UK General Election 2010

According to the UK Labour Party website the Labour Party will try to achieve the following if they retain power at the 2010 general election:

Gordon Brown has launched a new ten-year drug strategy which aims to provide a “comprehensive approach” to tackling drug problems.

At a Downing Street event the Prime Minister was joined by Jacqui Smith MP, Labour’s Home Secretary, along with drugs treatment workers to discuss the new strategy.

The strategy – ‘Drugs: protecting families and communities’ – includes plans to:

• Give police new powers to seize the assets of drug dealers to demonstrate that crime doesn’t pay

• Place a greater responsibility on drug users on benefits to get treatment and back in to work

• Increase the use of community sentences with a rehabilitation requirement

• Strengthen and extend international agreements to combat the flow of drugs to the UK

According to the UK Independence Party website UKIP will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election:

We would restore the county as a key government unit and respect unitaries where local people prefer these. We will abolish regional government, the 9 Regional Ministers and Regional Development Agencies, and return powers to county and district government.

Certain powers which have been assumed by regional bodies, such as over fire and emergency services, will be handed to counties or unitaries, but area-wide co-operation across larger scale planning, transport and development be encouraged.

Over 50% of local government finances to be raised locally, as set out in our taxation policy, by returning control of business rates to local councils and replacing VAT with a local sales tax. We also propose that local Government should have powers to issue municipal bonds in order to raise capital for investment.

According to the Conservative Party website the Conservative Party will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election:

Our goal is simple: to make Britain the easiest and best place in the world to set up and grow a business.

Under Labour, business has become increasingly burdened by corporate taxes, red tape and the lack of enterprise leadership in government. As a result, we are falling down the global scale of economic competitiveness.

A Conservative Government would help businesses struggling in this recession by:

* Establishing a temporary National Loans Guarantee Scheme to get credit flowing again and help protect jobs
* Allowing struggling firms to defer their VAT bills for up to six months
* Cutting small firms’ payroll taxes
* Helping companies with the costs of hiring new staff by giving tax breaks for new jobs

According to the UK Green Party website the Green Party will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election:

DU400 Tobacco smoking is the principal cause of premature death in the United Kingdom. In view of the considerable dangers to the health of both smoker and non-smoker, the Green Party supports legislation prohibiting smoking in all enclosed premises to which the public has access.

DU401 The Green Party would also introduce a complete ban on the promotion of tobacco and alcohol products, including sponsorship, advertising (direct or indirect) and product placement on remuneration or reward. This ban would also apply to any currently illegal drugs when a policy of decriminalisation or legalisation comes into effect.

According to the UK Green Party website the Green Party will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election:

DU405 Cannabis would be removed from the 1971 Misuse of drugs act. The possession, trade and cultivation of cannabis would be immediately decriminalised, roughly following the Dutch model. The trade in Cannabis would be the subject of a Royal Commission (see below), with a view to establishing a fully legalised, controlled and regulated trade. Small-scale possession of drugs for personal use would be decriminalised. The starting point would be advice to policing authorities to caution rather than prosecute for offences of drug possession for personal use and to refer offenders to the health-care services (see DU411). Subsequently, regulations would be brought forward removing criminal sanctions for simple possession of controlled drugs for personal use. The recommended sentences for small-scale supply would be non-custodial options. The possession of pipes made for the use in connection with smoking of opium would no longer be a criminal offence. A Royal Commission or similar body would be established to review currently controlled drug classifications, within a legalised environment of drug use. This commission would, after wide consultation, consider and recommend frameworks of social, economic and health conditions for drug use and supply.

According to the UK Green Party website the Green Party will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election:

Disabled Terms used

DY100 For the purposes of this policy base, the term ‘disability’ refers not to the situation of having a physical, mental or other impairment. Instead it refers to the widespread phenomenon of people being unable to do things in society specifically because society has failed to reconstruct itself (physically and culturally) in all the possible ways that would ensure that an individual’s impairments are not a barrier to their full participation.

Disabled Background

DY200 There are currently two basic approaches to the subject of disability:

a) The medical model of disability focuses on an individual’s impairment as the root of the problem. The impairment (e.g. no use of the legs) causes the disability (e.g. inability to walk) and the result of this is handicap (reduced ability to participate fully in society).

According to the Conservative Party website the Conservative Party will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election:

The Conservative Party believes Britain’s interests are best served by membership of a European Union that is an association of its Member States. A Conservative Government would never allow Britain to slide into a federal Europe. The Conservative Party supports an open, flexible Europe, whose priorities should be what really matter to the peoples of Europe: global competitiveness, global poverty and global warming. A Conservative Government would be active and energetic in the EU, promoting Britain’s interest and engaging in the shared challenges all European countries face.

Labour and the Lib Dems promised the British people a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty but broke their promise. Their behaviour was a betrayal of democracy. The Lisbon Treaty has now been absorbed as part of European law and the new posts it created have now been established. They cannot be made to disappear and the Lisbon Treaty cannot now be reversed.

According to the UK Green Party website the Green Party will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election:

DY400 Research has shown that prejudice against disabled people can be greatly worsened by segregated schooling. To segregate children with impairments or difficulties for any reason, when provision is potentially available in an all ability setting, is a breach of human rights. Moreover it helps inculcate prejudice in non-disabled children. The Green Party will therefore introduce the following policies for an all-ability education system: