Trains

I want to save the railway of our land (the UK). It was a mistake to privatise it and specially to break it up into argumentative parts with track and rolling stock in different hands. We should get it back to together again in public hands with prices right down so that people will use it and fewer will use the roads. We should complete electrification and run it on renewably generated power. the picture is irrelevant - I wanted a video of a train but couldn't get it to load.

Save the NHS from becoming commercial

I want to save the NHS in the UK from becoming a commercial enterprise. The market model doesn't suit caring for each other. Particularly pressing is the matter of organising and paying for the care of the elderly. This should be organised by and paid for entirely by the NHS funded by the public purse. The Service was founded to spread the cost of healthcare across the population as a whole. "We are all in it together and if you get into difficulties we'll look after you because you matter to us all." That should be the NHS philosophy. It was at its founding and it should stay that way.

Banks must not create money.

I want o stop banks beign allowed to create our money supply as a debt to them which happens when they lend people money. The Bank of England should be our nation's only authorised creator of new money which it should create as an asset, not a debt, and it should give it to the government to spend on things that help us develop a productive export economy.

I thought I had mastered the art of recording an audio message but it seems that the hearer needs to download the requisite software to hear it. I hope we'll have figured it out soon. Dick

Would you consider signing a petition I created on the Downing Street e-petition website? The wording is

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to make the Bank of England the sole creator of money in our economy and to stop the commercial banks from creating money."

and you can find it at

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Money-creation/

and my explanatory note to go with it reads:

At present we allow commercial banks the huge privilege of creating money out of nothing as their own property for their own benefit. You and I can’t do it. Why let the banks do it? They do it by issuing loans of money which didn't exist until the borrower signs a promise to pay it back. Then the bank sells that agreement to a dealer for real money up front. We don't need to depend on banks for our nation's money supply. Let’s make the Bank of England, acting as a public servant, the sole creator of new money in our land. Then our money would be an asset of the nation as a whole not the property of commercial banks. This practice caused the credit crunch. Banks lent to people who couldn't repay because it wasn’t costing them much in the first place. It's why bankers get bonuses. The problem isn't bonuses. It’s the activity that the bonuses encourage ie getting people to borrow. Don't nationalise the banks. Let them compete but don’t let them create money out of nothing as they do now.

This was the rocket I campaigned with at the 2004 European elections.

getting organised

I have been off the streets in the last few days getting a bit more organised at home.