Welcome to the Common Good get-together 1 st June 2013

1. Welcome to the Common Good get-together 1st June 2013 Sharing a Political vision

2. Our country needs a purpose

3. We are needed in the world • UN • Millennium Development • Goals • .

5. UN goal Halve the number of people living on less than a dollar a day.

6. UN Goal Reduce to one third the number of children dying before their fifth birthday.

7. Reduce to a quarter the number of women dying in childbirth.

8. Halve the number without clean water to drink and without access to a toilet.

9. So how are we going to do it?Are people bothered? What stops us?

10. “Charity begins at home!”Yes but…. No but….

11. I think that if we got stuck in to such a big honourable job it would change us as a nation.

12. Kids would grow up admiring the grownups around them because of the admirable work they do to help make the world better.

13. They’d say to themselves, “I think that’s great! I want to be like that when I am grown up.”

14. They’d be happy and loved and interested in life and would do their maths homework (etc) well.

15. Soon we’d have a skilled motivated workforce and good science going on which would discover solutions to the world’s problems.

16. We’d feel that we are all part of a team – the same team – committed to an important job that we can all see the point of.

17. … a bit like the Second World War generation did. People knew they needed to “do their bit” and they did it and can look back with a right sense of pride at having done their duty.

18. We’d be a team.

19. There’s room for everybody in such a team. … as opposed to us all being out for ourselves and our own personal advancement in which case we are competing and some win/ some lose.

20. There’s room in the team for people whose families come from other lands and who adhere to other religions and for people of different level of ability. ….. If we are colleagues and members of the same team and not against each other.

21. I think everybody can agree that making a world where all have enough to give their children to eat and all can live free of tyrants.

22. To get anywhere as a nation we need a purpose if we are to achieve our purpose….. Otherwise our purpose is just survival … but that’s not satisfying. We are made for more than that.

23. So we need a purpose that makes sense to everybody wherever they come from, whatever their religion, Whatever their ability.

24. And the purpose I’d recommendis to make the world a better place!

25. It sounds silly, doesn’t it?

26. … but of course it matters a lot and it is a jolly good thing to spend your life doing!

27. But then it would be very odd to make a lovely life for people overseas and not to care about people here.

28. So we also, rightly, want to make Britain a lovely place to live and work.

29. And actually if we do that lots of other countries will want to model themselves on the way we do things here.

30. We’d win a lot of battles by our example. People would see that the British way of doing things is a really nice way for a society to organise itself.

31. Islamic Extremists might acknowledge that ours is really a rather nice way to live: in a just and compassionate society.

32. Even the Americans might learn some lessons from us.

33. This is the sort of thing everybody wants and says they are working for.

34. So why hasn’t it happened???

35. I didn’t hear this sort of thing (which is a challenge) coming from Labour, Conservatives or Liberal Democrats. And I don’t hear it coming from UKIP or other parties…. So, with my friends Roy and Nancy Hughes, I started my own: The Common Good.

36. We need a purpose and it’s got to be one that everybody can understand and respect and one they be happy to spend their lives working towards.

37. Viz: Making the world a better place and making Britain a lovely place to live and work.

38. The trouble is that we are deep in debt and have a lot of damaged people and even the less damaged ones use their freedom and gifts for their own advancement.

39. So we’ve got to inspire people. And energise people. And maybe knock a few heads together to sort things out.

40. We’ve gone too much towards commerce doing everything.

41. Jobs to do:

42. 1. BanksStop them creating out money. It’s a blooming cheek. We aren’t allowed to create money so why should banks be allowed to. There’s nothing special about banks that they should have the right to CREATE money – something the rest of us can’t do without getting locked up.

43. 2. NHSIt should be something we do because we care about each other –rather then it being a money making wheeze.

44. 3 RailWe need British Rail back. Ie a single organisation for running all the track and all the trains (passengers and freight) and ticketing with the fares right down and the power supply eco-friendly.

45. 4. Student feesNot have any. Higher education is a public good and we should train up our young people for lives spent serving society.

46. 5. Elected regional government – of the regions of England as Scotland, Wales and N Ireland already have. This body should keep some of the income of the area and it would help plan a thriving life and economy of each region.

47. Currently we are the most centralised country in Europe. It’s all decided at Westminster. The regions need to be trusted. Then they could plan better in areas big enough for a sensible perspective.

48. Westminster’s latest idea is Local Economic Partnerships run by businessmen at meetings subject to commercial secrecy. Not wise. Businessmen may have different motivations from those of citizens.

49. 6. Utilities in national ownership and national ownership of technical know-how and research re power generation etc. Gas and power prices are high and complicated.

50. …. And we need to have ownership of power generation research since we are going to need to use such generation for many years to come and it is a shame if we lose/have lost the know-how and have to buy it in.