openpolitics / manifesto

A collaborative political manifesto

The OpenPolitics Manifesto

This is an experiment in collaboratively creating a political manifesto. You can read and contribute to the manifesto online, and you can also take a look at the list of proposals currently under discussion.

How to take part

Anyone can change or add something. Just visit the manifesto pages, and click "Suggest a change" to get involved.

See the contributor guide for full details on how it all works.

Ideas

There are plenty of areas where we don't yet have anything in the manifesto. If you're looking to contribute but are unsure where to start, why not have a look at the ideas list? tracker](https://github.com/openpolitics/manifesto/labels/policy) has a load of ideas.

Feel free to add your own too using the issue form!

manifesto's Issues

Redesign homepage

To make everything more accessible, we need to redesign and rewrite the homepage, and improve the contribution guidelines to make it less scary. Need copy writing, some design perhaps, other skills which we don't necessarily have right now.

To-do list

There may well be folks keen to contribute, but don't know where to start.

To that end, it might be nice to have a "to-do list" (with a better name) that lists areas of policy we know we are thin on. We might be able to point people to reading material that can help them understand what issues there are in that policy area.

Prose.io github rights

Hi, I tried to login to prose.io using my GitHub account but was asked for what seemed like unreasonable levels of privileges (including lots of write access, access to private repositories etc.)

Can the privilege level required be reduced to the absolute minimum?

Push for IPv6 adoption

Ofcom need to push IPv6 adoption. See http://ift.tt/1zf9zfu


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December 12, 2014 at 01:31PM

Standardise recycling schemes

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-27857578. This is mainly a reminder for me to write something about this.

Vote/Stand

Two suggestions really;

1. We should add a "Vote" button/menu item to the site to show folks who is standing for election under the manifesto. Obviously that's only @Floppy (YAY!) but there could always be more and we should shout about them.
2. We should have something about standing under the manifesto. Like "anyone can", "you don't need to ask", "JFDI", some of @Floppy's discoveries from his candidacy etc...

Do you think that's a good idea? I'll start it off if you do, but welcome other suggestions of what could go in as a start...

Add right to parody

See https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2014/bingo-and-beer-spoofs-show-that-our-copyright-laws-are-a-joke

Free Speech principles

Should we - somewhere - adopt the principles laid out by Free Speech Debate?

Government proposals

The government has proposed some amendments to the Crime Justice and Courts Bill to deal with this, see:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2014-2015/0043/amend/am043-h.htm

and look for "private sexual". Quite a narrow criminal offence.

Add share links to each point

As suggested by @TLMCN (originally in #140)

Add sharing options (twtr,fb ) next to each item to increase engagement and allow people to share their favourite ones directly.

I think this is probably best done with some javascript on the client side. Getting it into the markdown processing would be awkward.

Address-less voter registration

Reading through an article on the age disparity amongst registered voters[1] the following question popped into my head;

"Do we have to have voter registration tied to an address?"

It's only when we come to actually vote that we need to be attached to an address (for obvious reasons). So why not leave that bit until voting day itself? That could make registration easier.

For example....

Current situation (A)

Before voting day, registration is;

• registering the person
• at a specific address

On voting day;

• said person turns up with a poll card
• votes

Easier (B)

Before voting day, registration is;

• registering the person

On voting day;

• said person turns up with ID and proof of address
• votes

Benefits of B

• Registration could be automatic upon;
  • eligible citizens reaching voting age
  • people granted citizenship (and at voting age)
• Consider this; if Royal Mail want me to collect a parcel from the depot I have to take the little card AND photo ID. They turn you away without photo ID. Conversely to vote, I can just turn up at the polling station with a black and white polling card and vote - no effort to check I'm actually that person stated on the card. B would require photo ID and proof of address at the polling station.
• This is a good hook with which to introduce electronic voting (auto-scanning and verification of ID too, anyone?)

Issues with B

Clearly, there are issues.

• Administration - B requires more administration at the polling stations which won't work out well while pieces of dead tree are ticked as you hand over your polling card.
• It would be too easy to vote twice, meaning that there'd need to be some sort of tech to back this all up to catch duplicate votes

There are probably many more holes, please prise them open :)

1. We should enfranchise young people at 16 while they are still living at home in a settled community

Who watches the watchers?

Admins of this repo are the only people able to merge PRs.

All PRs are public, so in theory there is every opportunity for anyone to comment on them.

How do we decide when the majority have ruled, and the PR gets merged?

What if it goes against the Admins' ideals? How do we force this to be democratic?

Wikipedia has cliques of pro-editors, which might be a necessary consequence of a platform where anyone can contribute - it would be good to avoid that somehow, but not sure how.

Links to other Groups/Bodies?

We link to books as reference material or background reading on the front page. Is it worth linking to groups for whom we are broadly supportive? They can be useful for inspiration. They are also good 'indicators' to first time visitors as to our overall direction. For example I would propose http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/ and http://www.secularism.org.uk/ and http://www.neweconomics.org/as being three worthy groups whose campaigns are broadly in sync with our own stated policies. I'm sure there are plenty of others.

What does everyone think?

Ask for evidence

Quick suggestion: we should collectively take a cue from Sense About Science in formulating the manifesto and Ask For Evidence.

Integrate the Commonwealth of Britain Bill proposals

There is a lot of good stuff in the Commonwealth of Britain Bill proposed in 1991 by Tony Benn that would fit well here. We have some already, but there's probably more we could bring in.

See the ampp3d coverage for a simple overview.

The Terrorism Acts

I'm not too clear on how the process works exactly, however I'm not a fan of the proscribed terror list where one day to the next you can criminalize almost anything and everything to do with an organisation.

I became interested in the Kurdish resistance movement and the PKK not too long ago. When the heavy fighting took place around Kobane, many people like myself wanted to show solidarity. About then I discovered the PKK is on the terrorism list, hence #318. Under the terrorism acts, 'uniform' is an offence, so wearing/showing symbols can get you lifted, so any displaying of YPG (PKK affiliated guerrillas) could be an offence.

I'd encourage you to have a look at "support" and "organising" under the act. Around that time, people rallied in George Square in Glasgow and Trafalgar in London, many of them bearing YPG and PKK flags and symbols. It's also interesting to note the definition of 'meeting' under the act. This could criminalize a group of human rights lawyers meeting to discuss the situation of a group. I did read about something similar happening in the US but I've since lost the article.

Needless to say, we don't live in a black and white world. Often we leave it up to our courts to decide the grey areas. But under the present 'terror list' system a handful of people in government are essentially dividing the world up according to the arbitrary lines that suit them.

edit: cleared up language

Try and attract a more diverse set of contributors.

Looking at the avatars of all of us who are actively commenting on PRs, it strikes me that we're a bit, well, homogenous.

What can we do to encourage a more diverse (and representative!) set of people to contribute to the project?

(h/t to @drmciver for bringing this to my attention)

Internet declaration of freedom

It seems like the principles in the Declaration of Internet Freedom are very consistent with the OpenPolicy manifesto:

http://www.internetdeclaration.org/freedom

I would suggest adopting these principles in full.

It isn't clear where it should go, my recommendation would be to create a new "Internet" section, which could include this as a policy goal.

Contributor stats

Might not be a good thing :) but...

Could we do stats? For example, for each contributor show the percentage of PRs successfully merged?

It'd be nice to show whose good at writing good proposals, and that can be used as a pointer to new folks looking at how to go about adding their ideas.

Don't Spy On Us

Definitely need to integrate the proposals from https://www.dontspyonus.org.uk/ into the manifesto.

Make @philipjohn an admin

It would be good to have more admins to reduce the hit-by-a-bus factor, so I propose adding @philipjohn as one, as he's a major contributor who is happy with the workings of the system. I trust him not to make policy changes on master :)

FYI, for contributors who prefer to use prose.io for editing (like @PaulJRobinson), it's easier to remain as a non-admin as it's easy to accidentally commit to master if you have direct push access.

Can I get a seconder?

