If you were lawmaker for a day...

[Mal]

If you were law-maker for a day, what law would you introduce? They don't have to be 'ish' in nature.

I have 2:

1) It is illegal for any company to leave any lights running in their business premises past the hours of occupancy, save for those needed for safety or for other maintenance work (to include cleaning or security) - this to stop shops etc. from leaving all their display lights on

2) Any news outlet publishing a story which is later found by the IPCC to be untrue must publish a retraction in the same position and same font size as the original story - this one ocurred to me after the Daily Hate published those stories about immigrants eating our swans which later turned out to be completely unfounded but they never had to correct the impression they'd left in people's minds.

[Ellendra]

1. I'd make it illegal for any politician to vote on their own paycheck. If they want a raise, they'd have to put it to a general vote in their district.

2. Politicians would only get paid for the days they're actually doing their jobs. And campaigning doesn't count as "doing their jobs".

3. I'd make it illegal for a politician to run for one office while being paid to serve in another. If they want to run for a different office, they'd have to resign from the previous one.

4. I'd pass a law saying that every bit of legislation must be read OUT LOUD before it can be voted on, and no last-minute alterations.

5. Lobbyists would be outlawed.

6. Corporate campaign donations would be outlawed.

7. I'd pass a law making it so that if a region was experiencing budget shortages, the first things cut would be the luxuries of the politicians, NOT libraries and fire services like they do now.

8. I'd make it easier to fire government employees for incompetence. (Current union rules make it impossible, no matter how bad the employee is. You'd have to murder somebody in order to get fired from a government job.)


There's more, but you did say only for a day.

[Annpan]

Ok.... what number are we at? I make it 11

11. Not allow any member of parliament to employ their own family, unless they are genuinely seen by an independant employment specialist to be the best suited to the job.

12. Put immense, crippling taxes on fast food chains, and use the tax to give free fruit and veg to children and cookery lessons to everyone who wants it.

13. Make it illegal for journalists to knock on doors of families suffering distress, make it illegal for them to publish images of innocent members of the public, who don't choose public life, without full written consent.

14. Stop supermarkets or construction companies from holding on to land for longer than 6 months without working on it. Force land to be devided up into alotments

16. Give the same tax-breaks to people renovating old homes as is available to those building new homes.

[Thomzo]

17. Force the lawmakers to work in a small business before they are allowed to pass any laws, so that they can see just how much red tape there is and how impossible it is for any business to comply with all the laws there are.

18. Force the sale or rental of any houses that have been empty for more than 6 months.

19. Ban private holiday homes that are only used for two weeks a year.

20. Ban the building of houses that are designed to be only holiday homes, the ones where you are not allowed to live there all year.

21. Ban MPs from using private cars. To get anywhere they have to use public transport.

22. Change the national curriculum to include environmental studies along with cookery, basic DIY, and other skills that people really need, rather than logarithms and set theory (which I've never used since leaving school).

Only a day, well in that case, keep all these laws brief.

Zoe

[StripyPixieSocks]

23. Mimimum levels of food in hospitals

24. Immigrants who come into this country with the only goal of getting handouts must either hold down a job for 12 months or get nothing

25. Any immigrant with a criminal history should be turned around at the ports and sent home and banned from entering the country.

26. Immigrants carrying out crimes for which a jail term is needed should serve half of their sentence here and then be deported to serve the other half wherever they came from

27. Government must pay for housing, food, cars etc out of their own pocket just like everyone else has to

28. Get rid of the TV licence

29. People driving with no tax or insurance should be told to get out of their car, have the car towed away and crushed.

30. People driving while on their damn mobile phones should be pulled over, given a bus ticket home and their cars crushed.

Oh there's lots more but I'm very, very tired and going to bed!

[sleepyowl]

31) Legalise cannabis, ecstacy, speed, possibly cocaine but only to liscensed traders & produced by only liscensed producers, this will be taxable but cheaper, will ensure what people are taking is not cut with other stuff, making it safer, with lower mortality rates & will be easier to control drug taking habits of the nation of people who take such things

32) Provide rehab which they have to stay in till sorted, instead of jail sentences to people who commit crimes that are drug related so they are less likely to commit them again as they will no longer be dependant on them.

