political reform party

Paul Lehmans. Brief Biography Active Retired, Innovative Design Engineer. Ex-Sapper, served in occupied Egypt and Libya. Former engineering tool designer. Credited problem solver, in engineering. Analysing cause and reason for problems and a reputation for devising simple solutions for complex problems. Author "On Her Majesty's National Service" with Author Fees donated to Help for Heroes Fund. Worked in USA, Europe and Middle East. Over fifty years interest in politics. Strong opponent of FPP (first-past-post) system of democracy, as the root cause of political corruption that is at the heart of Westminster, Whitehall, County and Local Councils, and campaigned for decades to replace FPP with PR, or a form of PR that avoids safe seats and safe blocks of seats, but secures a sound government. Past speaker at political debate Oxford Union. Believes the time has come for radical reforms to haul Parliament into the 21st Century. Political Reform Party Political Reform Party sets out a whole raft of policies and ideas that benefit voter/consumers and slashes central and local government administration costs and of greater significances, introduces USA style anti-trust laws that prohibit cartels and monopolies that are so prevalent in the UK. The ultimate aim of the Party is to drastically reduce the burden of direct and indirect taxes and introduce measures to greatly reduce prices for good and services in addition to powerful Parliamentary Committees mandated to act as watchdogs over all aspects of society, replacing quango's and of-watch bodies. Plus every effort to restore our industrial base lost to a services economy. The Party seeks likeminded people to register their interest via an email and when sufficient numbers are interested, a collective forum will be set up to discuss the best way forward. Reference to the following pages provide greater details and proposals. Election Manifesto Political Reform Party . Replacing outdated first-past-post system of 'regulated' democracy, with its unelected, politically appointed Boundary Commission and introducing a form of Proportional Representation (PR) that avoids safe seats and blocks of safe constituencies, combined with a system (yet to be devised) that secures strong government . Abolishing House of Lords, replacing it with a PR elected Upper Chamber of 300 seats. . Halving the number of House of Commons seats and merging respective constituencies. . Providing full professional pay and hours including holidays, job descriptions, contract of employment, for all upper and lower house members. . All MPs serve on powerful committees, replacing Quango's and all Watch-dog and Of-watch bodies to oversee and serve British society and such committees will investigate all matters concerning public and consumer complaints, and devise and recommend solutions to Parliament. . Setting up ten or more PR elected Regional Authorities with capped administration limits, responsible for administering their respective regions to the satisfaction of their electorate. . All Whitehall ministries undergo value for money, fit for purpose study and all Ministries found unsuitable are abolished, with any survivors transferred to Regional Authorities, other than essential (slim versions) government Ministries and Departments with senior posts open to the private sector. . Replace outdated Bank of England with UK Industrial Bank, based upon British designed German Bundasbank, which has served Germany well. . Introducing a massive reindustrialisation programme, to revitalise Britain's ailing manufacturing base, combined with trade training, in conjunction with Regional Authorities providing favourable bases and inducements attracting industry, plus providing freefully equipped Innovation Workshops and Advisors. . County/Local Councils duties absorbed into Regional Authorities, abolishing their astronomical administration and upkeep costs. . Introduction of USA style anti-trust laws, prohibiting monopoly and cartel practices, and force competition into markets thereby drastically reducing prices for goods and services. . Abolishing premium telephone lines and standing charges of utility companies, and regulating energy companies. . Lead the way for the formation of an EU superpower defence force to combat international terrorism, and reduce companies.UK's defence costs. . Introducing a limited form of national service on deferment basis, that excludes further education students and employed people. National service will also include full education and trade training for recruits. . Classification of street criminals as, Street Crime Terrorists, and setting up a national Para-military style anti-street crime terrorist Police Force, equipped with sufficient manpower and intelligence gathering equipment, to bring street crime terrorists before special Courts and Correction Camps. . Reform MPs' must serve voter/consumer interests with a mandate to drastically reduce direct and indirect taxes and prices for goods and services, thereby increasing disposal incomes for the general public. founder@politicalreformparty.co.uk * * * * * Time for Change Argument Change in British politics is simply not possible as political reform must precede change and this is not yet on the agenda The word change often used by the main parties, but in reality, political change only means change of leadership and not the kind of change that people hunger for. Established two main parties have a virtual monopoly on the grip of power and perhaps not so obvious, both parties share financial rewards for their front and backbenchers, in hundreds of career climbing government and opposition posts, that carry increase salaries and benefits, notwithstanding setting out rules of their own making regarding expenses that are open to bad practises. Also they share luxury 'fact-finding' jaunts abroad and many other privileges. There is clear evidence of this cosy collaboration of back scratching between the two parties. But for recent Lib Dem intervention, Labour and Tories would have jointly succeeded in passing a law prohibiting their expenses being subject to Freedom of Information Act. This naturally demonstrates how MPs' have acted over past years and greed comes to mind, demonstrated by so many self awarded long holidays, highly beneficial tax laws, second home allowances, transport expenses, hundreds of promotion post that carry many privileges, generous secretarial expenses for family and friends. There is no regulatory body representing taxpayers, other than the body elected who are free to act and serve their own interests in preference to taxpayers' interests. The Boundary Commission an unelected politically appointed quango, which adjust constituency boundaries, and appear to be mandated to retain a two party system and block any third party intrusion into this cosy arrangement. This system of democracy ensures that the two main parties need not act in the interests of the electorate in the same manner that Proportional Representation (PR) inflicts upon elected MPs', whereby voter disaffection ejects unsatisfactory MPs' at a following election. This peculiar form of democracy serves MPs' and their parties well, free to act as they deem fit. In effect the blow of losing a general election is greatly softened by privileges awarded to opposition front and back benchers, with little reduction in salaries, expenses, pensions, and many other privileges, including salaries for private work. This 'amateur status' of MPs' who are allowed to carry out their other work in the private sector, is harmful to the democratic nature of politics and simply prevents fulltime attention to work expected of MPs'. MPs' repeatedly claim to be "overburdened with work" but today, use of words by politicians are simply not believed and the public take their self awarded holidays and expenses, as a sample of their actual practises. Words no longer fool the public. It seems that MPs' main work is solving immigration problems, which are then, after gaining publicity, passed back to local councils, who are responsible for dealing with such matters. Private work permitted by MPs', raises the anomaly of 'you scratch my back I'll scratch yours' where MPs' paid interests are served by other MPs' with mutual interests in mind. There are no safeguards to prevent this, other than honest conduct and in the world of politics, honesty is a rare commodity. Added to this anomaly are Upper House fingers in the pie, permitted by this system. Declaring an interest as a means to prevent any underhand dealing by MPs' encourages quid quo pro actions, whereby interests of one MPs' are served by another or others and vice versa. People are fed up to the back teeth with practises of Whitehall and Westminster, as Ministerial spokesmen and women, fail to understand that their public televised utterances are now received with contempt and that their 'spin' is treated as damn lies on top of lies. During the fifties, sixties, and seventies, politicians, civil servants, led by the Media, unanimously boasted that Britain led the world in Health Services, Education, Public Transport, Law and Order, until mass holidays to Europe and other places, found that Britain lagged behind in all of these boastful claims and that in truth Britain suffered the worst utility services, than most of Western Europe and other industrial nations. Today political utterances even idiotic claim by Gordon Brown to have found a way to end "Boom and Bust" were treated as rubbish by most of the public, aware that truth often lay in the opposite. His powerful promotion of expansion of a consumer led economy while completely ignoring wise warnings from independent economists, to restrict credit and stem the tide of cheap credit, demonstrated Gordon Brown's arrogance while basking in the glory that cheap credit will produce. Government opposition supported cheap credit policies even demanded more deregulation of financial regulations. This is the sorry state of Britain's political elite, who now demand that they must inflict their costly policies of solving their sorry mess, adding greater burden upon present and future taxpayers. Political language of duplicity once hoodwinked the public and is now backfiring upon MPs' and Civil Servants, as truths concerning their self awarded privileges revealed by Freedom of Information drags truth into the public domain. Civil servants are expected to uncover the best analysis and frame use of words by distortion of statistics to enhance or minimise matters concerning any crises, which protect their Minister or Department, for which civil servants have become extremely adept. Even Ministers announce reviews that simply bat the matter into the long grass, even repeating falsehoods when the matters such as MPs' expense fiddles repeats make headlines. Gesture politics, which all Parties have been engage in over past decades, is no longer acceptable to the public and is treated with contempt. Politicians' thick skins block any awareness of public contempt for their conduct and behaviour. Following every general election, strange faces of middle and upper class, people, start appearing on TV, in positions of powerful government Ministerial posts, who are not elected, and who make drastic decisions over our lives. These people are often heads of large organisations, a worrying thought for consumers. In a democracy unelected people have no place in government and this peculiarity is part of our strange election system. Also, so called off-watch guangos, of well paid friends of government, act as buffers for Ministers who via this peculiarity shift their ministerial responsibilities to others when policies go wrong. Taxpayers pay for over 600 MPs' and even more upper house members raising the question, why unelected people are appointed to Parliamentary posts? Ministers now refuse to accept responsibilities for which they are elected and more than well paid to boot. This highly privileged class and unelected people serving in government with the public now 'conditioned' to accept that 'nothing can be done about it' is just a small part of all gripes that voter/consumers hold against political parties. Added to this are an array of Ministers of this and that, the title highly inflated in relation to the job, with the promotion more to do with increases in salaries and pensions. During the height of the British Empire when Whitehall administered to the greatest empire in history there were but a handful of Ministries. Today there are possibly 150 plus ten years ago the count was 130 and now who knows. Britain has the largest government administration in the Western world, even larger than USA and the problem continues to grow. It is a known fact that