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Courtesy of Martin Lewis - moneysavingexpert.com

We are a financially illiterate nation and therefore I would like to propose that the Pirate Party supports the move for Compulsory Financial Education in Schools!

Oh and Computer Science while we're at it.... (latter optional)

Including not only education and equipment in schools, but also supporting European and UK especially IT hardware and software manufacturers. While also investing in Networking Technology and IT Security (Encryption, protection and other safeguards) while not violating Privacy.

Currently to get a small wind turbine fitted to your home, you need to jump a number of hurdles. Initial cost, Planning Permission, Installation which encourages paperwork and discourages implementation. The same with solar.

I recommend that the Pirate Party supports people who can and will produce their own energy by removing planning permission for micro energy generation such as small domestic wind turbines, Roof solar panels and small scale hydro electric (for instance a small scale water mill that doesn't take more than a few litres out of the water at a time and meeting the current Environmental requirements).

Geothermal energy should be encouraged provided there is no structural problems of safety issues rather than because someone doesn't like the look of it.

Micro Energy Production could account for at least 15% of the UK's energy requirements at a rough estimate.

If you haven't seen it already, phase 2 of the policy process, a set of working groups to work through the various submissions from here and other media, has started. More details are available here from the party blog.

I will get in touch with everyone who offered a submission to let them know where we are going and to let them get involved.

Thanks again.

ARBI

This public consultation element of the policy process for 2011 is now complete. The next step will be taking all the submissions from here and elsewhere and preparing a statement of intent and a policy outline. Party members will be notified of this via email and an announcement will be made on the Pirate Party website.

If you want to follow the progress of this process and are not a member, please contact campaigns@pirateparty.org.uk . If you have made a suggestion we will endeavour to contact you to inform you if it is included in our platform going forward.

Thank you all for your input and time as well as all the good ideas that you have proposed. I would also like to thank the moderators and other party members who have helped to ensure that this has run smoothly.

For some criminals whose crimes are not serious enough to put them in prison, or people released from prison, or people with ASBOs, have them electronically tagged.

The tags would continually monitor their position using GPS and mobile phone signals. Their whereabouts would be stored in a database; when a crime occurs the police could query the database to find out with tagged people were in the area at the time.

The advantages would be:

• tagged people would realise that if they broke the law they would be more likely to be caught. The prospect of being caught is a more effective deterrant that harsh sentences.
• tagged people who're not in the area would have a pretty good alibi. This would make it easier for them to go straight, as the police would find it harder to "round up the usual suspects" and fit one of them up with the crime.

In order to avoid a "race to the bottom", all EU countries should levy corporation tax at the same rate.

Repeal Marriage laws as they currently stand and recognise them instead as a private contract between themselves and a legal representative (or a representative of their legal establishment provided it's registered).

Remove advantages and Disadvantages from marriage regarding tax law and give them the same benefits as single people are entitled to. Rather than the current benefit sham where just because you are living together rather than living alone, encouraging people to live alone rather than together as there is no advantage.

Inheritance tax should be charged at equal rates if at all and not dependent on relationship status and instead should follow as the Last Will decree's.

This also includes repealing Bigamy laws and other out dated church law.

Repeal Marriage laws as they currently stand and recognise them instead as a private contract between themselves and a legal representative (or a representative of their legal establishment provided it's registered).

Remove advantages and Disadvantages from marriage regarding tax law and give them the same benefits as single people are entitled to. Rather than the current benefit sham where just because you are living together rather than living alone, encouraging people to live alone rather than together as there is no advantage.

Inheritance tax should be charged at equal rates if at all and not dependent on relationship status and instead should follow as the Last Will decree's.

This also includes repealing Bigamy laws and other out dated church law.

This could be simple and have a big effect :

We already have products on which you pay VAT, and products on which you don't. So define some kind of "eco-positive" classification on which VAT doesn't need to be paid.

Any manufacturer or importer can apply to have any product included in the "eco-positive" category. It's up to them to make the case and get accreditation. (Make the requirements fairly stringent but not too stringent that a committed supplier can't meet them. Have an independent body do the accreditation with funding from the government.)

Like I say, it's simple. It doesn't create the need for any NEW eco-tax. Most of the mechanisms for handling this should be there already. But it will affect people's buying decisions exactly where they matter : at the point of purchase (ie. the products with the accreditation will be loudly advertising on the supermarket shelf that they are VAT-exempt and cheaper because they are eco.)

This should push more suppliers into offering eco-positive options, and as more become available, we might allow VAT to creep up to compensate and to increase pressure towards sustainable production.(It effectively becomes more of a "sin tax")

The current system is basically regional water services who supply water for their region. There is no competition but they are regulated by OfWat. Each one has a monopoly over its region.

I believe this is wrong and something needs to be done about it. One monopoly or Privatisation not a hybrid.

Okay this is currently not VAT free as far as I am aware and why is it charged VAT it isn't a luxury. While we're at it, recyclable nappies and babies milk should also go into this category.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/02/uk-military-iran-attack-nuclear

Here we go again.

Say I buy a laptop that comes with MS Windows. If I don't want Windows, I should be able to get a refund on that part of the price.

Better still, I should be able to say to the shop, "I just want the laptop, not Windows", and only get charged for the hardware in the first place. The price on their own of the hardware and Windows should not be greater than the bundle of the two together.

The same should apply if I buy a mobile phone. By decoupling the price of the handset from the price of the network access contract, it's easier to get value for money, and to get the best deal.

Elections to the European parliament are not as proportional as they could be, which means they don't reflect the will of the people as well as they should.

EU law mandates that the electoral system must be either STV or lists. However due to the small size of electoral districts in some countries such as the UK, they are not particularly proportional. Therefore I propose that in EU elections:

• STV districts must elect at least 5 MEPs
• list districts must elect at least 20 MEPs, with no threshold other than the one naturally obtaining by the size of the district.

These rules can be disregarded if the number of MEPs allocated to the country is less than the limit, or if the electoral district is geographically separated by water from the rest of the country (e.g. Northern Ireland).

After the 2014 European election, the President of the European Commission is due to be elected by the incoming European parliament.

Instead of an indirect election in this way, a more democratic method would be for the Commission President to be directly elected by the European people. However, Europe has another president, the President of the European Council: these two jobs should be merged, with new title "President of the European Union". The President would thus preside over meetings of both the European Council and the Commission.

The European Council also has a High Representative for Foreign Affairs who is ex officio vice-president of the Commission, and the Commission includes three other commissioners dealing with foreign policy. All four of these jobs should be merged, and given the new title "Deputy President of the European Union".

The President and Deputy President would be elected together; each presidential candidate would have a running mate who would be a deputy-presidential candidate.

In terms of electoral system, we'd obviously want to use something more sensible than FPTP. I'd suggest AV.

This would go some way to reducing the democratic deficit in the EU.

Do we want to have a policy on immigration?

If so, I suggest we steer clear of both a utopian "open doors" approach, and a xenophobic "don't want no darkies here" policy, and say that as far as non-EU immigration goes, we welcome the right sort of immigrants, defined as people with these characteristics:

• speaks English
• has university degree or other skils useful to the UK
• doesn't have a serious criminal record
• must have values that fit in with British culture, e.g. pro-democracy, thinks secular law trumps religious conviction, must not be a bigot (I say the last because homophobia is rife among some ethnic minority communities)

The use of electronic locks, which prevent the owner of a computing device installing software on it without the manufacturer's approval, to be automatically classed as an anti-competitive act and penalised as such.

PPUK should encourage entrepreneurs. One way is through microbusinesses.

A microbusiness is a very small business, one with a turnover of less than £2500/year (c. £50/wk; this figure chosen because it's about 1/10th of average wages). Anyone would be allowed to run a microbusiness, and wouldn't have to pay tax on it, nor would their benefits be reduced because of it. Any activity that its currently legal to do for free, it would be legal to do as a microbusiness.

This policy particularly goes well with Teach Entrepreneurial Skills In Schools, because children could set up a microbusiness while still at school. It also fits in with Home Grown Enterprise And Entrepreneurs and Encouraging Internet Startups.

Edit: title should say "way" not "was".

The Party should have a policy of ending tax avoidance schemes which (perfectly legally) mean that the right pay less than their fair share of tax, meaning that those on average earnings have to pay more. Is it right that large corporations (such as Vodaphone) pay a lower rate of corporation tax than small businesses?

To end tax avoidance, we could do two things. First, end particular loopholes. Second, have an overall policy that, for taxpayers who would otherwise pay >£1 million/year, complex financial schemes to reduce taxes don't count, and anyone caught using one would have to pay back the tax they've saved. In fact, make them pay twice the difference, as this would give thme an incentive not to indulge in complex financial schemes to begin wtih.

("Complex financial scheme" would be defined as whatever a jury decides is a complex financial scheme.)

In the UK we don't have a written constitution of rights, we have....well...pretty much what is given to us that we call the law. The US have a constitution. Russia has a constitution...heck China even has one. The European Union has a constitution. I have a feeling that even the Pirate Party has a constitution. This should be reflected to enable law that is easy to be followed and everyone knows their rights.

To ensure that MPs /Lords civil servants [?] use the services they legislate for and changes to: it should be part of the conditions of employment that they use public transport, NHS,etc while in Government Service.

The whole of credit/debit card transactions are at the mercy of USA centred /controlled companies: there are no Europe based operations.Hence the power of USA to influence these companies; Wikileaks shuts off publication after funds dry up The whistleblower group has lost 95 percent of its funding since Visa, MasterCard and PayPal cut off processing of donations, leading Wikileaks to concentrate on lawsuits and fundraising http://nl.zdnet.co.uk/hD3aniDaic/e7H3F

The UK could grind to a halt if these companies decided to do so!!

So we need a Europe based card entity.

Apparently the UK police have bought it : http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/30/metropolitan-police-mobile-phone-surveillance?CMP=twt_gu

The Pirate Party should ban the use of it.

There has been a number of cases over the past few years where governments have set-up independent advisory bodies of sorts who have evaluated a wide variety of fact based evidence for a particular issue. The government has then gone on to ignore such advice as it didn't fit in with their ideology. I believe if such a body is set-up their advice should be taken on-board and become the ultimate goal of any policy change and put into place within a reasonable time-scale.

Three issues that immediately come to mind as examples that were independently reviewed being the classification of banned substances, advice on re-forming the banking system and also what to do about badgers and the spread of TB. I cite these only as examples of the topics reviewed though the outcome was mixed between these and am not actually advocating any as a particular policy within this thread.

Maybe a good opportunity to review how team's of advisors are put together too, to prevent a certain opinion being biased due to the affiliations of any members.

I just came back from the excellent Positive Money conference today and can highly recommend that everyone take a serious look at their site, their analysis and their suggestions :

http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/

Here's the basic outline of the Positive Money anlysis (which they've undertaken with the help of some economics professors and one guy from the Bank of England).

Q: Where does money come from?

Largely money is created by banks making loans. That is, you ask the bank if you can borrow some money; the bank says yes, and credits your account with the money and their balance-sheet with the asset of your debt to them.

That's it. That's how money is made in the economy. The money the bank lends to you DID NOT have to come from a deposit that someone else made with the bank.

Most people (including economists, bankers and politicians) find this incredibly hard to believe and assume it must be wrong. But no-one can give any other explanation for where money actually comes from. (Well, some is made by, say Quantitative Easing, but that's just small proportion of the total money in the economy.)

Q2 : What restrictions are there on banks creating money this way?

There used to be restrictions that said banks could only create some multiplier of the deposits they held.

And you can still read this story on some websites and even economics textbooks. Positive Money's assertion is that various deregulations since the 1970s have effectively removed these constraints. (There are still some, but they're mainly around the "clearing" of different banks' debts to each other. And, as long as all banks are not getting into serious debt with each other, it seems there's no real constraint on how much new money they can create.)

Furthermore, nowadays banks have adopted a sales culture where everyone is incentivated to sell as many loans as possible and, until the crash, this is what banks tried to do.

That's why your bank was always trying to get you to take out a second mortgage to go on holiday or buy a new sofa.

Q3 : So what's the problem?

Well, the first problem is that every pound created this way is "debt money" ie. when the pound is created, the person who receives it receives a debt. Mostly the debt is a pound + interest.

In other words, when money is created by loans, it means debts are also created. And because the debt includes extra interest, the size of debt created is bigger than the quantity of money.

So there is always MORE debt in the economy than there is money to repay it.

And that's why most people in the country have such a debt problem. It's not even economically possible to pay off all the debt. The money for it doesn't exist. And you can't create more money without creating more debt.

Q4 : Is that the only problem?

No.

The banks like to make loans because they make their income from the interest on loan repayments. But they prefer some kinds of loans to others.

In particular, they prefer secured loans. That is, loans which, if you don't repay, they have something to repossess.

So, they don't like lending to businesses with limited liability because if the business goes bust most of money was probably spent on wages and materials anyway, and the capital equipment is probably not worth that much when sold second-hand.

On the other hand, they LOVE lending to individuals to buy houses ie. giving mortgages, because if the individual can't repay, the bank repossesses the house which, normally, has held / increased its value.)

Positive Money estimate that of all the billions of pounds that banks create, only about 8% is lent to businesses that create jobs and produce goods and services in the economy, and the other 92% goes into the mortgage market or other financial products with "known" risk profiles.

And that's why :

a) house prices have increased much faster than wages in recent years (ie. lots of newly created money went into bigger mortgages for more expensive houses) and you can't get on the housing ladder.

b) it's been so hard to finance your usefully productive company (except when, like @aramoro, you're obliged to take out patents before the bank will lend you money - it gives them something to repossess)

c) banks bought so many packages of collateralized debt.

In conclusion :

Banks have been given the monopoly on creating money.

There is no oversight.

They have incentives to create as much money (sell as much debt) as they can.

There is always more debt in society than money to repay it.

Because money is created by and in private banks, they choose how it is allocated in the economy.

Because the banks prefer secured loans, the new money goes mainly to places we don't want it to go (ie. to inflating house prices and speculating on financial products) and doesn't go where we do want it to go (ie. to financing expansion by businesses that create jobs, goods and services.)

Economists, politicians, most bankers themselves, and certainly the general public have no fucking idea that this is how the system works, and most of them can't believe it when you tell them.

Q5 : So what can we do?

Positive Money's recommendation is as follows :

1. Take the power to create money (ie. to loan money that you don't have) away from private banks, and give it to the Bank of England.

2. Because you don't want the Bank of England to print money whenever it suits politicians, give the power to decide when to create the money to an independent committee. Probably with some fairly stringent criteria for when they should. Positive Money's own suggestion is that every month when inflation is around 2%, they should authorize the creation of new money. If inflation creeps above 2%, they shouldn't create more that month.

3. Rather than the new money being given to government or banks to allocate it should be given directly to the public in a slightly progressive form :

a) as VAT cuts. (Everyone benefits and you stimulate more economic activity)

b) by raising the threshold at which people start to pay income tax. (So the lowest wage earners benefit.)

I have to say, I think this is an absolutely brilliant blend of radicalism and realism. They've spent a lot of time thinking about this. (The analysis / book has taken their team about 18 months to put together, based on about 500 different documents. Apparently they asked the Bank of England for its own training manuals / documentation on how money is created and were told that there is none.)

Policy recommendation for the Pirate Party :

1. Certainly take the power to create money away from private banks and give it back to the Bank of England

2. Certainly give the power to decide when to create new money to an independent committee.

3. Think seriously about what criteria we should use for when new money should be created and where it should be put. The Positive Money suggestions sound perfectly good to me but we may find some other interesting alternatives.

