Browse policies
Institute a National Week of Quiet Surrender so we can finally stop pretending
Proposal: every year, for one full week in late october, the United Kingdom will officially suspend the pretence that things are getting better. Government will stop announcing initiatives. Ministers will stop appearing in hi-vis. Nobody wi
Mandatory 4-hour committee meetings before any revolutionary action. No exceptions.
Brothers. And sisters. And anyone else, we passed that motion at the last committee meeting. Revolutionary action without committee approval is adventurism. Adventurism leads to splinter groups. Splinter groups lead to the People's Popular
A five-year ban on former ministers lobbying their own department, with real enforcement
The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) is a fig leaf. It has no statutory powers. It can be ignored, and regularly is. When a former minister takes a lobbying role that touches their old brief, the committee issues a polite
Hold at least one council meeting a month in a pub. Yes really.
Went to a council meeting last week. They held it in a community centre on the edge of town at 2 in the afternoon on a wednesday. Eleven people attended. Four of them were the council. Two were press. Three were retired. One was me. One was
Cross-departmental review of the review process, with a view to reviewing how reviews are commissioned
The Difficult Decisions Party has noted, with some concern, that the government currently commissions a large number of reviews. The Difficult Decisions Party has further noted, also with concern, that reviews are sometimes commissioned to
Formal declaration that the Judean People's Front are not, and have never been, allies of the People's Front of Judea
Let us put this to bed once and for all. The Judean People's Front are SPLITTERS. They have always been splitters. Their newsletter is inferior. Their stoning procedures are amateur. Their position on aqueducts is frankly embarrassing. We
Mandatory registration of all splinter groups and immediate proscription of the Judean People's Front
Mandatory registration of all liberation movements. Any group not on the register is officially designated as splitters. We will chair the committee. Unity is strength, brothers.
Replace First Past the Post with Single Transferable Vote
The 2024 general election produced a parliamentary majority of 170 seats from 34% of the vote. In 2015, UKIP received 3.9 million votes and won one seat. The Greens received 1.2 million votes and also won one seat. The SNP received 1.5 mill
Blame the previous government for things we are now also doing
Let us be absolutely clear. The mess we inherited was unprecedented. The previous government spent recklessly, ignored the evidence, and made short term decisions for political gain. We, by contrast, will spend recklessly but call it "inve
Official government apology for the general state of things
We propose a short, honest, annual apology from the government to the public. Not for a specific scandal. Not for a policy failure. Just for the general state of things. "We are sorry that the trains are like that. We are sorry about the p
Announce a review into the thing we promised to do and then announce another review
Phase one: announce a bold commitment to fix the problem. Phase two: commission an independent review into the problem we just committed to fixing. Phase three: announce we are "carefully considering" the findings of the review. Phase fo
Require all government policy to pass an independent impact assessment before implementation
We require environmental impact assessments before building a car park. We do not require evidence impact assessments before implementing policies that affect millions of lives. This asymmetry is remarkable. The What Works centres (What Wo
Publish every tax relief and exemption alongside the Budget, with five-year cost projections
HMRC administers approximately 340 tax reliefs and exemptions. They cost the Exchequer over £400 billion in forgone revenue each year. That is more than the entire NHS budget. Most of them are never reviewed, most are poorly targeted, and m
Clean Up Parliament's Act
I think we should introduce stricter rules on parliamentary language and behaviour to prevent the kind of abuse we see in the Commons these days. It's about time someone took a stand and said enough is enough, we need to restore some dignit
Full Royal Commission into the appropriate use of the Oxford comma in parliamentary legislation
The Difficult Decisions Party notes with concern the current ambiguity in legislative punctuation. On the one hand, the Oxford comma provides clarity. On the other hand, it does not. The implications for future legislation are therefore sig
Serious Business Demands Serious Conduct: Westminster's Circus Must End
The current state of affairs in Westminster is more than just a turn-off for voters. It’s actively undermining the ability to conduct serious national and international business. When the place descends into shouting and personal attacks, i
Promise change, deliver a logo refresh
Voters want change. We hear that. We understand that. We are the party of change. And we can prove it, because we have changed our logo. The new logo is 3% more modern than the old logo. It uses a different shade of the same colour, and th
Bring back common sense (we are not clear what this means but we are very sure about it)
Everyone agrees we need more common sense in this country. Nobody can define what that means exactly, but thats beside the point. You know it when you see it. And more importantly, you know when its missing. Common sense says you shouldnt
Restore trust in institutions by making appointments genuinely independent
The erosion of institutional independence is one of the most damaging trends in recent British politics. Appointments to quangos, regulators, and public bodies are increasingly made on the basis of political loyalty rather than competence.
Scrap the TV debates for good
I was at the pub the other night and overheard a group of people talking about the latest by-election results. One of them mentioned how the winner was nowhere to be found after the result was announced. It got me thinking about how our ele