the MoD employ more civil servants than service men and women and that these civil servants are provided with better salaries, pensions and working conditions than their service counterparts. Also across the EU, bureaucracy absorbs the bulk of defence budgets and that the combined defence budgets of EU are equal to that of USA with procurement of military hardware and service personal, just one tenth of USA. British and EU bureaucrats will not want EU taxpayers demanding a single EU Defence Force or the formation of an EU superpower, despite demands of EU Commanders to provide the level of armaments to match USA and combat international terrorism. Britain's hard pressed Military Commanders and outdated equipment is an issue of paramount importance concerning the rise of international terrorism and their growing ability to increase and spread their insurgency in the Middle East and around the world. Britain's powerful middle class and middle England hostile opposition to EU and any idea of a EU superpower, many preferring to opt out of EU but retain trade benefits. National defence is not a priority for these people and combating and defeating international terrorism which an EU superpower and USA would achieve. EU needs modern weapons including surveillance and attack drones matching USA number, that UK alone cannot match. Apathy in the hands of politicians is their most powerful weapon and the more people believe that 'nothing can be done' existing political system grows in strength and beneficiaries in Westminster and Whitehall are free to build up greater rewards for themselves. Granted when voter numbers fall fring parties do make headway. Apathy is the enemy and destroys society. Present first-past-the-post system of democracy demands that it is regulated by a non elected, political appointed Boundary Commission who successfully protects the two main parties and blocks any third party intrusion, while failing produce any form of proportional representation that a healthy democracy enjoys. The system serves politicians, their parties, and their financial backers, detrimental to voter/consumers interests, witnessed by Britain paying the highest direct and indirect taxes and highest prices for good and service in the Western world. British people suffer lowest disposable incomes of most Western Europe and other industrial nations, reflecting the truth that UK citizens pay highest taxes and prices for good and services. Introducing PR democracy will rid the nation of first-past-the-post and demand that elected politicians act to serve voter/consumers or suffer the consequences that present politicians will not want. Barack Obama's quest for change, courted the electorate via the Internet and power of the Internet crushed established opposition. Here in Britain, Internet Political Parties are making inroads, despite main party's efforts in swamping the internet with their own brands and propaganda. Gordon Brown Bookkeeper Prime Minister Gordon Brown MP gained his political reputation in budgeting accountancy and in the minds of many, perhaps not economists, an excellent bookkeeper. This ability may prove ideal to manage the Treasury, but managing a nation is another matter. Tony Blair had a natural ability to grasp public opinion views, able to think through matters and avoid any dire repercussions, plus tremendous presentation skills, all of which a modern Prime Minister must possess. Unfortunately, chartered accountants, while masterful in bookkeeping matters, often lack senior management skills or ability to grasp complexity of business decision making. For example, at the turn of the 19th century, Britain's industrial manufacturing boomed, share holding city institutions replaced factory floor trained senior managers with their own kind, who lacked qualifications or understanding of the complexities involved in their charge. In turn, these people know as, "old school tie brigade" appointed chartered accountants (bookkeepers) to their Boardrooms and acted upon their advice. Their first act, to impress Board members, proposed scrapping Research and Development (R&D) establishments, dismissing R&D staff and workforce, saving costs and reducing overheads for short term profitability. Cries of despair from factory floor management, begging senior managers not to close R&D laboratories and workshops, as goods and products depended upon R&D, (its lifeblood) to maintain modernisation and keep up with new designs and materials, without which, their goods and products become outdated. Needless to say their pleas fell on deaf ears. Combination of unqualified senior management acting upon ignorant bookkeeper advice proved a disaster for Britain's manufacturing industry. USA, Germany and Japan do not appoint chartered accountants to their boards and it was these three nations who produced goods and products superior and of better quality than British goods. During the seventies, a visiting Japanese industrial leader, on his journey to meet his British counterparts, said to his chauffeur, "I'm not a betting man, but I'll wager none of my British colleagues will possess any qualifications or have any understanding of matters discussed". On his return he told his chauffeur, "I would have won my wager". Equate this combination with recent banking industry collapse. Heads of banking of the old school tie brigade, had no banking qualifications, appointed by city institutions in preference to qualified staff. Senior Bankers acted upon their accountant's advice, scrapping generations of prudence in the quest for short term profitability. It has emerged that pleas from less senior but qualified staff were ignored. Banking business record is abysmal to say the least, where during the seventies, their third world venture in South America, resulted in massive losses for their city institution owners, whereby Mrs Thatcher gifted them utility services. They lacked necessary finance to purchase the bargain buys, so generous taxpayers 'inducements' were also 'gifted' to city institutions, giving cause for the anomaly of taxpayers buying their own property, which was termed as privatisation. Inducement gifts were shrouded in secrecy, open to question, how much millions or billions and repayment and interest terms, if any. Again in recent time's accountancy led Banks invested into second world ventures in Eastern Europe and again suffered massive losses, confirming that Banks perhaps are perhaps the most abysmal of all business practises. Immediately before a banking collapse, politicians of both main parties, urged on by City Institutions, had been crying out for more deregulations of Banks, many opposing voices, led by Lib Dems, Nick Clegg and other economists, fell on deaf ears. It is clear that both main parties value and serve financial services. Tony Blair appeared to know that bookkeeper Gordon Brown lacked nation management skills and exasperated that no other Minister strong enough to compete with Gordon Brown for leadership. He strongly suspected that Gordon Brown would destroy New Labour. It is well to recall that Gordon Brown's first public display of his indecisiveness, when it became clear he was preparing a snap general election in 2007 with all the hallmarks in place and in response to David Cameron's fierce confident attack and cries of "bring it on" which were bluffs, Gordon Brown backed down. In political parlance, this amounted to lack of comprehending all possible scenarios or understanding of the tremendous damage that any u-turn would inflict upon Gordon Brown's ability to lead the nation. His failure or lacking essential ingredient of management skills of a nation was exposed and comparison with bookkeeper led Banks, bodes ill for this nation. His strong belief in spin and spouting repeated facts and figures, in the blind belief that the more he repeats these 'facts' the public must accept they are true. This repeated spin multiplies the drain of popularity whereby a better advised Premier would move away from spin altogether. Soon local and EU elections will demonstrate Tony Blair's fears. Next year, in a general election, a massive landslide defeat is on the cards and best New Labour can hope for, is to replace its leader and most of its front bench now, as damage limitation and reduce election losses to manageable recovery proportions. Local and EU elections will carry a 'hurt' by voters, comparable to poll tax for the Tories, and their decision to return the hurt will show in a massive rejection of all things Labour. New Labour's 'in fighters' guarantee no leadership election is possible until after the general election and Brown camp have no intention of resigning to save the Party, a stalemate is on the cards. Added to this scenario, on the opposition front bench, waiting to replace labour, are a lawyer and bookkeeper, ready to continue the same toxic management for another ten years or more. Same cart different donkey. Paul Lehmans Witehall Scandal Whitehall increases in scope and costs and ever spiralling organisation in the firm grip of trade unionism that destroyed Britain's manufacturing industry whereby union protection of 'no dismissals' is a cancer that must be rooted out. Trade union's vicelike grip on Britain's vast army of civil servants, prohibits any sacking of its members with union demands for gilt edge, inflation proof, index linked, pensions guaranteed by the taxpayer, with Unions immune from political controls. Union self-praise term "Britain has the best civil service in the world" hides and army of overstaffed, very privileged overpaid job for life people, pretending to be busy while employees deserving of dismissal are simply transferred to another department and this scandalous practise has remained in place for generations. Political reform will turn off the Treasury tap, disband Whitehall, replace senior civil servant with an elected Official, transferring most administration duties to Regional Authorities that are free to use the private sector, while any remaining Ministries will be completely overhauled with value-for-money guidance weeding out failure and where private sector are predominantly brought in to carry out duties that civil service are ill trained to carry out. Should it transpire that trade unions will try to block modernisation of the civil service and threaten to close down all benefit payment offices, the threat that halted PM Thatcher in her tracks when she attempted to curb civil service trade unionism, PRP will meet the threat or action head on and while benefit claimants will suffer, but in the long term the nation and taxpayer will be relieved of the heavy burden suffered today. Introduction Political Reform Party The party is formed in order to rid the nation of the kind of politics that has led to the present dissatisfaction within society and with the main political parties in general, and replace it with a modern political system that reflects voter/consumer needs and not politicians and supplier's needs. Since Thatcher introduced the City of London Institutes led Service Economy, that replaced our manufacturing based economy, voter/consumer interests in every respect has taken a back seat. UK have a peculiar 'First Past the Post' (FPP) system imposed upon us by politicians and the establishment, who rejected any kind of Proportional Representation (PR) which reflect voter/consumer needs and unfortunately FPP serves politicians/suppliers needs, clearly witnessed today. Under the present FPP system, we suffer the highest cost of living in the western world, pay the highest direct and indirect taxes of any modern industrial nation and phenomenal high prices for goods and services. * * * * * * The resulting proof, we have the lowest disposal incomes of all modern industrial nations. Also we have rampant street crime and overspill prisons, while suffering the largest exorbitant tax costing government administration in the western world, all of which culminating into an ever growing north-south, rich-poor divide and the highest child poverty in western Europe, with high unemployment, if housing benefit claimants are a truer guide to so called official figures. Notwithstanding a crumbling, deteriorating social infrastructure, as health, education, police, and public transportation services fall further and further behind EU standards. There are whole regions throughout Britain of dilapidated industrial areas and their housing estates, where generations of unemployed families and single parent families are raised. * * * * * * For decades, politicians and their parties and their secret financial backers (suppliers) and its media support, have successfully prevented any mention, let alone action, to introduce American style, Anti-trust Laws that outlaw monopoly