The Pirate Party already has this policy:

We will ensure that the UK has as a foreign policy objective the human right of freedom to communicate, and will encourage wider adoption of the encryption and anonymisation technologies that ensure this right.

I think we can usefully extend on this.

We need to develop "Freedom Computers". A Freedom Computer means one that has software and hardware that encourages freedom. In particular:

• It would allow people to communicate privately using strong encryption, so governments wouldn't know what was being said, or to whom.
• It would allow people to publish things anonymously, so that governments wouldn't know who wrote it. But if messages were signed with trhe same private key, anyone could authenticate that two messages came from the same source.
• It would come with hardware that enabled ad-hoc mesh networking. Any freedom computer could talk to any other within range, and indirectly to any other within a city. If any computer in the mesh had access to the wider internet, they all would have.
• the Freedom Computing software would all be open source. (If it wasn't, the user couldn't trust it.)

One way to deliver freedom computing would be a separate box that connected between one's PC and the wider world. This is what FreedomBox are building, and it would make sense for a Pirate government to fund that and similar projects.

Eventually, the goal should be that when anyone bought the average PC, tablet or smartphone in a computer shop, it would come with Freedom Computing implemented as standard out-of-the-box.

This would mean that repressive countries would either have to accept that their citizens could communicate with each other freely, or would have to create a whole separate computing infrastructure of their own, which would be largely incompatible with that used in developed countries.

The UK's computing infrastructure is potentially vulnerable to backdoor attacks, by hostile states, and possibly by non-state actors such as terrorist groups. I will argue that the threat is both large and increasing, and is hard to counter.

(1) Types Of Attack

An attack could either be a generalised attack or a restricted attack.

A generalised attack aims to bring down as much of the computing infrastrucure as possible, leading to widespread disruption, physical damage to infrastructure, and possibly even economic collapse. This is analogous to outright war.

A restricted attack is more insidious. Because the victim is unaware of it, the long term consequences could be great. This is analogous to espionage.

To show how dangerous a restricted attack could be, imagine a well-funded adversary that has access to all information on computers in the UK. The UK would have no secrets from them and they would be able to secretly manipulate UK politics. For example by leaking the right information at the right time they could cause cabinet ministers to get the sack or influence the results of elections. If done in a careful way by a smart adversary this could over time greatly influence government policy. One scenario would be if the Chinese government decides its interests are served by Europe being divided, and thus manipulates events to cause the breakup of the EU, or at least weaken its cohesiveness. The UK could become a puppet of a foreign power, without even knowing it.

(2) Attack Vectors

An attack could be done through a backdoor in an operating system or a compiler. An even-harder-to detect attack would be if the backdoor was in silicon, for example on a processor chip; these have millions of transistors and are essentially black boxes because you can't easily read their circuitry by looking at their surface.

Computers are going to get more ubiquitous over time, making the harm caused by an attack more serious. And both software and hardware are going to get more complicated, making an attack harder to defend against.

(3) Defences

In the short term:

• Do more research on what the threats are and how to counter them.

• Do not use closed-source operating systems, particularly those controlled by foreign companies, for anything important. If we use MacOS or Windows for vital things, we are effectively giving the Americans root access to our entire country.

• Use the David Wheeler counter to the trusting trust attack.

• The UK should also develop an offensive capability to do warfare against computer networks. Even if we don't use this capability, we need to have it to understand how to defend against it.

However, protecting against software-based attacks is useless if the hardware itself is compromised. This means that we must ensure that all hardware used on an important computer is manufactured in an environment that counters against hardware-based backdoors. However, there are geo-political consequences to this: because the UK isn't a large enough economy to economically manufacture all its own integrated circuits, we must be part of a larger polity that is large enough. This might be the EU, it might be some other confederation that is big enough to make all its own trusted integrated curcuits, or it might be some international treaty and inspection system that ensures ICs are trustable.

TL;DR: attacks on computer systems are both real and dangerous, and over time will become both more damaging and harder to counter. Countermeasures are not easy, and effective countermeasures may require large changes in both the UK's economy and its foreign policy.