33) Although not legalising heroin provide a safe environment for addicts to inject, cutting down the chances of infection by such things HIV/AIDS & hepatitis.

35) Give sex education to children at an earlier age to cut down teenage pregnancy (we are very poor at giving sex ed to kids in this country & have the teenage pregnancy rates)

36) Ban the sale of fois gras

37) Make learning a second language compulsary

38) Recognise Paganism as a faith

39) Reduce the age limit on drinking alcohol (we have the worst teenage alcohol problem in Europe & yet we have the strictest laws where as the countries that are more relaxed about it have fewer problems)

40) Ban exporting products which we then have to import from other countries

41) Ban fur farms after a fixed date, all mink must be killed & made into whatever items they will be made into but no more farming after that date, any farmers that don't comply get their mink killed & confiscated & sold off to the industry for them but will recieve no pay for the furs

42) Make prison harsher with tighter controls

43) ban programmes like my life as an animal & big brother & other tv drivel that rots your brain

I shall think of more when I'm not so tired

[jim]

44. For every new law that makes it onto the statute book an old one must be removed.

45. Anyone seeking high office has demonstrated that they are psychologicly unfitted for the task and is automaticly barred from doing so.

Love and Peace
Jim

[jim]

46. Those who have demonstrated that they are psychologically unfitted for the exercise of power through high office who still want make it to Government, made to live on minimum social, to live on the nearest sink estate to their constituency and Parliament and have to use the local schools for their children and hospitals for their health care.

47. The maximum pay in the land not to exceed 10 times that of the lowest pay.

Love and Peace
Jim

[Smooth Hound]

id make it illegal to be a member of the free masons

[MuddyWitch]

48) Make it illegal to make noise between 9pm & 7am, including shouting 'bye then, see ya'!!!

MW

[ajs88]

49. Abolish tuition fees

50. Divert 'youth funding', 'anti-knife crime' etc. funding from short-term projects and use the money to keep youth facilities up and running, and stop insisting on multi-media and innovation (a pool table, seating and something that plays music is all that is required) and that the money can't be used to pay the gas bill but can pay for broadband.

51. Get rid of 'key worker' anyone who has a job is a key worker, why should a nurse be entitled to affordable housing when the wards cleaner isn't because they've been privatised.

52. De-privatise hospital cleaners and bring back matrons

[the.fee.fairy]

53. Ban the reporting of drunken celebrities.
54. Encourage people to work
55. Make all public transport 24 hours a day everywhere
56. Ban companies from writing contracts that enable them to do as they please with the employees without consulting them first.
57. Stop politicians who do 'other' jobs in parliament from being a local MP so that they can't pass on the constituents vote.

[Stonehead]

58. Replace the current House of Lords with a jury service-style system. People are selected at random from the population and do a six-year term, with half replaced every three years. Salary set at twice the national average, travel expenses paid to London and when on parliamentary business, London accommodation provided by the state at services mid-ranking officers level. Refusal to attend results in an equivalent term of compulsory community service in a remote location.

59. MPs allowed to serve a maximum of 20 years in total.

60. MPs paid the national average salary, with travel expenses paid to London and when on parliamentary business, London accommodation provided by the state in the equivalent of Other Ranks services/social housing. If they want better pay and accommodation, they'd need to raised the average and the standard for everyone else.

61. MPs caught rorting the system to spend 12 hours per day in the stocks in the centre of every village/town/city in their electorate until they've done 12 hours for every 1000 population.

62. Lawyers banned from being MPs. There's too much conflict of interest—they set the laws, then interpret the laws. Lawyers would only advise parliament and the government.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Given how many of the World's ills seem to be due to a breakdown in family life, take steps to increase the amount of time available for it:

63. Impose and enforce a maximum working week for the employed of 45 hours;
64. Restict Sunday opening to small shops (say 1000 square foot), pubs, restaurants and other enteprises that are condusive to a healthy family life;

[Millymollymandy]

65. Ban hunting in France on Sundays so we can have some peace and quiet in our gardens - or allow people to use their lawnmowers/power tools on a Sunday to make noise too so it's not just a one sided thing.