practises of all kinds and the beneficiary of this are the supermarkets, chain stores, Banks and financial services, retail outlets, legal services, public transport, utility services of gas, electricity, water, telecommunications. It is only when these establishments are compared to overseas markets and internet prices that high priced goods and services are revealed in Britain. Political Reform Party will introduce tough Anti-trust Legislation and powerful enforcement of such laws, in order to introduce American style fierce competition in all markets. Since the Tories rid the nation of its manufacturing base, and replaced it with a services economy and their policies embraced by New Labour, all of our economic eggs are placed into the services economy basket and its consumer economy drive, with its long term economic dangers starting to raise their ugly heads. It is inevitable that our financial services that once were dependent upon balance of trade surpluses' and now dependent upon money markets, must eventually collapse, with unimaginable strains placed upon the Pound and the long overdue scramble to join the Euro, with middle englanders and their media strongly protesting. The end result of Thatcher's service economy can only end in economic collapse. * * * * * * Having our economic eggs in two baskets, services and manufacturing, was a wiser and far more prudent long term policy, and restoring our manufacturing base and bring back skills training is fast becoming a dire necessity. It is PRP's policy to introduce a massive Reindustrialisation Programme that will restore Briton's manufacturing base and create Employer friendly policies, (such as enjoyed by Thatcher's highly privileged services companies), and employer creation is the forerunner of any job creation scheme. * * * * * * The difficulty in providing solutions to existing problems is explaining the repercussions of the problems and this difficulty supports the beneficiary of the problems and they are fully aware that the solutions provided in this paper will greatly harm their interests and they will fight tooth and nail to oppose PRP in every possibly way. Likewise politicians will not want safe seats abolished or their privileged lifestyles changed. I must apologise for repeating and stressing certain points throughout this paper, but these must be hammered home in the hope that the thinking through will make repercussions very clear and hopefully attract likeminded people to become founder members. On this point when I have one hundred or so interested members I will open a forum to discuss how best to raise finance, possibly via Founder Membership annual fees of ten Pounds. * * * * * * Since 1954, during national service, I was awakened to political life and the shock was quite alarming and the tissues of lies I have heard ever since, caused me to figure out the reasons behind the deceits and gradually evolve counter solutions which forms the PRP proposals, which are subject to revision by the membership prior to acceptance. The principle lesson, is I feel, when human greed is allowed to flourish unchecked, as indeed our 'first past the post' system of politics, then human greed produces the calibre of politician we now have in this country and if we were permitted to learn what fortunes ex-ministers have achieved, then it is understandable why Robert Maxwell said "if you want to make money in this country, become a government minister" and when former PM, James Callahan's (who held a record number of ministerial posts), reputed to be a billionaire, estate is published, after the government banned its publication for fifty years, then perhaps his words will prove true. Paul Lehmans * * * * * * * * Argument for Political Reform UK's two main political parties greatly benefit from first-past-the-post (FPP) electoral system, imposed upon us, where two main parties are protected from any third party intrusion into this cosy arrangement via a politically appointed, non elected Boundary Commission (BC) who as past Liberal voters and present Lib Dem voters are able to testify, where their millions of votes produced a handful of seats and where their seat entitlement was divided out between the main two parties. This whole system provides a buffer for the two main parties, who are free to act for their own interests and respond to financial backer's demands, and treat the electorate in a far less important manner. The system also allows the parties to concentrate on just marginal seats and simply allay fears of remaining majority, with very sincere honest sounding believable words and nothing else. * * * * * * This in turn forces the two main parties to merge their policies into the centre ground and today Britain ceases to have any effective opposition, other than pretence opposition, which in turn creates a form of dictatorship, especially as parliamentary backbenchers are themselves regulated, insofar their promotion hope or promotion rise, depends upon obeying leadership orders, where for example the Iraq war was voting on and passed by MPs' of both main parties, when the majority of their constituents and the nation, strongly opposed the war, bringing into dispute the word democracy, as FPP secures their parties. Also under Premiers Blair and Brown the main opposition under its array of leaders kept quite as the credit and mortgages exploded out of control whereby ordinary people and business people (other than the service economy) looked on with utter dismay, knowing full well that the economic consequences for the nation would be insurmountable and possibly beyond repair. An opposition subject to PR pressures, would have screamed the house down in order to restore commonsense. The present leader of the opposition is as guilty as his predecessor of failing the nation. In turn MPs' give great credence to dealing and managing their constituency affairs where in reality most of the work deals with immigration problems where eventually it is returned to the local council who are responsible for dealing with such matters, but MPs' in the absence of real UK Citizens work are able to grasp at immigration straws. * * * * * * Under Proportional Representation (PR) any MPs' who ignores his or her constituents, will be punished by voters in a following general election. MPs' who voted for the Iraq War would be fully exposed by other candidates in a general election and not protected by 'safe seats' and 'boundary advantages'. Political reform will tackle the problems and complaints of the electorate by introduction of powerful Parliamentary Committees. Even party leaders must take great heed of public opinion and for these reasons alone, PR is far more preferable to FPP. New Labour and Tories will fight tooth and nail to retain FPP and with the help of their powerful financial backers and media supporters, will succeed, unless voters, on mass, vote the whole corrupted form of democracy out of power and elect pro PR parties, who have policies more in keeping with voters and consumers demands. Today the party in government is powered to please its marginal's, while the opposition, well their wealthy backers, must 'pump' greater publicity at great costs, in order to combat government advantages, witnessed today as Tory financial backers and supporters succeed in making great inroads, with massive publicity campaigns into marginal seats that has gradually, over the years, made inroads into government's lead in national polls. * * * * * * Cameron's; Tony Blair style of pure rhetoric attracting many voters outside marginal's appears to work and soon we start the cycle all over again, with Blair 2 serving its backers, its media supporters and pleasing it's marginal seat constituents. He Cameron believes that his aspiration creation of policies (with no teeth) is sufficient to hoodwink the electorate and elect his party to power. This peculiar electoral arrangement produces a calibre of MP that must follow party lines and therefore not the kind of person able to make commonsense decisions, where eventually the whole party comprises people devoid of decision making abilities, clearly witnessed today where the nation is flooded with problems that everyone knows will never be solved. Northern Rock is a typical example of dithering Ministerial decision making that should have been decided in 24 hours or 48 hours at most and dragged on and on and on compounding the damage further. * * * * * * In USA, their Northern Rock, Bear Stearns problem, was solved over a weekend reflecting UK indecision errors. Added to this scenario are junior party MPs' are judged on their ability in mastering duplicity speak, and promotion is linked to this ability, hence senior MPs' and Ministers are very adept at duplicity speak. Typically MP constituency seat selection for party candidates are selected on smart or attractive appearance, politically ambitious, well spoken, clearly obedient to party rules and instruction, all the qualities of the obedient yes man and not the calibre of a decision maker, resulting in the low competence of backbenchers without ability of making a decision. Individual thinkers and action delivery peoples are automatically excluded and soon as has occurred with Ministers who all appear to be a blend of the same mould, MPs' will soon under FPP become junior versions of Ministers who are reluctant to make decisions as this could prove to be a mistake which will ruin their political career. The old adage "people who don't make decisions don't make anything" applies to MPs' who are more concerned about looking after their backsides, than dealing with matters that require decisions. * * * * * * The two main parties claim that FPP avoids a hung parliament and that Britain would plummet into Italian style elections but behind such false claims the truth is that PR compels MPs' and their parties to act and please their voters and not their financial backers and this role reversal demand greater effort, greater decision making, forcing attention to domestic problems and less attention to problems abroad and above all, producing results that satisfy their voters needs, where failure in a PR election equals dismissal and replacement by a person of greater commonsense and ability. Today British society suffers an array of problems that are simply ignored or at best given strong words to allay such fears, while year on year, decade on decade and generations later the same problems continue to flourish. It is in the hands of MPs' to keep FPP and all of its advantages and block and oppose PR with all of its demands on politicians and the two main parties. * * * * * * Under FPP city institutions and financial service powerful backers of Thatcher's Tory party forced through its treasured Service Economy, and allowed high street banks to withdraw finance from our manufacturing industry and invest in what they perceived as lucrative third world countries, where as predicted, by economists, such ventures can only prove disastrous and soon city institutions suffered severe cash equity. Thatcher came to their rescue and gifted city institutions our utility companies and shock horror, generous tax payer 'inducements' for short of funds, city institutions to purchase the bulk of these utilities. These inducements have never been exposed or for that matter if the institutions have paid back taxpayers money. In effect it is possible that tax payers purchased our utilities and this is just another example of FPP and its underhand dealings at work. For decades sensible economists, who are edited out of the media, condemn chartered accountant bankers as the most inept type of person to judge investment values or act in an astute businesslike manner and today we witness another bankers blunder, where bankers fell over themselves purchasing valueless debt packages, dressed up in attractive packaging that would not fool and astute business person, which completely fooled gullible Bankers, resulting in losses of billions of pounds, instead of greed motivated profit. * * * * * * Since the eighties, sound economists advocated that financial services must be induced into investing in our manufacturing industry while services led media propaganda, conducted a laborious campaign against our manufacturing industry and all things trade union, while omitting the damages inflicted by withdrawal of financial investment and ill trained senior management where both these scenarios added to trade union intransigence. It should noted that Spain grabbed our ailing shipbuilding orders and soon became a leading shipbuilding nation as indeed many other industries were grabbed by West Germany and Japan. There are many other examples where governments need not trouble themselves with voter and consumer