And now... a brief word from the minister for Enterprise and Re-education

Now the Glorious Revolution has come and gone, it is my duty as minister of E and R to ensure the mistakes of the past are not repeated. This is why the benefits system was a failure

1) Teenagers saw it as a possible career path – due to the acceptance of the mass media of the “dole-ites” as portrayed on several TV soap opera’s and other mass publicised media. They went to great lengths to show that on benefits you can quite happily have a long lie in, go out and lead a semi real life and spend plenty of time in the pub and enjoy yourself at no risk of never needing to find work. Which in fact was not to far from the truth. On calculation benefits could easily replicate a moderate income as: you pay no rent, council tax, all medical charges are paid for. In Birmingham the lowest rate of council tax is £77 a month, council rent is about £230 a month for a small 1 bedroom property, £50 a week in income support which without any further calculations alone is £507 a month. If your earning £12,000 a year (take home pay £700 a month) actually leaves you only £50 a week better off.
2) Rampant fraud was easy to achieve – with very few actual checks of peoples circumstances on a weekly basis and a simple declaration that you are continuing to be in the same situation and looking for work allowed continued bogus claiming.
3) Multiple Identities were easily claimed for; due to the failure of the system to co-ordinate it was entirely possible to claim to be several different people at the same time.

How to solve this, the following proposal has been brought forward

1) The crime of Intentional benefit fraud now carries a mandatory prison sentence of how one week for every week you claimed bogus benefits for beyond the first 2 weeks of excess payment, plus an additional 5 years,

“Intentional” is open to many interpretations but the one that matters ours.

2) No cash paid, in the republics the person on benefit will receive a credit card style payment, they will be issued with a card and a certain cash credit will be accredited to the holder every week.

This card will be restrictive in its use, using the latest digital technology we ensure that only staple food, clothing and essential home needs are allowed to be purchased using this card.

Any business allowing the card to be used to buy luxury items such as say beer or cigarettes, will face the new crime of Intentional benefit fraud and serve the minimum sentence (5 years) plus 1 day per pound taken, this will apply to the all staff involved who had knowledge of the transactions from the person on the till, to senior management/owner of the business.

The only possible benefit of having a "noble" class is that they almost by definition think in the long term

One of the most profoundly irritating elements of the old style democratic system was it's inherent short termism. By fundamental definition of the system there was almost no motive or benefit for a politician to plan beyond the next election.

Let me be clear: this was a fault of the system, not each individual politician.

The ONLY redeeming feature of the old system of nobility was that they almost always had to plan for a longer term than an eleected politican, because they would be handing over power eventually to someone they cared deeply about: their own children. This almost guarenteed that they saw themselves as temporary stewards of the area not as owners and that it was in their kids interest to hand over the estate in the best possible condition.

(Please note: I am not in any way suggesting that this method of government protected the people in the same way that it provided long term protection for the environment: quite the opposite in fact: it meant that arrogant nobles saw the youth of their estate as another resource to be spent freely in their endless, pointless bickering over territory)

One corolloray of this was of course the implict conservatism and resistance to change that this engendered: if a thing was not done by your father then you would not do it yourself! - this seems to be an innevitable side effect of the system that needs to be acknowledged and planned for.

However, almost no other political system can offer this long term view, this in-built resistance to destroying irreplaceable capital for short term gains.

Therefore the Chairman of the Republic is now actively soliciting suggestions from loyal members of our fair city as to how we can build in the nobility's long term stewardship of the environment and long-termist outlook with a democratically elected system of government.

Exactly HOW do you make politicians act in the long term interest whilst still retaining the power to throw them out of office at the next election? Please enter the debate and the best suggestion will become the official policy of the Republic!

Why there are no single faith schools in the Republic

The Chairman of the Republic has ruled that there shall be no "faith" based schools allowed in the Republic - and most definitely no single faith only schools.

A faith based school is one that takes a single faith as it's over-riding concern, and makes all other considerations secondary to making sure that the faith is taught.

There are two main problems with this:

1 No subject in school should be influenced by any over-riding faith. Subjects should be taught to the best of the teachers ability without any undue external influence: for example - how can you teach biology and evolution (which are scientific facts) if it it tinged by creationism? (which is an unproven belief?)

2 How the hell can you create a diverse, multicultural society if people are educated in single religion enclaves? How can kids get to know people from other religions if they do not mix with them at school?

In fact if you wanted to create the condtions for self perpetuating bigotry and hatred then by all means allow your children to go to a single faith school.

In the Peoples Democratic Republic of Birmingham not only is racism illegal, but any condition that could contribute to racism continuing is stopped. Therefore single faith schools are totally banned.

We have removed the causes of racism by the simple expedient of making damn sure that kids of ALL races and creeds mix together from birth. How can anyone be racist when they have a deep knowledge of all other faiths and cultures?

Hatred is bred where ignorance lurks. Kill ignorance and kill hatred.

And do NOT get me started on single sex schools!

What happened to the Royal Family after the Revolution...

The Royal Family of the country formerly known as England was removed from power and office as the very first act of the Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Republic.

The continued existence of the Royal Family was felt to be contributing towards an atmosphere of deference and mindless obedience to authority. Besides which, the thought of anyone having un-elected, hereditary power is totally alien to the fundamental beliefs of the Republic.

How can anyone set out to improve themselves and rise as high as possible through their own sheer hard work when the highest position of power in the state is held as an accident of birth? How can anyone be ambitious when the ultimate position is one they can never achieve?

And how dare anyone wield power over our lives who was not elected and for which there is no way at all to rein in their excesses?

This is not to say that the members of the ex-Royal family are not in themselves decent people: they are. What we have a problem with is the institution of royalty itself - not the current incumbents.

The old royal family accepted retirement with good grace, and launched one of the most successful second hand car sales chains in the history of the Republic: good luck to them from the Chairman!

Why the Peoples Democratic Republic of Birmingham is totally against ID Cards

Many members of the Central Committee of the Peoples Republic have urged the Chairman to implement ID Cards for the population, arguing that it is a good way to combat ID theft, terrorism, fraud, illegal immigration and any number of other real and imagined problems.

The Chairman has made a ruling today on the subject of ID cards:
The Peoples Democratic Republic of Birmingham will NEVER implement ID cards for one simple reason: no government EVER should be trusted with that amount of information and control.

Can you imagine how infinitely worse the Holocaust would have been had the Nazi's had the kind of ID cards proposed today?

And do you trust EVERY government from now on to be responsible and just in it's use of this data? - do you honestly believe there will NEVER be a totalitarian regime come to power in this country that will abuse the power ID cards give them?

Is it a serious argument to say that because it has never happened before it will never happen in the future? - that is like a 17 year old girl not using contraception because she has never got pregnant before!

Every patriotic citizen of the Republic is in fact commanded to join the campaign against these cards: do NOT let your government get these powers!: www.no2id.net