When Scotland becomes independent, or a European state, i think we should produce a constitution too. I think we should build on from the Icelandic one (afterall they've done a lot of work on it, it seems pointless to start from scratch).
I do worry that Scotland is full of twats and we would make an arse of it. But i guess you just have to hope.
Here are some suggestions i would like to make:
- No Politicians.
I was really annoyed when i found out that Billy Bloody Connolly had said this before, but the last people you want in power should be people who want power.
To get round this i think there shold be a national service/jury duty system of 2 years of government running.
Some may say that you need the best to run a country - in the same way that you need to pay the most to get the best to run the banks but actually i think there is a good argument to pay someone a lot less to run the banks afterall they couldn't do it any worse?
Anyway, i like the idea of some granny laying it on the line to Putin.
And i include Councils in this. Edinburgh does seem to be run by a bunch of crooks, as does Inverness, and i suppose its the same everywhere.
I do find amatuer to be always (ok you could have a point with doctors) preferrable to professionals. Professional seems to be mean an ability to lie and avoid. - Open Government
Everything that gets said or done should be visible, a permanent wikileaks, cameras in the office! - Keep religion out of Politics
There are a lot of Gods, and perhaps there is a nice one somewhere but the Old Testament god (or 3-in-1 god) is far too unpleasant to be allowed anywhere near any opinion making. To badly quote Ghandi: christians aren't very christian are they?
This one went on a lot longer but i keep cutting it back. Bunch of ......... - Gay Marriage - yes
- Liberalise drugs - yes
- No Trident - yes
I mean if you have a war do you have to wait 3 weeks for the sub to get there? You'd be quicker (and a bit cheaper) sending it Royal Mail First Class - and less visible from space. - Armed forces
Nothing against armed forces. Probably need one, best to have it well equipped. But sharing is nice. I was speaking to a guy who worked for the Duchy of Luxembourg. He was telling me that Luxembourg had an airforce - one plane or rather half a plane, shared with Belgium, an AWAC, i think it was flying around Libya at the time. - Evidence Based Laws
And if you make a new law - give it a Dead man's switch so it automatically dies after 5 years, unless evidence says it has worked and should be renewed, and not had some terrible unforeseen consequence. - Patents
No software patents, biological patents or medical patents. Patents have to be more thoroughly checked, and if they are not used within 5 years (?) die. - Copyright
We, the people are the holders of copyright, and we grant copyright for a short period of time before it reverts back to the public domain. If copyright is needed at all (and architecture, food and fashion make a good argument that it is not needed), it should be for - i don't know, Queen Anne set it to 14 years. That seems too long.
Maybe it should be a Creative Commons Licence. - No Unemployment Benefit, or Unemployment benefit department, no state pension
This is nicer than it sounds. Actually i first heard it from a Director of Barlays back in the early '90s. The idea is this: everyone gets say £120 a week, kids get less, pensioners more. If you are earning then it gets taxed back off you. Its sort of simple. Too simple? i don't know how the maths would work, but the UK has not produced much great music over the last 2 decades. I think thats directly attributable to the increased difficulty of getting unemployment benefit. And now we have Brit School. OK, so i am biased, not everything should be based on whether music is good or not. But All good music seems to have come from Canada of late - whats their system like? - 3 day week? 4 day week?
I think we should all work less, earn less, spend less and do more (yes i wrote a song about that, actually an album). Have more time to be friends, to be family, to think and do and help. The week would still be 7 days, and work would continue on all these days ( though i would hope less at weekends) - just there would be many more jobs for all. Its a sort of job share for all i suppose. If you are self employed then its up to you how long you work. I also think this would bring down house prices, in fact prices for everything. - Heres a controversial one - i am pro hunt!
Actually i hate hunting. I went on one once, god awful, 10 folk stood around far to early, in the rain, speaking in funny accents (yorkshire), very boring. But of the thousands of hunts only 10 are actually posh - red coats and horses that you see on the BBC, the rest are like this. The thing is i like using animals to hunt other animals. As an almost vegetarian i get very excited watching ladybirds hunt and kill greenfly on my veg. I hate cats but they do keep mice away, i love dogs and they are great at ratting. Japanese catching fish with comarants (Ukai Fishing) is just plain cool. So yes i am pro hunt.
There have been billions of years of animals eating each other alive: if you are old, cold, young, hungry or wounded, or just plain slow, then you got eaten alive. The fact is that now we have no big predators doing the darwinian thing, we have to do it. And the cheapest most natural ( and i mean darwinian survival of the healthiest on average) way is to allow those who want to do it do it. I don't mean cock fighting, or bear bating etc.. just allow hunting. A dog kills a rat, a dog kills a hare, a dog kills a fox.
When i have this argument with friends (who are all anti-hunting it seems) it always comes down to one thing: they dont really care about the animal, they just hate posh folk hunting. But the thing is, its not posh folk who do the most hunting, its incomprehensible yorkshiremen/women. - Free Speech, Anonymity and Dumb Pipe Internet (net neutrality)
Everybody has something to hide. If i look up a disease on the internet, lets say twice, i do not want it logged on a database and sold onto an insurance company so that i and ALL my descendents forever get charged more for insurance because they think we have that disease. So yes we all have stuff to hide, so do not start saying 'if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide'. - Racism and Economic Migration
Scottish racism is based on accent. If you have a scottish accent then you are scottish if you dont you aren't. My son is scottish, I am not. Oh, and i am an economic migrant. My 900 year ago father came to scotland looking for work - any raping, pillaging would do - and stuck around, got on with the locals (those left after aforementioned job opportunities). There are very few countries where the actual indigenous folk exist - and scotland is not one of them. We should welcome anyone from anywhere and be grateful they bother with this dark soggy land. - Scottish law - should speak English
I have been passing legal documents (taking a peculiarly inept Edinburgh Solicitors to court for failing to check the Deeds) to my stepfather - a retired barrister, and he is shocked by how incomprehensible this stuff is. I can only suppose its so conversations between lawyers can take a nice long time so they can charge more.
UPDATE 24 JAN 2012
sorry - first rule of the internet - someones already done it.
so, here are 2:
