My Nine-point Manifesto...

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I know pompous of me. But here is the sort of agenda we need - my manifesto as it were:

1. An education system that gives a more equal chance to children of similar intelligence
2. A welfare system that encourages and rewards work, discourages idleness and comforts misfortune
3. Health care that is built around people’s needs, is flexible and treats us like humans rather than numbers
4. A tax system that doesn’t take money from the poor to give to the relatively well-off
5. A system of public finances that gives priority to the needs of all and the concerns of the poor, sick and unlucky rather than the pastimes of the well off
6. A housing system which doesn’t feature people on £50,000 plus living in subsidised housing while others sleep in boxes under bridges
7. Scrapping an international trading system where our goods are freely traded while poor countries goods are barred by tariffs and import controls
8. International relations founded on conversation rather than the aggressive, post-colonial exporting of “democracy” to places without any effective, functioning government of any sort
9. Guarantees and protection for free speech and free assembly, a place where the balance between liberty and security tips strongly towards freedom

To do all this I suspect we'd need to leave the EU, spread power and decision-making far wider and trust people more than we do at present. But these are ambitions - government is a difficult business at any level and it's the day-to-day choices that matter, 'events' as Macmillan called it, more than the grand policies or vast pages of law.

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