Floods and disasters – Where We Stand Series

Floods and Disasters - Where We Stand Series

OK, so what would UKpopdems do?

Good question. It’s all very well UKpopdems planning to make Britain a better place to live for individuals, families and communities, and providing changes that allow all Britons to access long term financial and social wealth; but what about handling the everyday events and rarer natural disasters that sweep other governments off-course. Well, if you’ve looked through our principles and policies in the web-site you’ll already know UKpopdems is offering something very different from the increasingly centralised government decision making we’ve suffered for decades.

What’s happened over the last 30 years or so, maybe longer, is that successive governments have starved funding for front-line services that directly help individuals and communities and, instead, poured billions of your hard-earned money into central departments and central decision making by quangos and bureaucrats. The result is they get what they want but you don’t get what you, your family and your community needs.

UKpopdems’ principles and values are different. One of the first things we’ll do in government is begin the process of re-distributing the money that comes from the taxes you pay so that funding massively increases for front-line resources and infrastructure, and substantially reduces for back-office departments and bureaucracy. In our first year we’ll find £20billion extra for immediate front-line community services and by the end of our first term, we’ll be redirecting £100billion a year extra to communities. Half that money will go into recruiting a million extra front-line resources and half into the expanded infrastructure needed to get the job done. That’s a lot of money and we are expecting to achieve a lot with it.

You’ll see in our policies that we are setting up a large, permanent, properly resourced and equipped, multi-agency rapid reaction force to deliver aid and expertise anywhere in the world where there are sudden natural disasters to alleviate. This force will be ready to act and go on the occasions when Britain and communities need it. This force will, indeed, be large because we are doubling the size of the armed forces and massively increasing police numbers. If UKpopdems was in government now, the powerful pumps; rescue and reinstatement teams, clean water and emergency food aid, and, just as important, long-term back-up and support would be immediately in-place and on-site to minimise personal suffering, and help communities get back to normal as soon as possible. Neither man nor government can prevent the damage nature does at her wildest, but we should be able to respond to limit the damage and hold out a strong and competent hand for those who need help. This is the proper and appropriate action anyone would expect from a wealthy and civilised nation.

UKpopdems will make other changes too. We believe that decision making should be done at Parish and Community Council level, as close to the people affected by decisions as possible. This means your community will not have to suffer the bureaucratic wrong-headedness of central department decision making and delays. You and your community will decide priorities about where spending should be directed to best effect; not central government, Regions or Local Authorities. With UKpopdems your commonsense knowledge of the locality and what your community needs counts far more than any decision that could be made by central departments. What we’ll do is to make sure you have all the expertise on-hand that you need to help in your decision making process. So if flood defences, drainage and stricter planning rules are your community priorities to prevent future problems in your area, you’ll know no-one is going to turn up with a big stick telling you otherwise.

That does not mean communities are on their own, trying to manage with sparse resources. As part of UKpopdems redirection of funding we’ll be massively increasing the numbers of front-line public sector workers active in Britain’s communities, so individuals and families will get the support they need when they need it. Not just police, nurses, doctors, teachers, but all the resources and infrastructure you’d expect.

So, yes, UKpopdems have policies for everyday living as well as long term benefits for Britain and all British people. When you are ready for UKpopdems, we’ll be ready to serve.