train for such jobs, we might be in a better situation
Ah, some of you have been reflecting (unlike Trump’s green pool). What’s that you say? If there were no council tax, business rates, corporation tax and stamp duty, wouldn’t that take away people’s jobs? Probably (if AI hasn’t taken them anyway) but think of the savings. We could plant a load more trees using the money.
In conclusion, I’d like to see taxes made easier to apply. It certainly needs thinking about. No doubt I haven’t got it right, but let’s admit there are problems, and take it from there.
If I Ruled the World, Or A Little Bit of It
3/ Constitution Designer
As I live in the land mass north of France, I think I’ll start with the constitution the UK should have; although of course it won’t be written down when it comes into effect (If you know, you know).
Let’s start with how we are going to organise ourselves. I think that should remain by elected representatives, so no surprises yet.
We need local representatives and, hey, let’s continue to call them councillors.
For a town, district or county council, the process will remain straightforward, with each ward being represented by the person who gets the most votes.
But at the country level, we need to jig things up a bit to make a government more representative of the people’s wishes. But how are we going to do that? There’s always going to be that dichotomy between who or what you are voting for, person or party. I’ve got to admit that people are generally more concerned, rightly or wrongly, by which party gets the seats in the House of Commons, so let’s go with party. However, there should always be room for independents. If a constituency votes more than 50% for an independent individual, then it seems right that they should have him or her.
But imagine an area is represented by 6 MPs. If we continue to let the seats go to those who win the most votes, even when that’s below 50%, you can have a problem. I’ll confuse you, which means I will try to explain.
Supposing the area of Utopia is made up of 6 constituencies, 6 seats in the Commons, called A, B, C, D, E and F (imaginative), and in each the parties standing were called Far-Right, Right, Centre, Left and Far-Left (creative, huh?), and the votes in thousands were:
A B C D E F Totals
Far-Right 13 7 2 1 1 1 25
Right 4 4 5 2 2 1 18
Centre 1 6 7 3 4 5 26
Left 1 2 4 3 8 10 28
Far-Left 1 1 2 11 5 3 23
= 20 20 20 20 20 20 120
By First Past the Post
Towns A, B and C would be won by the Far-Right party (3 seats = 50%)
Towns E and F would be won by the Left party (2 seats = 33%)
Town D would be won by the Far-Left party (1 seat = 17%)
But as a proportion of the total votes for the area
Far-Right = 25,000 = 21% (1.26 seats!)
Right = 18,000 = 15% (0.9 seats)
Centre = 26,000 = 22% (1.32 seats)
Left = 28,000 = 23% (1.38 seats)
Far-Left = 23,000 = 19% (1.14 seats)
Or to put it another way
For Utopia as an area, the parties could have the following seats:
Far-Right Right Centre Left Far-Left
FPTP 3 0 0 2 1
Proportional 1 1 1 2 1
So, to get to the heart of the matter, Proportional Representation, counting the share of the vote in a given area, gives you a more accurate number of seats according to what the people want. But of course, we must decide which town/constituency to give to which would-be representative.
Enough! I’m sure you get the picture.
But that’s not the whole story of how to be governed by representatives. We still have a second chamber, referred to misogynistically as the House of Lords.
I believe we need a second chamber, but we want the people in it to be useful to the process of making laws. So I propose a House of Experts.
No, the plebiscite would not vote for them; we’re too prone to voting for people we think would do a good job (eg Boris Johnson as PM). We’re not all that good at it. We act like it’s the ultimate reality TV show.
But some people need to vote; otherwise, we could get people in the chamber who the appointer, the Prime Minister, owes a favour, or wants a favour from, or wants to keep quiet about something dodgy.
Nope. The people who decide who goes in the House of Experts must be expert people themselves, in their relevant field. For example, appropriate medical doctors propose those they think are the best in their field and vote on whoever ends up on an agreed short list. Experts in town planning, construction, architecture, etc, would propose and vote for people to work on our behalf to ensure sufficient of the right sort of housing in the right places with enough roads and sewage systems. Teachers and educational researchers would make sure we had the best people for us to learn.