Better protection for whistleblowers

Not sure what the current state of law is in the UK, but we might want to include something including the recommendations from http://whistleblowingnetwork.org/other-resources/europe-and-international/open-government-guide-whistleblower-protection/.

Move Parliament out of London

Need to write a proposal to move Parliament somewhere more northerly.


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December 12, 2014 at 08:51PM

Minimum alcohol price?

http://ampp3d.mirror.co.uk/2014/02/10/a-45p-minimum-unit-price-for-alcohol-would-save-the-lives-of-harmful-drinkers/

Nursing counts manifesto

Look at http://elections.rcn.org.uk/ and submit the recommendations for discussion.

Government

The more I look at the current structure of government and the policies that have been written in this manifesto to attempt to modify it, the more I pull my hair out!

The problem is we are falling into the same trap governments and political parties of all types have for, well ever really - at least since the formation of the modern UK parliamentary system. We are tinkering with what we have, sometimes in a big way, sometimes less so. But it feels patched together, somewhat contrived and just not satisfactory. (I should add this is no reflection on the authors, I know a lot of thought and effort has gone in, around deeply held beliefs.)

In many ways this"issue" goes hand in hand with the blank sheet constitution one... and may well be one and the same thing.

I think we need to be radical here (we can afford to be) and I think I may have an approach but it is a gamble.

We need three options:

• the status quo
• a modified Westminster system
• a new approach or approaches

In simple terms, the status quo would mean no change, a modified Westminster system would effectively be the same but with small modifications like reform of the House of Lords and the new approach/approaches; well I have some ideas but they would probably have to include the blank sheet constitution for example.

The idea would be that these are put to the people in a referendum or series of referenda to determine what the people really want - not part of a political package in a general election but standalone options to be investigated, debated and then voted upon.

We can put as much detail or as little in the manifesto as we want... maybe just the promise of a referendum on the future of government in the UK may be enough?

What do people think!?!

Blank sheet constitution

Add @hiltona's idea for a blank sheet constitution process.

Simultaneous Policy

Adopting http://simpol.org/ might be a way to explicitly frame bits of our internationalist approach.

Add something about flood management

• No building on flood plains
• Reduce runoff from new development
• Reduce runoff (and erosion) at top of catchments

CC Zero license

Should we change to a CC-zero license, to remove all restrictions? Our current license isn't properly open, due to the "do no evil" bits we added. If we're doing this properly, it should be fully open. https://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/

Manifesto for warmth

Ideas for insulation etc here: http://www.nea.org.uk/Resources/NEA/Publications/2013/MANIFESTO%20FOR%20WARMTH%20(LO%20RES)%20CS6.pdf

CASE proposals

Some good stuff in here; we should include it. http://sciencecampaign.org.uk/CaSETopTenActions2015.pdf

STV voting

Can't remember if we have anything around full PR (STV instead of FPTP) yet

Menu button broken on mobile

On mobile (Android default and Android Chrome at least) the menu button on the site doesn't seem to do anything. I was expecting to see the edit button I guess (I was logged in).

Links are wrong

Do we want to put this on a CNAME for the domain that @stringfellow bought, or should we change the links to point to /manifesto/whatever.html?

Environmental priority for treasury

Integrate http://www.foe.co.uk/page/new-treasury-priority

Look at Manifesto for Warmth

http://www.nea.org.uk/Resources/NEA/Publications/2013/MANIFESTO%20FOR%20WARMTH%20(LO%20RES)%20CS6.pdf

Ultimate outcome of the Midlothian Question

What is our stance on ending the Union with Scotland ? Do we ask voters in England & Wales to ratify any Scots Independence issue ?

How will national assets, resources and liabilities be apportioned if we are faced with an Independent Scotland ? How will we apportion the National Debt, North Sea (and other) Hydrocarbons and bases, equipment and personnel of the Armed Forces ?

Can the Scots use Sterling as their currency, when it is underwritten by the Bank Of England and Scots currency will no longer be legal tender in England, Wales and N Ireland ?

