My Manifesto

Education:

11-14:

Students get to choose subjects from 11 onwards, Maths and English are compulsory for obvious reasons, there will also be a vast choice of practical and vocational subjects to choose, each student picking 13 subjects alongside Maths and English.

PE will not be taught, it will be advised that students get changed but not compulsory, if we want students to exercise at least make it enjoyable. There will be an hour a day of exercise but the students will be given access to all of the sports equipment and the advice of any teachers should they want help with their chosen activity, the students are then free to play whatever they see fit, as long as they are active for the hour. Exercise doesn’t have to be a chore.

The average 11-14 year old timetable would involve 1 hour of exercise a day, 5 hours of lessons and 1 hour of free time, making the days slightly longer than the average. Lessons last 30 minutes, with 3 lessons for each choice every week and 5 lessons in Maths and English a week, plus 30 minutes tutorial a week to discuss any problems the student is having, or just to relax.

14-16:

At 14, students will choose which 10 subjects they want to take to GCSE level, sitting exams in all of their chosen subjects at 16. Maths and English are still compulsory, but each subject gets 5 30 minute lessons a week, the hour of exercise will still be daily and there will no longer be a tutorial, support will be provided by each department instead.

16-18:

Some form of education will be compulsory post 16, but there are three directions to choose for the students:

Academic:

This is essentially the 6th form/college system as it is now, students will sit exams in 4 subjects to A level standards, taking AS levels after one year and A2 levels after the second year. The difference being that this will not offer vocational or artistic courses for the students selecting this method.

Vocational:

This choice allows the student to take up one vocational skill and train over the two years to be fully qualified in their chosen subject, be it plumbing, farming, hairdressing, all the jobs that are best learnt by doing.

Creative:

This is a variation of art college, students taking this choice will get the opportunity to develop artistic skills over a wide variety of areas, specialising if they want or just studying a broad area of art and creativity.

Post 18:

Degrees will remain essentially the same, the universities must decide how the value the new qualifications and act accordingly. More concise information will be put out about universities, using a government survey listing the top in each subject and each student ranking of the university, in order to give the prospective students chance to fully explore what they want to do.

Tuition fees will be free.

Health:

There will be no private healthcare, whilst private healthcare remains in place public healthcare cannot improve, if the people who have the most money pay for their own hospitals how does society improve its health system? Both cannot exist alongside each other and since healthcare has to be provided to everyone, rich and poor, both should use the same system.

Private donations to hospitals are allowed and obviously encouraged, but a percentage of all donations are used to fund the NHS countrywide. By doing this, the wealthy have the opportunity to improve the hospital nearest them, but the improvements will be available to everyone.

The NHS will offer all cosmetic surgeries instead of private clinics, but these will not be covered and the money made will go towards improving public hospitals.

Dental clinics will become part of the NHS.

Yes, this will annoy rich people and private doctors/dentists/plastic surgeons. The point is to make it equal to everyone and accessible to all. All private medical personnel  will be offered their previous job, but for the NHS.

There will be very little middle management, it is expensive and they don’t save lives. Law suits will be near impossible to bring to fruition against the NHS, but all hospitals will be independently monitored and any found below standard will have sanctions taken against the staff.

Welfare:

Unemployment benefits will no longer apply. You will get money if you work, if you cannot find work, there will be an office set up by the local council, this will distribute work such as street cleaning, emptying bins, removing graffiti. It is truly not meant to appear as a punishment, it is actually to save money, to put wasted man hours to use, to provide a reference for the worker and to encourage the workers to find better jobs.

Disability benefits will remain the same of course!

Single parents will be offered work at home, along the level of unemployment benefits, but more money will be available for the same time, I’m not against having children and don’t want to make i any harder! An example of the job type would be data entry, boring yes, but flexible and easy.

Safety:

Community support officers will be no more, civilian arrests will be encouraged and commended, but not to the point of attempting some suicidal rescue mission! The real police are there for a reason.

Red tape has to be cut down vastly, police have to be on the street where they belong.

Criminals will not be able to sue, if they commit a crime they waive their right to sue anyone for anything, even if they fell over whilst running away from the police officer. Criminals lose that right. This will actually cut down on some of the red tape, as police will not have to worry as much about covering their backs to prevent law suits.

Prison:

There will be two types of prison, because prison serves 3 completely different purposes, though two are very closely related, rehabilitation, punishment and simply keeping the criminals off the streets:

Rehabilitative:

This will be for petty crimes, i.e. shoplifting. Help will be provided to all inmates to find jobs, the rooms will not be comfortable and the food will be cheap, but all in all it is aimed at trying to improve the inmates lives outside so they have less need to resort to petty theft.

Punishment and Segregation:

The main aim here is actually to keep violent criminals off the street. The conditions will be cramped and uncomfortable and the food poor, this is part of the punishment, the victims deserve some satisfaction that their assailant is getting what they deserve. This will NOT be a torture centre, no physical pain will be inflicted, but it will be uncomfortable and the inmates will be provided with nothing to do. Jobs will be provided in the prison, licence plate making etc. The money gained from this will be given to the prisoner upon leaving, or to the prisoners family if the prisoner dies in jail.

Officials:

Every town will have an elected chief of police, they will be responsible for working out any problems within their city, relaxing or tightening some laws as they see fit, they want to remain in power so they’d better do a good job.

Political:

The House of Lords will be removed. They are not elected, they do not represent the people and they get in the way of governments trying to pass laws that they promised their people during election. Yes, this will be difficult, but it is the first thing that needs to happen in order to enact some of the changes listed.