Who is my MP?
Hi Jeremy,
I was out cycling this morning with the Farnham Road Club. It was a beautiful sunny day, perfect to be out cycling the lanes and roads around Farnham, Elstead, Godalming, tea and tea-cakes at Abinger Hammer and back home. On the ride I made a note to tell you the roads are a mess – potholes everywhere, sunken manholes and drains. (I’ve reported some of them to fillthathole.org.uk). Then I came to a great stretch of road that actually had a cycle lane, with a really nice section of tarmac – which got me thinking.
How about combining your role as Health Secretary and your legacy of the fabulous London Olympics, and promote Surrey as the home of English/British cycling. All we need is a cycle lane (a painted strip 2 foot in from the left of all roads and lanes in Surrey). Then a decent strip of tarmac within this lane to ensure the safety of cyclists, surface level manholes and drain covers (cars don’t see potholes until the cyclist ahead swerves to avoid them). You would be protecting the cyclists from serious accidents. This is going to cost money you say, wait I have another idea.
This week I read an article in Time magazine (1st July, ‘Can Service Save Us’) about returning US war veterans and how the majority of them have post-traumatic stress, what is helping them is getting them involved in projects helping their local communities. Which brings me to my point, we also have lots of soldiers returning from warzones, some of them will be laid-off, they will need help re-adjusting to ‘normal’ life. We need projects to ease them back into civilian life. The ‘adopt a cycle lane’ project might be one of these projects.
Similarly we need to get our kids, who have no jobs, doing something useful, acquiring skills, painting and maintaining roads is probably not suitable for them, but helping farmers develop or maintain their farms may be more appropriate. Visiting and helping elderly folks paint their homes, maintain their gardens, collecting their shopping, etc. Life skills. How about helping reclaim our fields, forests and meadows, helping with building new homes, flood-proofing homes, the list goes on.
The government needs to take advantage of all the brain power in the UK, I propose you encourage the voluntary establishment of ‘think tanks’ across the country, where folks can gather and provide ideas for solving problems. Use a web site to coordinate these ‘idea incubators’. Encourage local MPs to participate in regular, monthly?, meetings. The ‘prize’ for a good idea is the government will sponsor its implementation. Many ideas can be implemented by the community with no government involvement. Let’s get Britain doing what we do best, innovating and volunteering to help.
By the way, thanks for all the great stuff you are doing for us.
Posted 30th June 2013
![]() | 65 Flood Warnings For UK As Heavy Rains ContinuePosted by guildy on September 25, 2012 in News Floods in UK: More than 800 homes flooded as storms hitPosted by BBC News on 26 November 2012 |
It’s that time of year again and thousands of people in the UK are suffering from the floods – many homes and businesses have been damaged. It’s almost impossible to keep the water out once the rivers burst their banks. Some properties have been flooded more than once this year.
We need a practical, simple solution. The local council is responsible for improving flood defences, and these must continue to be implemented. In addition, I suggest we investigate ways to ‘wrap our property in plastic’ to keep the flood waters out if it breeches the flood defences. The proposed scheme could be funded by the property owner, or Insurance companies.
Rigid sheets of clear plastic (produced from recycled plastic) could be attached to the house to keep out the flood waters. These would slide into a set of permanently attached ‘sliders’. The length and width of the plastic sheets would vary to enable an entire house to be wrapped up to a height of say 1.5 meters (above flood levels in your region). The front door would be the last sheet inserted as you made your escape before the flood reached your property.
Different colours could be made available for the more fashion conscious.
Now over to the inventors to design and perfect this fledgling idea. The scheme could generate local jobs both to the plastic sheet and fixture manufacturers and to local fitters!
first published 24 December 2012
The 'People's Bank'
I have been thinking of late how I and the many thousands like me who have some savings, can earn a decent rate of interest, but also help the economy. This coalition government needs to find a way to optimise the use of all its resources: that’s us the people, our savings, our desire to work and earn a living, and our ideas. How best to put that to the best interest of our great country.
Well, I have £5000 in a savings account earning me close to 0%, and I am sure there are quite a few pensioners who have that and more earning a pittance. How about someone, a ‘bank’, make us an offer we can’t refuse. How about offering us 5% interest on our savings, tax free (there’s the government buy in to the scheme). Allow us for example one free withdrawal a month, and make it an annual contract. In this way the ‘bank’ will easily accumulate £10billion (that’s £5000 from 2million people), and it will make a substantial difference to the many pensioners dependant on the interest their money earns. According to an article there is over £750billion in pensions and savings accounts, so reaching £10billion shouldn’t be difficult.
The 5% interest rate can be achieved if the Bank lends out the money to small or medium sized UK companies at say 5.5% or 6% (the benefit to the bank is 0.5% – 1% earned). And low interest rate loans to local companies will enable them to employ more local people. Now we’re talking about using under-utilized savings to fund companies desperate for loans to hire more underutilized Brits. It’s a win-win-win, and all it will cost the government is the tax on the interest it would otherwise have received from the savings.
I had thought we would need a government bank (remember Nationwide) to manage this, but I fancy Richard Branson and his Virgin Money could run it. A new bank, looking to make a difference, what do you say Richard, how about a Virgin Bank for the people, or a People’s bank? My money is yours for the asking, at 5% tax free interest, I reckon you’ll have a queue to your door.
1st published 25 September 2012
Are we at a UK Tipping Point?

Reduce or Re-purpose Donations to the Third World?
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image reused from WaterAid |
- Water pumps, water purification, water butts for capturing rain water - all to provide water locally - teach them the importance of sanitation Water Aid do this very successfully.
- Engineering (to maintain the water pumps), building skills (for schools, houses, community centres, toilets and roads)
- Education in health, nutrition, solar power, water purification, micro finance, internet.
- How about providing bicycles - manufactured in the UK, preserving jobs here, and providing much needed 'green' transport to the locals - and provide education in the maintenance of bicycles - perhaps providing much needed jobs to local 'bicycle mechanics'.
- Food and agriculture - teach them about safe use of human waste as fertilizer.
- Wireless broadband, internet usage: buying and selling produce
Please help the Syrian People NOW
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image recycled from hhrd |
Greece 2012: "Problem" or "Opportunity"
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image reused from hansafx |
Prisoners leaving Prison under-prepared
image recycled from sassy wire |
- Set up a bank account in a Government owned bank
- Set up benefits to start one week, or month, before release (not 1 - 3 months after release), and pay these into the new account
- Offer training courses:
- An apprenticeship (compare with the prison in Norway)
- Using a PC (email, job search, CV writing, spreadsheet for budgeting, searching for help online, for instance see here, etc)
- Cooking and shopping for ingredients
- Using the Library, Citizens Advice Bureau, Job Search, NHS - including registering with a GP
- In Meditation and/or Religion (for instance)
- ensure the individual has somewhere to stay for at least 6 months on release
Impose tax on bank transactions
