List of rejected and accepted policies

APPROVED POLICIES (most recent at top of list)

1. Remedial year for eleven year-old pupils who aren't ready for secondary school
   
2. Regulatory freedom for small firms
3. Tax relief for 'homeworkers'
4. Two items of regulatory legislation must be repealed for every new piece of regulation enacted
5. A Federal Parliament
6. A new structure for London government
7. State Job Vacancies Website
8. Localise the NHS and integrate health and social care
9. Open up the NHS to new providers, competing on price
10. Ratify Convention against human trafficking
11. Business tax credits for socially responsible enterprises
12. Remove the broadcast regulations on impartiality
13. Vocational education rethink
14. A public database of government spending
15. Abolish the Insurance Premium Tax
16. Police officers should not usually patrol in pairs
17. Westminster representation for Britain's overseas territories
18. Double the number of prison places
19. More international aid should be channelled through civil society organisations
20. Single measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines to be available through the NHS
21. Make headteachers and teachers free yet accountable
22. All secondary schools to become directly state-funded but independent trust schools
23. Biology, physics and chemistry - not single science
24. Compulsory British History GCSE
25. More teaching and less testing in schools
26. Prisoners should serve full sentences
27. A frontline role for community pharmacists
28. Passenger security profiling
29. Abolish inheritance tax
30. Make forced marriage illegal
31. Give London voters the powers to recall the Mayor and propose binding propositions on the executive

REJECTED POLICIES (most recent at top of list)

1. Modernisation of public sector pensions to pay for 50% council tax discount for pensioners
2. Council tax rewards for homes that improve their carbon footprints
3. Hypothecation of revenues derived from specifically environmental taxes, charges and levies
4. 100% reserve banking
5. A House of Lords representing local government
6. Foreign permanent residents to clear through EU immigration
7. National Domestic Waste Strategy
8. Fund political parties via tax returns
9. Legalise prostitution
10. Education should start later
11. Public infrastructure should not be a profit-making venture
12. Replace the House of Lords with a fully-elected House of Defenders
13. A Human Rights Minister
14. Blacklist ugly and dysfunctional buildings

Comments

[Mike Christie]

Would it be possible to post, each Friday maybe, a list of policies to be proposed the following week, similar to the list posted at the start of this exercise?

[Richard]

Would it also be possible to see the percentage and number of votes?

[David Simpson]

How about a policy for funding political parties? I suggest a box on our tax returns where we indicate where we want our slice of the funding to go - which can be anywhere, including back to the Treasury (which would be the default if nothing is selected). Anywhere means anywhere that's not actually illegal- political parties, charities, pressure groups, churches or my Great Aunt Joan.

[Editor]

Mike: We will try to do that advance guide.

Richard: I do not intend to publish that info. I think it's enough to say that a policy has been voted down or not. People are brave enough to put their policies up for voting. The level of approval or rejection may not always be helpful to them.

David: Please work that policy up and I'll happily publish it.

[Eleanor McHugh]

Editor, I support your stance on not publishing the distribution of votes. However I think for each proposition it would be interesting to know the total number of votes cast as that might give some sense of how contentious a particular issue is.

[simon meadowcroft]

When do you expect thsi exercise to finish? Like many people, I guess, I've got a couple of ideas but am a bit short of time. Whats my submission deadline!

[clive elliot]

I accept the reservations about publishing too much detail on the actual voting, but it would be enormously helpful to know which policies are the most popular, and which have the greatest majority of support over rejection.
So, at the end of the exercise, please may we have two lists:

a) top 5 policies in order of largest number of pro-votes cast
b) top five policies in order of greatest plurality of pro- over anti-votes.

If the result of this exercise is not announced until the end of the 100 submissions, it won't affect the voting as it goes along.

Regards

A. Clive Elliot

[Mark Fulford]

Tim, are you certain about that History vote? I counted up those on each side of the debate and came up with 20 indviduals against and 13 indviduals for, with 2 or 3 ambiguous comments.

Perhaps you could publish the size of the total vote - so we'd get an idea of how representative it is.