problems, as FPP guarantees both main parties assured government or HM opposition and the generous perks associated with this. It is well overdue that UK enters the 21st century and rid itself of outdated established controls and rigged markets and badly trailing behind EU in every social respect, where our public transport is laughable, education lamentable, law and order is ludicrous, and our health service shameful where EU strive ever further foreword with improvements, with its social infrastructure, while here in Britain we receive sincere, honest, believable assurances aided with glowing statistics that our services are leading the way, not mentioning the direction, up or down. * * * * * * Our outdated politics supports monopolies and alike and provided toothless watchdog quango's to regulate and control monopoly and cartel practises. This arrangement may please politicians and allow them to claim free competitive markets, where in reality monopolies and cartels flourish. Political Reform Party is the first voter/consumer party with all of its policies concentrated upon domestic problems and concerns with a range of policies that will create a PR electoral system, creation of Reindustrialisation Programme to restore Britain's industrial base and increase jobs, bring down prices for goods and services, slash government administration by at least 50%, clear the streets of street crime criminals, greatly improve Schools, Health Care, Public Transport, and improve Police Forces, and other favourable voter/consumer policies, which FPP failed to tackle for generations. * * * * * * It's leader, Paul Lehmans in response to opposition critical of the party's policies and charges that the nation could not afford implementing such ideas, his reply was, whatever the truth, these policies will receive top priority be that they are phased in as the nation can afford, or as the money appeared out of nowhere to finance billions of pounds for Middle East wars and billions of pounds more, to bail out the Banks suffering under its failing Thatcher led service economy, then if these massive unexpected 'costs' are possible today, then I'm sure the party's policies are affordable, even if they are phased in over the years. EXAMPLE OF LETTERS TO EDITOR Title: Time for Change Paul Lehmans. New Labour and Tories claim to be the listening party, but if Political Reform Party policies and ideas are to be judged as average public gripes, then both Brown and Cameron need to shake up their act, with comparable policies, as the mood for change sweeps the nation. It's easy for press and politicians to ridicule the new Party's policies as idealistic, not affordable, not cost effective, also the basis for economic collapse, but every policy outlined in its policy proposals, when compared to affordability of Northern Rock and recent past and present Middle East Wars, and compare like with like, with massive savings in dismantling Whitehall and slashing to the core economic draining government administration, then each and every policy has merit. It is fact that the main parties quibble and give great credence to affordability of this and that with all of them bleating on about costs and affordability, then along comes a Middle East war or two and Northern Rock and all of their 'concerns' completely disappear, as money simply appears out of nowhere, making a complete mockery politicians concerns about unfunded policies. PRP will simply forge ahead with its policies and ignore political opposition and scaremongering. Voter/consumers prefer direct action rather than more sincere sounding believable promises spoken with great conviction. In any society there are always problems and it is how you deal with problems that count. In UK problems linger on for years, decades, and even generations and political parties are at a loss or simply cannot be bothered to deal with the problems, where both New Labour and Tories replace action with sincere sounding honest words, which is sufficient for their respective parties candidates to be re-elected or elected to government and this is the historic fact. PRP and its members will not resort to cheap words but forge ahead pursuing its policies as demanded in its constitution and election manifesto. Whitehall are very good at producing statistics of all kinds, until it comes to themselves and the individual cost for every Department and every Ministry, including the tail costs of lucrative gilt edge pensions, advisory posts, quango appointments, part time reemployment (with full pensions) etc, etc, where such information is simply not gathered or very well hidden behind garbled waffle. Not a single Dept or Ministry is ever short of staff, its management and senior management are closed shops (jobs for the boys) and are themselves overstaffed and in the days when Whitehall ruled the largest Empire in history there were but a handful of Ministries, whereby today with EU regulating 75% of government administration, there are over one hundred and thirty Ministries, doing god knows what and costing taxpayers an arm and a leg. MPs' promotion jobs grow with Whitehall's vast growth, hence the army of junior MPs' and their opposite numbers appearing out of the woodwork in droves, no wonder party loyalty is assured with these entire 'promotion' job in the gift of their leaders. Naturally the taxpayer foot the ever growing bill and other investments fall by the wayside, replace with sincere words. Policies to introduce ten or more Regional Authorities (RA's) with these RA's taking over any Whitehall Dept or Ministry that survive value-for-money and fit-for-purpose scrutiny by powerful Parliamentary Committee's, other than the essential central government Ministries that will also undergo modernisation and massive cutbacks to match their capped administration budgets and competing with commercial companies, whereby with cost effective efficiencies any remaining Ministry or Dept will be slim lined for the benefit of the electorate. Savings are inestimable and until PRP open the books from the Treasury Coffers and unravel the Whitehall drain on its resources, and then PRP will know what savings are possible and trim its cloth or finance PRP policies. The Commons will suffer the same Whitehall treatment, abolishing the House of Lords and cutting Commons seat by 50% with half the seats transferred to an Upper House and MPs' salaries are structured on a professional person's basis with MPs' responsible for all their expenses other than Parliamentary Committee duties, where work/duty expenses are paid from Parliament Finds. Included in scrutinising MPs' and Civil Service salaries and gilt edge inflation proof index linked pensions and costs to taxpayers where trimming and phasing out such practises is another PRP policy. RA's will govern their respective region with finance available to expand its manufacturing base and attract 'competitive' services and businesses into the area and where monopoly services and business could be phased out. Introduction of USA style Anti-trust Laws in order to rid the nation of monopolies can and most assuredly will be strongly opposed by the powerful political and media serving monopoly interests. Despite the hullabaloo PRP causes the need for reducing Whitehall and Westminster costs and abolishing monopolies and cartels as poppycock, the truth remains the British people suffer the lowest disposal income of all industrialised nations and tax and prices account for this suffering. Street crime is always treated as more imaginary than real, and that statistics prove it's always falling year on year, but in truth, people can see otherwise and view with horror the growth of drug fuelled street crimes. It is PRP policy of eradicating street crimes (muggings, shop and car theft, burglary, drug peddlers, drug dealers, and drug barons) by setting up a national armed Para-military style, Street Crime Police Force (SCPF) with full manpower and finance, and equipped with most modern surveillance equipment money can buy and every street crime offender will know that they must cease or serve time in strict and secure street criminal offenders camps. We can see PRP tackles this problem head on and terms of costs SCPE will not cost the taxpayer the kind of money of Northern Rock. PRP will not divert from its policies to rid the streets of street crime terrorists and make every effort to set out system that rids society of these people. When comparing Western Europe's public transport with our own, politicians hold their heads in shame and PRP policies will tackle this problem head on. First by improving facilities, freezing fares and gradual reduction of fares year on year, introducing low fare public tramway service for all our cities whereby eventually use of motorcars will prove far more expensive than highly efficient, low priced public transport. These and other services are subject to funding availability and if Northern Rock is the sample guiding light funding will be made possible. Today Britain and the world face the growing rise of terrorism and use of greater mass destruction weapons and at some time in the future dirty weapons. PRP believe that Britain's military abilities are limited even Iraq and Afghanistan combined with other duties is causing great worry for our Military Commanders and the MoD are so outdated and even employ more civil servants than service men and women as indeed this outdate practise is spread across the whole of EU. It is estimated that the combined defence budgets of the EU is greater than USA defence budget but produce less than 10% of military hardware. PRP intend to force through with our senior EU Partners the formation of an EU Defence Force (EUDF) with a single pentagon style headquarters with a single purchasing power equal or greater that the USA with the formation of massive fully equipped helicopter divisions able to transfer to anywhere in the world to combat international threat. Today for example, if it was discovered that a terrorist organisation in some far distant mountainous area had possession of a suitcase size dirty bomb intended for Britain. The question arises what would our politicians and Generals be able to do and compare the answer to EDUF super power General with powerful fully equipped Divisions at his command, then ask our Euro sceptics to and both questions. The answers are clear and the argument for Mod and other EU Defence Ministries to remain out of touch and out of date is answered. There are many other public concerns that PRP deals with head on, setting up powerful Parliamentary Committees to remove/reduce all consumer rip offs, oversee all public services and nursing/pensioner homes, dealing with niggling practises of premium phone lines (to be abolished) utility services malpractices, consumer complaints, where MPs' will be seen to be active in dealing with voter/consumer needs and less concerns with immigration complaints and alike which will be the responsibility of RA's. Other concerns are taken on board a national storm drain system to elevate fears of flood plane residents and study the feasibility of a national water supply system from north to south improving housing stock, and raising living standards. There are clear target beneath the array of policies whereby employment creation via a massive Reindustrialisation Programme is the first requirement that must precede job creation which in turn has a knock-on effect to remove the high rate of unemployment and this in turn creates wealth and improves living standards and reduces crime. Anti-trust Laws banish high prices and rip-off companies and drastically reduce prices for all goods and services which in turn lessens pressures on salary increases and increases disposal income and living standards, easing child poverty and reducing the north-south rich-poor divide. Eradicating street crime by tackling its core root of illegal drugs and the very severe penalties imposed on guilty offenders and even more severe penalties on drug barons with the street crime terrorists police releasing our hard pressed police force overburdened with street crime and tackle widespread hooliganism and drunken disorder with greater venom backed by strong laws prohibiting drunken behaviour in public and carry out their duties in relation to society. Greatly reducing central government administration size and resulting costs and introducing elected by proportional representation Regional Authorities, taking over social services of local government such as NHS, Education, Police, Housing, Industrial Expansion. The policies are designed to tackle popular needs of voter/consumers who have far less interest in overseas terrorists and are more concerned with eradicating street crime terrorists, and