Dream Headline
Politics. Arentyasickofit?
They get your vote, then the only time you hear from them for the next four years is when their mates come up on corruption charges.
Now there is a breath of fresh air in the battle for Mayor of London. A web site called Londonelectsyou has launched to give Londoners a real choice in the May 1st election.
Anyone can put their name forward and I have – so please go there, register and vote for me. I am standing on a platform of taking London Off-Grid – that means making London self-sufficient for energy and water. The winning candidate on the site gets $100,000 to take their campaign citywide.“As voters we must not simply hand over responsibility to elected officials,” said David Smuts, one of the founding members of Londonelectsyou.
“Your civic duty does not end when you put your cross on the ballot paper. That is not supporting the political process. There is more to it. If we want this city, this nation, to change for the better, people have to participate, to speak up,” said Smuts who is a prominent member of the ruling British Labour Party.
“The purpose of the site is to provide a platform a tool for the disenfranchised, the dissatisfied,” he said.
Here is the rest of my platform.
– Campaign Personal Statement:
Take London Off-Grid.
With energy running out and water shortages likely as global warming worsens, I will make London self-sufficient in both energy and water.
Huge arrays of wind turbines and solar panels. Ground source heat pumps under every building, Hydro power from the Thames and other rivers. London will have a series of micro-grids to feed our power.
Everyone will have an energy ration. Once spent they can go without or buy from other lower users.
Like the typical Chinese village, every block of flats will have a methane digester connected to the sewer, producing energy from human waste.
Turn Buckingham Palace and Hampton Court gardens into allotments
Water will be harvested from rain as well as coming from boreholes on every street.
London will be taken off the corporate information grid as well – no more surveillance cameras, numberplate recognition computers or national database entries.
With drugs legalised and taxed, policing will be able to concentrate on what matters
2, What would your specific manifesto points would be concerning: (please choose 5 only) (best to keep this short and sweet so people will actually read it!)
– Arts & Culture – Halve the subsidy to all the major cultural institutions, and double the subsidy to all fringe organisations
– Crime – Legalise all drugs in London, and sell them through special
shops with the tax going to fund improved facilities for Londoners
– Economic Policy – SLOTH NOT GROWTH – let the City do what it wants and let the rest of us work a three day week if we wish – we are all too busy. Growth has not made unhappy and it is just using up the world’s resources while other starve.
– Education – Add courses in energy management and growing vegetables.
– Environment – Turn all Royal parks into allotments.
– Equality and Diversity
– Health – free bicycles for all and see transport
– Housing and homelessness – See planning
– Immigration
– International
– Planning and Development – Make a new category of off-grid planning permission, allowing anyone to build off-grid home or workplace on land they owned – office rooftops, gardens, building plots of any kind — and it encourage anyone to build a yurt or an extra room in their back garden as long as it was not connected to mains – allow thousands more houseboats on the waterways, especially the Thames
– Security – See crime. With drugs legalised, there would be more police time available for community policing. Dismantle the surveillance technology, cameras which don’t stop crime, and disconnect the traffic cameras from the number recognition computers.
– Transport- add ten thousand bicycle lanes across London and make the tubes run all night. Increase the congestion charge.
VOTE FOR ME.
One Response
Well, it’s (londonelectsyou) the slowest website I’ve had the displeasure to use in a long while, be patient.
London is not too viable for widespread windpower. Community CHP (combined heat and power) and community ground source heat pumps are more useful – Cross-rail may have opportunities for the latter. The Thames should be able to provide decent inflow electricity generation, being tidal.
A communal bicycle system like Paris’s may be more practical than one free to everyone, perhaps a combination? Many people will be unable to house a bicycle of their own.
How about pedestrianising and excluding all vehicles from small ‘village’ areas of London? It should help in changing attitudes and habits. A large part of the inner congestion charge area could be made pedestrian and public transport only.
Public transport should be made near free to all London residents, funded by environmental taxes. Private car use should be heavily discouraged on a phased basis (by area) by making public transport viable for virtually all needs, including extensive carpool facilities and implementing high priced permits for anyone who wants to keep a car.
A thorough and imaginative rethinking of London’s transport and energy is utterly essential.
Big yes to lots more allotments and the training to use them, but I would say that, lol.
Agree with cutting subsidies on major cultural entertainment sponges but think fringe and local entertainments should be mostly left to create themselves without much subsidy.
Drugs, yes, legalise. But needs to be UK (possibly EU) wide else will cause as many probs as solves.
These changes will be huge. There needs to be a phase change in involving local people in devising and deciding what to do, an effective and appropriate way of doing this will probably be the biggest determinant of success.