Voila, our shiny new and sensible parliament.
But how many would there be, and where would they be?
Scottish people want a Scottish Parliament, the Welsh want their own Senedd, and when they can agree, Northern Ireland benefits from its own Assembly.
Of course, then the overarching Parliament for the 4 nations is in Westminster, England.
Having one to hold them all together is fine, like each country in the EU sends representatives to the EU Parliament. But hold on! Four countries deserve four houses of representatives. So to make it work, England needs its own, too. Then we can have the overarching one as a separate entity. It’s too weird having Scottish, Welsh and Irish people voting on solely English matters.
And it’s also not right to have England’s Parliament making decisions on matters that relate to the other nations, don’t you agree?
You know I’m right. The overarching one will be home to the House of Experts. It’s the best way to sort out disagreements and do what’s best, not just popular.
Now, in order to vote for people in our regional and national assemblies, parties are going to want money to advertise their policies. Personally, I’m fed up with billionaires, particularly from abroad, donating lashings of dosh to certain parties to increase their chances of getting into power, or for things like Brexit to happen. So I’m afraid it’s going to have to be down to us taxpayers to financially arm political parties going in for the battle for the votes. That way, fairness is assured, and no one is buying votes.
Along similar lines, I recognise that most members of parliament need a family home and another, so that they can attend their assembly and be in their constituencies. But I don’t agree with the politicians buying a second home and claiming the expense of setting it up and running it as luxuriously as they want it. I’m not saying they can’t have two luxurious homes; that is their right. Just that we don’t pay for it.
I think the MPs need to choose which home they want to be the homeliest – their own home – and which one would be secondary: their constituency home or their parliamentary home. Their second home can be provided by the state. It doesn’t need to be draconian, just suitable for who is really going to be living there. If they are away from their constituency home just Mondays to Fridays, for example, during ‘term-time,’ and their children are going to remain ‘home’, attend school locally and so on, then a two-bed apartment will suffice, with a small garden if necessary.
Travel between the two, and all expenses can be paid for by the taxpayers, but only the usual stuff. If a politician wants to install a jacuzzi or a four-poster bed, then the extra cost would be down to them. Don’t forget, we’ve been charged for things like heating an MP’s stables and providing a duck house on their pond in the past. Taxpayers should stop MPs having to pay extra to do their jobs, but we shouldn’t be treated like mugs.
What else does a constitution need? Some kind of Bill of Rights.
In the United States of America, they include the right to free speech and worship. So far so good.
We don’t want freedom to bear arms, thank you very much. The best way to stop people from getting shot is for there to be fewer guns. Obviously, some police and the military need weapons. But not civilians.
In my constitution, I would have some reference to all people being born equal and having the right to be treated as such. Animals need rights to protect their existence and to protect them from harm, where it makes sense - I’m afraid I draw a line at head lice. They are not some other species’ food, and I doubt if they’re sentient. Of course, if anyone can prove they suffer while trying to keep them away from human heads, we can have a rethink.
And for critters to be treated fairly, they need to have sufficient of the right kind of habitat.
Although it may seem sad, our Experts will need to work out if animals need to be prevented from breeding (rather than being culled) for their own good (access to food and habitat, survival of other species) and to avoid people being ripped to shreds by an overabundance of fire-breathing dragons, etc. Also, which characteristics we shouldn’t allow in breeding, to avoid problems like dogs or cats bred to have faces that are too flat for them to breathe comfortably.
In our constitution, we need to ensure we always recognise bodies that rule over us as a species, and can decide globally what is a war crime, and what responsibilities we have collectively to one another, to fauna and flora and the planet in general. We’ll have no Trumpian declarations of independence from international law.
And the finer details I’ll leave to our sensible lawmakers and Experts, for now at least.
By the way, we keep the King. He prevents us from having to have a president, and God help us if we should ever end up with Trump, Putin, Kim, etc.