getting rid of rip-off practises, greatly reducing taxes and prices for goods and services, improving living standards and dragging politics into the 21st century. Naturally while policies are at 'proposed' stage where when a team of likeminded men and women will iron out details with the aid of expert help and where any final policy must be approved by party membership whereby the slim line version will eventually become firm party policy ready for party election mandate. New Labour and Tories are welcome to 'steal' these policies but their financial backer will hear nothing about Anti-trust Legislation, and as for joining an EU Superpower military force, well their middle England devotion and trade union pride will boot this baby into touch. Other policies are rather too bothersome and unless that are able to use words of duplicity and 'aspire' to such policies, then such will be forthcoming. Unfortunately old fashioned outdated politicians never make decision, for fear of making mistakes and carry automatic demotion, where well spoken earnest and sincere honest sounding speakers of the like of Jonathan Aitken, disgraced Tory MP, well versed in the art of duplicity-speak as most high ranking party politicians who rose in their ranks, where the public are fed up to the back teeth of hearing Minister and shadow Minister repeating the same old rhetoric decade, after decade, after decade and these politicians completely ignorant that its policies with tiger teeth that the public want to hear, while behind the scenes the poor dears haven't a clue, other than their kind can walk off merchant ships unemployed and via our political system become millionaires where eventually the billionaires' have their will's frozen for fifty years. This brief insight to Political Reform Party policies provides new thinking for voter and consumer and certainly feed the 'need for change' and the time for change sweeping the nation, and for this reason New Labour and Conservatives need to rethink their own ideas, if they want to block public thinking of following PRP's lead. Paul Lehmans. 14th March 2008 Full Policy Programme Political Reform Party (PRP) The following is a full detailed unedited version of reasons, ideas and policies for the formation and foundation of a political party that will counter the stagnant political status quo that is inflicting great harm and economic damage upon the nation. The principles are based upon voter/consumer interest, with policies that allow free and fair competitive trade and practices under a law that prohibits cartel and monopoly practices. Policies and rules formulated by the Membership will become the Party Constitution and foundation for an Election Manifesto. While most of the points, ideas and general philosophies have been extracted, the greater detail is recorded for reference and guidance. Paul Lehmans. First Past the Post (FPP) system of elections was imposed upon us because proportional representation (PR) was repugnant to their lordships and the establishment and they drew up FPP to safeguard their interests, even to the point of their filling the upper chamber with unelected landed gentry and the system has proved to be successful in this respect, and served their lordships well and certainly proved highly detrimental to the electorate and consumer interests. Even in the lower chamber MP's set out their own rules without any external or public controls and human greed in such cases rules the roost and had PM's and MP's looked after voters and consumers interests, as enthusiastically as they looked after their own interests and big businesses/financial institutions, it can be said with some truth, that we would all be far better off today. * * * * * * FPP is regulated and controlled by a non elected politically appointed Boundary Commission and this is not democracy by any standard, and adding the words “mother of all parliaments” helps to disguise FPP which in essence fails to respond or react to voters demands which true PR achieves. Politicians and its media ridiculing Italy and alike who have PR and the many difficulties arising for its politicians, while conveniently ignoring the many successful nations such as Germany who have PR. Politicians fear of PR and use of every means possible to block its progress is a question voter/consumers must dwell upon and realise that they are the only force left in the land to rid ourselves of this undemocratic system and replace it with PR. Naturally the form of PR devised must deal fairly with capitalists system and not harm big business competitiveness, while serving voter/consumer interests. * * * * * * Today, Britain has the largest administrations in the western world, even larger than the USA demonstrating FPP at work and the sooner this national scandal is abolished the better for taxpayers and the nation. Under FPP politicians are free to award themselves salaries, expenses very dubious highly beneficial 'housing arrangements' inflation proof and gilt edge pensions, in addition to the extra perks of the House of Lords. FPP also suits monopolies of all kinds, hence the cause of non competitive charges, fees and prices for good and services and the monopolies earning the highest Profits on Turnover (PoT) in the western world, with the electorate powerless to do anything about it. Profit on turnover is not a measurement that politicians or the media ever use, as this is the true measurement of a companies competitive trading. A group of companies in any business who all earn a high PoT reflecting their monopoly grip in their business or industry. * * * * * * A typical example; we are all led to believe that our leading supermarkets are fiercely competitive with politicians, press and media supporting this belief, yet compare like with like with Germany or USA supermarkets, and these foreign supermarkets have a profit on turnover of around 2% to 3% while our top supermarkets earn profit on turnover of between 9% and 10%. Today the 'discount stores' such as Lidl, Aldie, Netto, with lower purchasing powers than the big four, sell their goods at a much lower mark-up and remain profitable and able to expand despite the big four buying up local properties to block competitors such as the main discount stores. In an economic downturn cartels and monopolies remain protected, bitterly complaining that their phenomenally high profits are slashed by x-amount (and this is not mentioned) resulting in just very healthy profits that other Companies would love to boast about. German and USA supermarket directors, shareholders, employees, and more important, customers, are delighted with this margin of success that 2% - 3% profit on turnover returns. * * * * * * When people are free to satisfy their own greed, as MP's have done over generations, then it is with great certainty that greed will be the dominant factor in all matters and voter/consumers are able to judge for themselves if this is true. It can be said with great justification that politicians first serve their own interests, then their party's interests and lastly the electorates' interests. Very sincere sounding honest meaningful words in a stripped suit that readily contradict this will be used by politicians to deny such a charge. Financial services are tarred with the same brush. The greed of politicians naturally spreads and big business formed cartels and monopolies sanctioned by political greed with the 'morality' never questioned. Political Reform Party addresses these and many more problems with firm enforceable policies, (not cheap sincere sounding promises that politicians readily propose) by changing the root causes for bringing about these calamities in the first instance, and eradicating the problems that we are all suffering today. Reform is the only single measure able to achieve this. * * * * * Self serving New Labour and Tories, repeat (recycle) the identical promises decade after decade, while society sufferers greater and greater turmoil's that are never addressed. In truth, the stark facts clearly prove politicians serve their own interests first, then their Party and utilise word power to try and give the impression that they serve the nation third. Even to the point of introducing laws to 'protect' their interests from the Public Information Act. Politicians and their senior Civil Servants are indeed wealthy people. This will continue until the voters elect a political party such as PRP and sweep the moneychangers out of Westminster and Whitehall. Added to this scandal are the excessive salaries, expenses, generous pensions and contractual 'golden handshakes' PRP will also sweep local council officials out of office with all their duties that are fit for purpose and value for money taken over by the proposed Regional Authorities. * * * * * * It is an undisputed fact that government Minister after Minister, select the most advantageous statistic of all their statistics, to use this statistic in order to demonstrate their success on this or that policy or measure, often they give the game away when the statistic is so loosely associated to with the policy or measure, then the politically astute know for sure that the policy or measure is failing miserably, not as the 'selected' statistic infers. This continuous 'defence' of government policies, reflects the abject failure and incompetence of politicians at work. * * * * * * Our main platform is to rid the nation of the first-pass-the-post (FPP) system of democracy that politicians, press and media, established practises, civil service, and big business are delighted to retain at all costs, and replace this corrupted version of democracy with Proportional Representation (PR) that will serve the voters first and not, as FPP serves so well, the interests of the sections mentioned above and especially MP's. Ultimately under PR, rich-poor, north-south divide will gradually reduce and not continue to widen, many causes of high direct and indirect taxes will be lessened and prices for goods and services will be greatly reduced on a par with USA prices. Eventually disposal incomes will increase and consumers will greatly benefit from PR while boastful big businesses will cease to brag with impunity about their extortionate profiteering and phenomenal salaries and instead, compete without cartel/monopoly/political protection, in a fierce 'open' tiger market. * * * * * * Also voters will have a say to elect a far more representative government, often at the expense and great inconvenience to politicians, especially as every MP will have parliamentary committee duties to perform and not the peculiar choice to attend or not to attend. PRP will change parliamentary rules to suite the electorate their pay master and MP's pay and holidays will be set by an independent public body. The Committees will scrutinise every government funded bodies and its services, with no exceptions and bring to the attention of Parliament any or all of the anomalies they uncover with proposals to Parliament. These Committees will reward whistle-blowers with financial incentives equal to the value of information and evidence supplies. In this respect Parliamentary Committee powers will greatly increase and every aspect of society such as elderly homes, children's homes, affordable housing, financial services, legal services, rates, local councils and their policies, supermarket practises, retail chains, road safety, public transport, environmental and so on and so forth. Such committees will have full legal powers to investigate injustices of all kinds or harm and injury inflicted and restore a sense of fairness within society. These Committees will ban know fraudsters from ever participating directly or indirectly in business or scams of any kind subject to long term imprisonments if found guilty in a court of law, with the Committee having powers to direct the prosecution authority to take action. Apathy concerning such matters will be replaced with positive long overdue political action that will actively deal with such matters. * * * * * * PRP will reform Parliament and MP's will be required to attend office hour's sessions and under their contract of employment terms permitted to have six weeks holiday per year. We will abolish all perks and privileges and pay MP's professional salaries out of which they meet all their expenses. Naturally travel allowances will be included. We hope to attract people to serve in Parliament as a duty to the nation and pay them an attractive salary, sufficient to carry out their duties and where PRP will hope to restore a sense of duty to public servants, which was abolished the greed factor introduced by Thatcher. There are more than sufficient numbers of men and woman possessing plain commonsense who are more