[Mark Fulford]

Now the triple science too. The votes on these issues really do seem to defy the debates!

[Thomas Hobbes]

just publish the scores

[NigelC]

Mark and Thomas,
I sometimes vote by e-mail as required after reading all the comments but don't post my own comments; we are the silent majority

[Mike Christie]

And further to NigelC, I participated in a debate, but for some odd reason didn't actually vote.

[Thomas Hobbes]

Great Nigel, but why not publish the results? Do things in the open and let us know how popular these policies are.

[John Peters]

"I think it's enough to say that a policy has been voted down or not. People are brave enough to put their policies up for voting. The level of approval or rejection may not always be helpful to them."

The people who put forward policies aren't that fragile are they?
Openness is a good thing.
Besides you could argue that if a policy has been roundly defeated it would be very helpful for that person to know it.

Is there going to be a second chance at the end for everyone to vote on these policies? Some may have second thoughts or have come late to the debate.

[Thomas Hobbes]

this voting does not reflect the debate

[NigelC]

Thomas that is how democracy works; we read the debate and either agree or disagree with it tone and then vote.
If the vote goes against what you believe the tone of the debate was, obviously the arguments of some were unconvincing.

Voting does mean using an e-mail address so anonymouse contributors cannot participate.

Are you suggesting there is something improper going on? A conspiracy of sorts?Other than publishing the number of votes (for which the Editor has given valid reasons) what would convince you that the process was properly conducted

I believe the second phase of this process will be refining the top 100 policies so we will all get a second chance to convince others of our arguments or fine tune the text.

[NigelC]

Will stage 3 for the accepted policies start in October irrespective of how many policies have been accepted by then? Might it be a bit confusing editing approved policies and bringing new ones forward at the same time?

[Editor]

Possibly Nigel. We may have to experiment a bit...

[Mark Fulford]

I really like the Wisdom of Crowds, but I think we’re finding here that it produces isolated wisdom. It’s like a patchwork quilt where each patch is good, but together they’re a mishmash. I think that Wisdom of Crowds needs to be applied to the big picture as well as the individual parts.

Editor, I’d like to propose that at the end of the first stage you carry out a savage survey to cut the number of approved policies in half. The effect of that survey would be to apply WoC to the problem of producing coherent policies. It would also favour policies with wider appeal over those with marginal approval.

[Thomas Hobbes]

I trust Tim, he would not enter into any sort of dark arts - this is why he will never make a "politician". But I wonder who is voting. Some of these ideas are so barmy that I wonder if "outsiders" are voting to blacken our name.

[NigelC]

I trust Tim to be monitoring the e-mail addresses to uncover any skulduggery or unusual patterns

I would have voted for 9 or 10 out of the approved list of 12 so far in principle, although they do need editing, (but missed voting some days) and don't consider myself barmy (others may?)

[deborah]

"The effect of that survey would be to apply WoC to the problem of producing coherent policies."
Why does cutting the number in half necessarily create more coherent policies?

[Mike Christie]

"Why does cutting the number in half necessarily create more coherent policies?

On consecutive days this site has voted in favour of making GCSE History compulsory, GCSEs in three seperate sciences compulsory and in making secondary schools independent and able to set their own curriculum. I'm sure as the exercise goes on we will find other examples of directly conflicting policy concepts being approved.

However, I would hope that all approved ideas would go forward for further debate and development although there are some approved ideas I am utterly opposed to.

[Automated Robot]

Editor -

I think the consensus of the comments is that it would be interesting to have a summary of the voting at some point.

A couple of suggestions for the debate:
- voting margins (i.e. the number of policies falling within given ranges of %age majority).
- votes cast (i.e. the number of policies falling within given ranges of total votes cast)

If you prefer not to disclose voting totals, you could normalise them (1.0 = highest number of votes, 0.0 = no votes cast).

I suspect we will never tire of finding ways to spend your time!

[archie henderson]

How do i vote on the 100 policies. I am new to the site, so any info would be helpful, thanks.