Repeal DRIP

From the Something New policy page. Need turning into manifesto addition:

We will repeal the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Acts 2014 that treats all British people as potential threats to national security. We will end the surveillance culture and any government snooping on individuals without the permission of the Courts, on the basis of probable cause. We will champion investigation and intelligence-based security and resource it accordingly.

Raise retirement age

Need to write a policy on raising the state retirement age. Need some stats on average lifespan at the time it was set to 65, and now.


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January 15, 2015 at 08:54AM

Use of proprietary software / services in the public sector

Just wondering what people's opinions were on the use of proprietary software / services in the public sector. Is there any data we can use to see how much we are spending on such software / services?

There was news from last year about the UK government spending £5.5 billion on expanding the support for Windows XP.

I dare not dream just how much money we waste so people can use Microsoft Windows / Office in the public sector. There are open source alternatives that would make us more cost efficient and progressive as a society.

Anyone have some thoughts they would like to share on this? I was going to create a pull request, but not sure where this would go / what specifics people would want to put in the manifesto.

Registering a party

We should perhaps register a party. We'd need a name, and while the project is currently OpenPolitics, I'm not sure that's a great party name. Any better suggestions?

Review comments and suggestions from Reddit

There was some good feedback at http://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/234mds/the_openpolitics_manifesto/ which we should review.

Create a Blog Page

Think a blog page on the site would be a useful place for contributors to post some longer-form articles that would provide background on issues that have yet to be agreed upon. It could be prefaced by "All the following posts do not represent official Manifesto policy".

I know @Floppy and @phillipjohn have already written on their personal sites about the Manifesto, but this could also be a place for linking to such things.

I'd like to write some articles on direct vs representative democracy; eu membership vs reform; constitutional reform and other things.

What is our focus?

I have a big issue that I feel needs to be addressed immediately.

A free, fair and tolerant society needs to be just that, free, fair AND tolerant. When I looked at getting involved in this project I was under the impression that these values would be upheld but I fear we are moving to a position where we are losing the tolerance and, in reality, only a particular group get true freedom to air their views; rapidly jumping on and closing down any one who chooses to put forward an alternative viewpoint.

This is fine, if that is the aim, but we are not really producing a manifesto that reflects the overall views of the population, as a whole, if a representative example do not get a fair say - which I would argue they are not. (I admit this was always going to be a risk!)

There is a lot of good stuff being discussed but there is a risk that that this is undermined if a narrow focus group get too much say.

The tolerance, fairness and freedom disappear when that happens.

So, what's the plan? Is this going to be a narrow focused, secular, anti-establishment party or something that reflects the values I would want to see - freedom, fairness and tolerance?

At the moment it is rapidly becoming the former.

Set a date

Once #241 is merged

Sexual violence

From Something New's policy page, this proposal needs turning into a manifesto addition:

We live in a country where there are 85,000 rapes a year and over 400,000 sexual assaults. The Office of National Statistics estimates there are 1.2 million victims of domestic violence each year. We are outraged by this and by the lack of interest in making an urgent, fundamental change to the safety of women and children in Britain. We propose an immediate Royal Commission on Sex Crimes with a remit to make proposals in justice, policing and rehabilitation to inhibit the harm of current criminals, in the support available for victims, and in any other area to challenge attitudes that create an environment where sexual assault and domestic violence are allowed to be so widespread.

Move elections to weekends

Write a proposal to move elections to weekends, probably Saturdays.


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December 13, 2014 at 10:32PM

Lobbying reform

Need to repeal existing lobbying bill and replace with one that does what it's supposed to do.

'Open Parliament' as a side project of Open Manifesto

So we have here our Open Manifesto. I'm intrigued by what others have done in the YourVoice Party who are on the South East ballot for the European Parliamentary election tomorrow and have pledged that their MEPs will operate on a Direct Democracy basis for all legislation in the European Parliament - throwing it open to their constituents and casting their votes to match. I wondered whether there is any merit in having an Open Parliament on this site: All legislation (EU or Westminster) that is being debated could be automatically presented as a choice on the site, and everyone gets to vote on that legislation in favour or against it. If we can't get Direct Democracy for real, let's pretend we have it and just let everyone vote on each Bill anyway. Thoughts?