than qualified to serve the nation. Legal and accountancy qualifications can prove a hindrance as witnessed today by the present lot, who made a mess of things for us all. * * * * * * * * * * * * * PRP will outlaw political donations and 'external' campaign drives funded by 'supporters' and a government scheme will be introduced to match party membership fees, thereby ensuring parities are independent of outside interests. Parties are to be only beholden to their electorate. Parties will only be permitted to publish policy proposals strictly restricted to a limit per politician and even stricter control of party headquarters and media supporters who will be forced to provide balanced views and opinions on both sides of political arguments and their attempts to mould and form public opinion. Naturally PRP strongly oppose monopolies we will not accept secret donations and the party under its constitution will be prohibited from setting up organisation fronts that channel secret donations of a kind that the Tories and Labour have. * * * * * * PRP represents the interests of voters and consumers, especially consumers, while respecting the interests of small and big business, on the premise that they operate in a fair competitive manner and not, as is the FPP custom, under unfair cartel and monopoly practises, with political support. In this respect we will introduce USA style Anti Trust Laws (ATL) to outlaw all cartel and monopoly practises and the powerful opponents of ATL and their media will have to answer to the rich and vibrant economy of the USA and their low competitive prices for all consumer products and services. Naturally these powerful opponents and their political puppets will not want the public to delve upon anti trust law benefits and will resort to every dirty trick to rubbish it. * * * * * * ATL will drastically reduce prices, fees, charges, even prohibit and rid us all of despicable utility standing charges, where for decades people have paid hard earned money for the ink demanding payment for standing charges which is the only cost to these utilities and only Anti-trust Laws with powerful enforcement teeth, (not any modified or corrupted version such as 'off-watch' will eradicate cartels and monopolies. It is therefore not surprising that financial services, utility services, supermarkets, and store chains, generously contribute to political party coffers. We view such donations and other secret contributions as bribes and it is understandable why the parties keep their practises secret. We are the only party who prohibit our MP's, Ex-Ministers and their families, accepting gifts of shares and boardroom appointments, as this will give rise to suspicion of previous acceptance of favours and bribes. It is worth noting that Cameron's front bench lot enjoy lucrative paid side jobs with tremendous salaries and expenses and those front benchers with this perk will never freely resign their other jobs and even Cameron will be naive to try to achieve this scar on so called front benchers, who treat politics as a hobby. * * * * * * Despite all these powerful arguments in favour of Anti-trust Laws, politicians and their press and media will never support ATL, claiming that (lamentable toothless quango) 'off-watch' and 'self regulation' is sufficient to combat unfair practises. These well paid bodies are also 'entertained' by their supposed care and only after years of malpractice by their care are these public protectors exposed as shams. All off-watch type quango's will be abolished and replaced by no nonsense Parliamentary Committees. It must be understood that the launch of a 'market economy' is the covert word for greed, and greed is the driving force behind the market economy and the politicians (Thatcher and her Tory cronies) who launched the programme knew full well that this would allow the rich to get even richer and the north-south, rich-poor, gap will increase and their claim that the 'trickle down' effect was also known to them to be another sham. Beware of political duplicity. They even changed national pension from earnings related to inflation related, knowing that eventually annual pension rises would drastically reduce, while the civil servants who drew up the ghastly plan, protected their own pension with inflation proof, index linked (costly to taxpayers) plus other privileges, to which Thatcher readily agreed. FPP allows this grave anomaly to continue and only PRP will redress this. * * * * * * The only trickle down that is possible when greed is the driving force, is the poorest in society will become even poorer and this section will produce a society who will be forced to become dependant upon the black economy and their 'value of life' will be less eventually they and their offspring will regard life as cheap, leading to a south American style gun carrying criminal gang culture society. Market economy is the direct cause why Britain has the highest child poverty in Western Europe and this shame will continue under FPP. * * * * * * Today this country is flooded with lies and deceits and the spread of the language of duplicity is now total. Politicians all lie from the same hymn book, followed closely by advertisers, who have also mastered the art of duplicity and greed motivation has spread outwards from Whitehall and Westminster and local authorities, to boardrooms, financial and legal services, utility services, supermarkets, etc, etc. Greed has now extended to the press and media, including TV phone-in shows, whereby 'premium phone lines' are fully exploited by these greed motivated people to the point of barefaced robbery, while their respective off-watch dogs were bribed to look the other way or they simply couldn't care less, and the government, despite public outrage against the very existence of premium phone line that has cause outrage for over a generation greedily introduced unopposed by BT to increase their rip-off fees to their monopoly captured customers, emulated by mobile phone companies, while the respective political party or parties received generous 'donations' and perhaps their boardroom dotted with ex-ministers. Even the EU were forced to act to curb mobile phone companies, but powerless to act against BT greed. Under the political spin and media gloss, this one truth completely repudiates their claims. * * * * * * Regretfully until the most powerful weapon that consumers possess, the vote is utilised to sweep the money changers out of Whitehall and Westminster, the root causes for our high direct and indirect taxes and ever growing government administration the largest and costliest government admin in the western world, taxes and prices will continue to rise and remain a drain on the economy. I had long figured out that the established system of first-past-the-post (FPP) democracy blocks any form of change and prevents proportional representation (PR) democracy which reflects the public will and compels MP's to allow popular laws and measures to be produced, in order to be re-elected which FPP will never allow. FPP is a corrupted system, incorporating a politically appointed; none elected body, known as the Boundary Commission who decide the number of votes allotted to the two main parties to the determent of any third party (sorely witnessed by past and present Liberals) and forcing the two main parties the 'merge' whereby they indistinguishable form each other. Add an unelected upper house (Lords) to this strange scenario, and the majority of backbench government MP's in the 'gift' of the PM's promotions awards and appointments, the word democracy is replaced by a one party state with little or no opposition. This in a nutshell reflects the truth. In the early 20th century their Lordships blocked all parliamentary reforms that their Lordships did not approve and MP's were powerless to do anything about it, much to the shock and disgust of the people and the few permitted to vote. It is well worth noting that FPP is the child of their Lordships. * * * * * * Today Britain has the largest government administration in the Western world, astonishingly ever higher than the USA administration. VIP will bring our government in line with most modern administration and naturally reduce one of the many causes for our record of high taxes. Our Ministries are overmanned where for example the Home Office is not fit for purpose, the Ministry of Defence employs more civil servants than service men and women, reflecting the corruption when human greed regulates itself without control, even our MP's salaries, promotions and pensions are linked to Whitehall, the greater number of Ministries and Departments the greater number of senior and junior ministers in government and of course their equally paid opposite numbers in the opposition parties. * * * * * * Recently it was revealed after a long struggle by MP's to block revelations under the Freedom of Information Act, the astronomical rip-off travel expenses by MP's and now the hurried haste to close this 'loophole' before all MP's total net earnings, including pensions are made public, for fear this truth will bring the house down. When all the totals of both houses are made public, which the PRP will publish, then the public will judged and then when top civil servants net incomes are revealed the penny will drop. In reality, Public opinion accounts for nothing. If millions demonstrated opposition an PM's policy the PM's believes himself/herself elected to rule in dictatorial manner providing this is done in a condescending and open manner or spin, while totally ignoring any opposition providing it not to close to a general election. * * * * * * We note that that this and previous governments unashamedly use deceit and lies and their Ministers are experts in the language of duplicity. For example all present day government Ministers and even the PM are completely aware that crime has risen under their ten year watch, and yet to a man and women, using the most sincere honest voice express that crime has fallen, then citing a statistic from the truth quoting it has fallen in the past six or seven months. Their entire publicity machine presses home this misinformation. No wonder the voting public are turning away from politics in droves. * * * * * * It is said that the EU collectively spends the same as USA on defence, yet produces only one tenth of USA military hardware. Most of the EU's defence budgets are wasted upon bureaucracy (MoD typical example). Today Britain and Europe have failed to prepare for the greatest threat confronting the EU; of internal and international terrorism and the certain likelihood of defeating an enemy with a 'dirty bomb'. Any General will reveal that he requires at least a highly trained rapid response army of gunship helicopters in the thousands with overhead support and naval support, with divisions of specially trained anti terrorists ground troops all supported by a vast counter intelligence service, the best that money can buy. In effect, a UK superpower. Britain alone cannot afford such a force, Britain and France are able to provide a Nuclear Umbrella and with Germany, lead the EU into a joint single command, Pentagon style, purchase of equipment and intelligence network, with a clear mandate then none interference of the EU to produce a force fully equipped with the most modern (and proven) weapons, whereby any terrorist threat to unleash its hate and venom upon the EU will be met by all the powers at the command of the EU superpower force, where the terrorist or terrorists will have nowhere to safely hide. A future General will have at his command, thousands of lethal helicopter gunships and ground troops where however remote a mountainous region a General will be fully equipped to defeat an enemy. Cutting bureaucratic waste across the EU Defence Ministries and transferring defence budgets into a single administration centre, will kick-start the programme, however EU bureaucracies will strongly oppose any measurers, preferring to ridicule any future threats from 'dirty bomb' terrorists, to safeguard their own careers. * * * * * * Today, ignore political claims that crime is falling (inferring that they are successful) but in truth, knife and gun crimes are rising at an appalling rate and political spin to blind us to this truth only serves to escalate the problem. The PRP believes that street crime and drug related street crime criminality is a greater threat to the vast majority of descent law abiding citizens than our biased politicians like to admit and only drastic action (not cheap words) will eradicate street crime from our streets. We will set up a Para-military Anti-Street Crime Terrorist Police Force, fully equipped with specially armed police officers with a mandate to identified street crime terrorists, utilising the most modern surveillance equipment to bring suspect before special military style, street crime terrorists Courts and the Courts firstly be satisfied that the suspect or suspects are classified within the strict mandate of street crime terrorists, yet to be defined, with a defence team mandated to test all the evidence to ensure that no innocent person is found guilty. * * * * * * Unemployed drug addicts who prey on the public will be removed from society and treated in special camps and where after satisfactory treatment the addicts are educated and taught a trade or qualified for work in the community. Release into society will depend upon successful treatment. The Force will use Profile ID whereby the common factors of street crime terrorists will roots out suspects whereupon further investigation procedures will build up a dossier and if and when sufficient evidence is obtained prosecution will ensue. We will set up military style camps with strictly enforced discipline combined with education/trade/job/sports training up to an acceptable standard of qualification for work upon release; this achievement is one of the qualifications for prisoner release. Within this Force will be specialists units for combating national/international terrorism who work in conjunction with their respective authorities. The PRP believe this policy is long overdue and the sooner the massive funds are made available to set the process in motion the sooner citizens security will be improved and eventually street crime terrorism is eradicated. * * * * * * * * * * * * Let it be recorded that since we joined the EEC, our Press have campaigned daily publishing snippets of EEC information in a derogatory manner often inventing pure lies, knowing that a daily campaign of this nature will turn the public against Europe. Even the truth that British subjects seeking justice denied them in UK must greatly trouble themselves and seek justice from the EU Courts, did not open the publics eyes to the fact that EU was a victim of press hate campaign. The propaganda eventually led to popularity of 'nationalists' parties to the dismay of the political establishment who tried to soften the propaganda in fear of right wing extremism. The press however were happy to sacrifice the Tories as long as public opinion opposed the EU and especially the Euro. Middle England with its Empire roots; fear the loss of the Pound, and the concern such a powerful force will use every means possible to block the Euro even to an economic collapse in a cutting off the nose to spite the face manner. EU is the future and when it gets its act in order and merges into a superpower, with a powerful currency that threatens the dollar, a Britain sidelined with an isolated weak currency is the future that Middle Englanders and their Press and Politicians will take the Country. Political Reform Party will strongly oppose the kind of future that our FPP led Governments are blindly heading. * * * * * * In 1997 when the Boundary Commission was forced by keeping it's most favoured party in power and cause a public outcry for keeping a hated party in government, who had been kicked out of Scotland and Wales and the North and West of England the boundary adjustment allowed New Labour with its 'assurances' that its left wing would not be allowed to restore powerful trade union laws and nationalisation and that the party would in general move towards the centre and they even promised to keep the Tory 'spending plans' the political spin for 'cuts.' In effect the people in their droves voted for New Labour and cuts in the social infrastructure (Health, Education, Public Transport and Law and Order) all of which suffered nearly twenty years of cuts under the Tories, where these popular essentials services badly needed massive amounts of investment to bring them in line with EU standards whose social infrastructures put the UK to shame. * * * * * * The 1997 FPP general election proved to be 'Lambs to Slaughter' the fickle easily duped general public, voted in droves for spending cuts to its social infrastructure. Political duplicity of a main platform of 'sticking to Tory spending plans' while knowing in reality they were cuts is the 'hallmark' of this New Labour government and ten years of duplicity or speaking in plain language, compounded lies, upon lies, upon lies had to be the inevitable consequence of a party launched upon bare face lies. Naturally I am aware that speaking plain truths or telling it as it is will never be popular as 'comfortable words of sincere assurances' or 'spin' is far more preferable to the public's ears. While I am at it, let have a few more 'home truths'. It is know that the EU collectively spends the same on Defence as the USA, yet produce only a fraction of its military hardware. It is a fact that in Britain and the EU bureaucracy eats up most of the defence budgets, our own War Office employs more civil servants than service men and woman and its military procurement is abysmal. * * * * * * Naturally an EU Defence Force with a single pentagon style administration and single procurement body would produce a super power defence force equipped with thousands of helicopter and transport helicopter backed up a powerful air force and navy with its own well equipped and financed intelligence service and a nuclear umbrella provided by Britain and France. This is the force to combat threats to Britain and EU in the future and our powerful EU sceptics and their press strongly oppose any defence of this kind for our future generations. While present and future military commanders scream out for modern combat weapons and equipment of sufficient number to counter growing international terrorism set to wipe out the western world, even if it destroys their own societies as these demented fanatics will blindly follow their misguided beliefs and if necessary wipe out humankind. * * * * * * EU sceptics and their ignorant press will hear nothing and remain blind to the realities of international terrorism and will ridicule any idea of an EU super military power to combat this ever growing threat. In truth, New Labour and Tories strongly oppose any EU superpower state to the delight of international terrorists. FPP will keep these bigoted parties in power for decades to come. PRP even with a surge of public support could not rid us of FPP only a landslide surge and support at a general election can oust FPP and its corrupted political parties. Britain alone cannot combat international terrorism the nation is hard pressed to combat national terrorism and only an EU Defence Force has the means to achieve this. Middle England 'pride' reflected by politician and the media, finds replacement of the Pound by the Euro as repugnant, yet it is inevitable that an 'isolated pound' will find monetary speculators attacks near impossible to defend. These stupid euro-sceptics would gladly watch the Pound and economy collapse and let people suffer the dire consequences, rather than join Europe and the Euro. Regretfully the market economy with hands off by politicians that allowed greed to govern society kindled the no hope 'have not' class that bred generations of drug led street criminals and introduced a gun and knife culture will little respect for life. The minority rich class are gradually being forced back behind security areas and eventually society will have its go-no-go zones. We now suffer two generations of criminals who are producing the next generation and if no drastic positive action is taken to combat this growing element in society, it will engulf all of society. * * * * * * Today this cream and seed growers of industry has been battered into submission and force these unfortunate inventors to submit to televised programmes displaying their desperate plight in front of greed motivated panellists overlooking the total rejection by our bankers and financial institutions, who automatically reject private inventors and inadvertently bring about the demise of Britain's industry legacy. It is a hard rule that Banks and financial services do not invest in any invention unless it can be shown that it complies with its unwritten law of “assured return on investment within four years, eleven months and twenty-eight days”. Most if not all invention require a few years of research and development, then market research and production planning before sales return. This unwritten rule is typically British USA, Japan, and Germany who industrial economies have streaked away from the UK while our financial services mainly benefit from their monopoly dominance of the market. * * * * * * We will set up an Innovation and Business Institute (IBI) which in turn will set up a innovation centres throughout the UK fully funded and equipped with workshops of all kinds including technical laboratories, plus engaging retired trades and craftsmen to volunteer and help inventors to produce their R&D from ideas. Staff will only accept projects within the centres capacity where ultimately successful projects will be put forward for full investment by the IBI. PRP will levy a windfall tax upon financial services to finance IBI a none profit making concern and eventually will become self financing on its majority share of all investment into its worthwhile products, which will eventually (if suitable) be launched on the Stock Exchange. * * * * * * PR elected National Regional Authorities, possibly numbering around thirteen in total, will absorb most of the administrative duties of Whitehall. RA's will absorb all the Local Authorities within their respective region and RA's will employ local PR elected representatives to serve areas within the region, details yet to be devised by the Founder Membership. These Authorities will elect one of their members to serve on a National RA Council to advise where combined purchases are a greater benefit to the RA's. RA's will be empowered to levy a Regional Tax which will be strictly subject to a yet to be devised level or percentage of this tax used for administration and these figurers will be published annually including to total cost of the RA's administration costs which must remain under a yet to be devised figure. PRP will not tolerate run-away administration costs that FPP encouraged. * * * * * * RA's will absorb Local and Council authorities thereby slashing costs. Every Regional Authority will promote and build its own independent Regional Building Society Company, based upon original building societies that served the community well and completely reliant upon savers, which proved highly successful in the past. The new Building Society will be prohibited from becoming banks and remain within the strict rules of an independent building society, subject to national laws, with other Regional Building Societies permitted to compete for business. One of the main platforms of PRP is its Reindustrialisation Programme (RP) we do not accept the Thatcher's cronies and supporters of the Services Economy propaganda that our manufacturing industry is dead. We know that during the seventies our Banking Institute transferred Inward Investment to investing in South American countries and foolishly as British bankers (accountants) are, lost vast sums of money to the point that they hiked up bank charges and fees to the highest levels in history. * * * * * * Our starved of investment industries suffered even greater strain on increased bank charges and interests rates. This combined with grossly inferior senior management of our manufacturing industries who were the old-school-tie brigade and knew nothing of the industries they were well paid to manage. In truth total incompetent fools. This was the main reason for our industrial demise not as politicians and media would have us all believe the Trade Unions which reacted to foolhardy management policies who ignorantly expanded the 'class divide' while trade unions became more reckless and resorted to its only weapon the strike. When Thatcher withdrew support from our manufacturing industries and transferred the vast powers of government to serve the service industries our industries were doomed. Spain gleefully grabbed our shipping orders and became a leading shipbuilder in the world, West Germany increased its coal and steel output, and then vehicle output, to leave Britain trailing in its wake. * * * * * * Today only industries with their own finance are flourishing completely independent of the banks and to ridicule the 'cronies' our arms industry, which received government backing is highly successful with management and unions working jointly and exporting all around the world. The anti manufacturing cronies who incidentally oppose the EU will simply ignore the truth, that given investment and now training we will be able to restore our industrial heritage. PRP will introduce a massive reindustrialisation programme and transfer services investment back to manufacturing industries. This programme is quite extensive and reference to my other works will show how this can be achieved. * * * * * * The outdated Bank of England will be modernised to the high standards of Germanys Bundasbank (incidentally designed by Britain) possibly named UK Industrial Bank (UKIB) that will lead the way for Britain's reindustrialisation programme, and grant favourable terms and conditions for our manufacturing base. High street bank will be encouraged to invest in their regions and RA's will grant favourable conditions to encourage manufacturing into their regions. Also RA's will gear education towards the skills required and fund technical colleges for advance training. We believe in British craftsmanship and given the right conditions prevail and senior management are appointed on skills not the old-school-tie, whereby the TUC and CBI are jointly involved in RP, reindustrialisation will flourish and jobs and our economy will benefit. * * * * * * Having all of our economic eggs in the service basket is unwise and high risk. Having a manufacturing creation policy, the first step towards job creation, a strong manufacturing base as a back-up and one that FPP politicians are not prepared to consider anything that requires work and what they regard as risky, especially as most of their seats are assured. Today FPP has led to spin even Cameron's Tories caught on and abandoned its tired old policies and adopted spin the covert word for what the party aspires to achieve while omitting to draw up any detailed policies. PR will force politicians to account for failures and produce hard and fast policies to attract voters the very opposite of FPP politicians. Voter/consumers interests will become of paramount importance to MP's and political parties. * * * * * * In this paper policies and ideas are abound and have been sprouted since the seventies, and Cameron's inability to 'devise' policies other than publicly pleasing policies that they would 'aspire' knowing under FPP this is sufficient to gain popularity and the only way back to power and the rich rewards that 'power' in the UK holds. The office of Prime Minister is the most powerful in the land verging on dictatorship. The PM has it in his or her 'gift' to employ, appoint, and promote most of his or her backbenchers, thereby guaranteeing a strong backing in the House. Also when it suits the PM he/she need not refer matters to the House and is free to act independently his/her powers are absolute. Naturally, Whitehall benefits greatly from this peculiar system and as the PM increases 'posts' Whitehall absorbs this and continues to build up rival ministries competing for greater power. Opposition parties are delighted to cooperate as they benefit by also increasing their 'shadow posts'. Everybody wins except the hard pressed taxpayer. * * * * * * Political Reform Party will end this corruption, the sooner the better. Tories are not interested in reform, not the kind proposed in this paper but feel confident, with the backing of the majority of the media; they will be able to come to power as the Boundary Commission now favours them providing they can capture more marginal seats. FPP allows this despite the Tories abysmal showing in Scotland, Wales, Northern England, so they need not trouble themselves with 'bothersome' policies to attract these voters. PR will change all this and the Tories will be exposed as a defunct political force. New Labour came to power on a blatant lie mentioned before bragging they would retain the Tories spending plans, deliberately omitting these plans were spending cuts, fooling the electorate into believing they were spending increases. Deceit, painfully clever deceit is the hallmark of New Labour and the evidence is now clear, where not a single promise has been kept, our social infrastructure is shamefully the worse in Western Europe, direct and indirect taxes have woefully increased, government administration costs have escalated, house prices are now beyond the average persons ability to pay, child poverty shames second world nations, and disposal income is the lowest for generations. That is their true legacy and Blair can be retire to wallow in becoming a multi millionaire, writing his memoir, and attending lucrative lecture tours, plus collecting his congress medal while this nation suffers in the wake of his legacy. * * * * * * The greatest concern to the nation under FPP is that both parities court the over fifty house owning vote in the marginal's, reflecting government/opposition polices, and governments failing to build affordable housing is perhaps the worse legacy of the Tories and New Labour. When Banks and Building Societies fail to attract buyers despite every trick in the book, then the buying chain disappears and the whole industry collapses. Also the youth will learn to their cost that renting or buying property is beyond them and their parents well suffer their offspring staying at home trapped and despondent and parents cashing in to pension off their properties to afford professional care. Under FPP this grave anomaly will continue neither party will endorse concreting over the 'sacred' green belt, and turning a blind eye to the dire consequences for the younger generations. In conclusion I repeat my apologies for the many repetitions and I have to hope that the points I raised strike a chord. Paul Lehmans (Founder) Reference to previous work July 2006. http://the-honest-political-truth.blogspot.com For the record other work stretching back to 1979 and other development of ideas stretch back to 1954 -56 my first encounter with political and media lies. OXFORD UNION SPEECH My speech to the Oxford Union Debating Society 15th May 2008. MOTION - This house Would Reintroduce National Service Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good evening ....... For an ex-national serviceman with a modest interest in politics, the motion before the House is intriguing and I assume it applies in peacetime and to young men of eighteen. During my army experience, as those who have read my book On Her Majestys National Service, will know, I had a great time and, frankly, I never stopped laughing from start to finish. However, at the time I bitterly resented conscription; a view shared by most, if not all, national servicemen. In the fifties people obeyed officialdom, and national service was the continuation of wartime practice. Today public support for it would be mixed, with a strong body opposed and a sizeable majority, who believe that military discipline would be good for our unruly youngsters, in favour. The immediate threat to Britain and the West is international terrorism, a misused term these days, but its end product, a portable dirty bomb, is a real threat to us all. . . . To put it simply, Star Wars technology is no match for the type of modern terrorist warfare that is spreading round the globe. Our generals, and for that matter the US generals too, are begging for thousands of attack and troop-transport helicopters and divisions of well trained, well equipped ground troops to swamp terrorist strongholds and territories. They also want extra manpower and equipment for search-and-destroy missions when terrorists and their leaders flee from selective counterattacks. This is what our commanders in the field demand. Terrorism must be crushed at its roots before it achieves the ability to produce, in the near future, portable weapons of city-wide destruction and, God forbid, a number of portable dirty bombs. Any of these smuggled into a Western country could wreak havoc on the government and its people - the nightmare scenario. Reference to my website; political reform party.co.uk ,,, provides a broader view involving the EU in tackling the problem of international terrorism. In my view there is no difference between a declaration of war on this country, which automatically triggers national service, and the threat of international terrorism. Both are intent upon inflicting sabotage and great harm on government and people. It is clear that Britain does not have sufficient ground troops to crush the level of terrorist forces set against us, whereas terrorists are continuing to expand and increase in strength and weaponry. The recent US surge in Iraq demonstrated the need of frontline troops for search-and-destroy missions against fleeing terrorists and their leaders. The enemy has the ability to regroup, rearm and redeploy and continue to terrorise the population and attack US forces. Afghanistan is another example of failing to complete the job. Within a few years, the dispersed enemy has regrouped, rearmed and reappeared in greater strength, and as a result British and NATO forces are now on the back foot. Increasing our armed forces by voluntary means is unlikely to meet the high level demanded by our military commanders. It is a particular anomaly that the Ministry of Defence employs more civil servants than servicemen and women, drawing attention to past and present government failings. I believe we must get full value for money in defence procurement and improved modern equipment for our servicemen and women and prevent bureaucracy absorbing the bulk of defence budgets. I can only see our ministries as having more coxes than oarsmen . .... Not Oxford, I hasten to add ..... Perhaps Cambridge. ********** Some form of national service is required to bolster troop levels and I believe a procedure of selective deferment suited to the nations economy and reasonably fair, would meet the level of conscription our generals require. There is no easy solution and therefore I propose the following formula: All males born in the UK are liable for national service on their eighteenth birthday, regardless of any exclusion claims, and must register at military offices on receipt of registration papers. National service should comprise two years: one year of military service and one year, for recruits in need of further education and trade training, transferred to a military technical college. All other national servicemen on demob should be transferred to the reserves for one year. However they should entitled to apply for Military College courses subject to vacancies. In effect, military service lasts just one year, which is the minimum period needed. I expect the military authorities would prefer a minimum of eighteen months though. Deferred exemptions, on a sliding scale, are awarded to men serving apprenticeships or who are in government-approved trades and industries, including technology, or taking college and university courses, or those who are fully employed in jobs, trades and services regarded as essential to society and the economy. These deferments are prioritised in descending order and should the need arise the lower priorities are liable for conscription. All other classes of non-eligible jobs and trades, including part-time workers and the unemployed, are classified the lowest priority should be the first eligible for conscription. Qualified or part qualified ex-servicemen passing out of military technical college should be given priority for consideration by employers for jobs, and further job training with the government providing inducements to employers. This formula kills more than two birds with one stone. It provides military manpower and improves job opportunities for ex-national servicemen. I expect resistance from some unruly youths but I suspect that once they have got used to the idea that national service is inevitable their school work and exam results will improve. And as the noose of national service hangs over the horizon, their behaviour might take a turn for the better. Also education and job training has its own rewards in society. I repeat the point I hinted at earlier whereby terrorist leaders obtain portable biological or nuclear devices and succeed in placing them in vulnerable locations around the nation. Such an occurrence is inevitable if terrorism is not defeated, and I ask the house to dwell on this. This House should send out the message that it supports the provision of means to equip this country to combat and defeat international terrorism, as indeed I am sure this house would have opposed fascism in the last century. I therefore ask the House to accept the motion, with the proviso that limited numbers are subject to conscription to meet military requirements only, with education and job training provided for recruits who need it, and I commend the motion to the House. . . . . . . . . . Thank you. Debate Result Ayes 74 Noes 87 |About| |Home| |Download|