Any government procurement contract that doesn't have late delivery penalties and anti-overrun indemnities shouldn't be allowed
The NHS computer system that's been announced as buggered today? Well, that's just the latest- it's happened before, like with the Social Services successor to Caseload Management or the Inland Revenue and Capita, or the National Identity Card. If it is costed as 50 pence and somehow ends up costing £500 million then someone has fucked up royally and I don't see why we should pay for for something that can't even be used properly at the end.

Mind you, defence procurement is quite shady like that- spend hundreds of millions on buying Apache Longbow helicopters, insist on fitting Rolls Royce engines that don't fit and arm them with Hellfire missles that couldn't be fired without damaging the tail rotor- more hundreds of millions to fix. The Bowman army radio system that gave people who wear the portable transmitters RF burns. The Eurofighter £90 million Mauser cannon that was ditched as irrelevant so used with a concrete dummy, but the cost of reengineering the airframe would have cost another £32 million so the original cannons were put back but with no ammunition.

If it's a fuckup, don't let them keep on issuing invoices and expect them to be paid.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Thu 22 Sep 2011, 19:43, 4 replies)

Monty Boyce should be Minister of Culture.

(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 19:41, Reply)

People that get really worked up about subjects they patently know fuck all about.
Like the pub bore that bangs on about Gordon Clown being an unelected Prime Minister.

Yes, unelected by everybody outside his constituency.

You know what I mean.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 19:37, Reply)

Chill the fuck out.
People moaning about life's minor annoyances and proposing stupidly harsh punishments should be slowly lowered into a pool of molten lead.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Thu 22 Sep 2011, 19:21, 1 reply)

Shit Music
Ban it. Ban it now.
(Eyes&Tees Could have, Would have, Should have on, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 19:12, 2 replies)

Stick frieght on the rail network
Stick everything back on the rail or canal networks then I won't get stuck behind two lorries racing each other at exactly 49.99 mph and another doing 49.991 mph for the entire length of the A14.

And give a life time ban to all that those who sit in the middle or outside lane and are totally incapable of changing lanes only speed, when there is nothing else in sight on the motorway.
(bluehamster, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 19:11, 8 replies)

Make gym membership free
And make it illegal for any fast food service to be on anything lower than the second floor of a building, with a lift which is only for use by the disabled. Same goes for the chips freezers in supermarkets- put them at the top of a ladder or something.

Also, this'll probably get said a lot, but: fire all the useless shits who push paper at the Job Centres, rethink the entire system, and actually get people in who will do some work.

Make commission-only jobs illegal.

Make every corporation responsible for the appearence of the street outside of their building (litter, plants, pavement and road surface) as well as the inside, creating more jobs and actually clearing up the streets.

The arts should be treated as equal to the sciences in schools, although if any student goes on to work in reality TV they should be sellotaped to an anthill.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 18:59, 5 replies)

The criminal justice system
The justice system would be reformed top to bottom, with the biggest changes in the prison.

Prison should be a place for all to fear - place you will do your utmost to avoid. Sky tv and a pool table? I don't think so.

A bare concrete cell, say 10feet by 10 with a bed that hinges down from the wall, thin mattress and blankets. A squat toilet in one corner and a stainless steel sink bolted to the wall. Upon entering prison, you would be issued with a single enammeled plate, cup and a knife and fork. Loose them, fuck them up or throw them at someone and you do without.
You spend 16 hours a day in that cell, with 8 hours spent out working in the community on a chain gang picking up dogshit and litter, weeding old peoples gardens, cleaning the streets, filling potholes and roadbuilding etc.... Any fucking about and you get sent straight back to the cell and spend the rest of your sentence locked down 23 hours a dy, with a single hours excercise outside.
You could be excused the chain gang if you wanted to better yourself with an education, anything from learning to read and write to learning a trade - all assistance would be provied to those who want it, but again, the first sign of screwing around and you loose all privelidges and spend 23 hours a day in the cell for the rest of your term.

You spend your whole sentence in there. 10 years means 10 years, life means life. No early release, no parole. If you are stupid enough to re-offend, then you go back in and straight onto permanant 23 hour lockdown.


Judges should be picked at random across the nation. People who appreciate crime and the impact it can have. IMO too many top judges are posh toffs with a country estate and a public school education, who have no real notion of the damning effects of crime because they live in a chauffer-driven world so far removed from it.
(dave likes cheese, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 18:58, 13 replies)

After
just watching some awful advert on the TV for Halifax, I'd ban all banks from advertising on TV. They are not, "There for you" - despite getting their staff - or actors who look like them - to sing it, neither are they "Helpful" (unless helping themselves to your money.
They're there, pure and simple, to extract as much money as they can from as many people as they can to make a profit to pay bonuses and dividends from.
In fact, we should burn every bank that makes these claims, branch by branch until they can actually prove that they are "there for me" or "helpful".
(dchurch bah, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 18:56, 1 reply)

religion
it should be banned, and anyone caught practicing (practising?) it should be fired into the sun. the abrahamic faiths are doing their very best to destroy each other and anyone in the immediate vincinity, and religion is the number one cause of war in all of history. this would also get rid of those hypocritical wankstains who use religion as a get-out-of jail free card.

maybe then can we have a golden age of scientific enlightenment, where instead of waiting around with our collective thumbs up our assholes for jesus (or vishnu/mohammed/xenu/whoever) to help, we do it ourselves and actually make it happen. to do this, scientists and engineers should hold the place in society that priests/rabbis/whatever currently do.

does it show that i don't like religion?
(MrHammerHands last checked the time on, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 18:54, 9 replies)

Traffic Warden & Troop switch
All the troops in Afghanistan need to come home and become traffic wardens. They would be much nicer to motorists because they are sane, reasonable people. Also who would argue with them ?

Send all the traffic wardens out to fight the Taliban. Job done.
( Dick Wonder ₐ wₒₙₖy, wₐᵥy wₒₙdₑᵣ, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 18:28, 1 reply)

Leave
the felkin' clocks alone in the winter. That way, we might just get an hour's light in when we get home after October.
(dchurch bah, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 18:25, 10 replies)

"There are no problems on earth..
that can't be solved by the application of unresonably large amounts of high explosive."

Overcrowding.
Dale Farm.
Parliament.
Arsenal FC.
Refugees.
War.
Graffiti.
Homeless people.
Unemployment.

You name it. Add shit loads of TNT and it either goes away or creates a vacuum of usage which survivors can then take up. Simples.
( NooShmoo It's a fantazmagorical pile of ultra bollocks, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 18:22, Reply)

Petrol
Make petrol free. If oil really is running out, then it's our duty to use it all up as fast as possible to accelerate the research into alternatives.
...and bacon. Bacon would be free as well.
To pay for it, tax on bagpipes would be 110% of their worth each year.
...and the fines for not indicating on roundabouts - or anywhere really - would be increased to a minimum of 1200 quid.
Oh, and the obvious one of reducing the drinking age to 16, but only for poof lager like Carling, and get rid of the smoking ban in pubs - everywhere else, yeah, leave it, but pubs?? That singlehandedly destroyed them overnight.
(dchurch bah, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 17:58, 30 replies)

Anna Nutherthing...
(always liked her)

Shopmobility carts
Problem: I've been knocked off my feet and off my bike by old farts who can barely see or hear driving these small and whisper-quiet tanks at running speeds out of alleys, doorways and footpaths.
Solution: They become subject to the same driver standards, licencing and insurance as a small car or moped.

Elderly men who wear hats in the car
Problem: They clog up the roads on Sundays, never seem to know where they are going, and leave their indicators flashing for hours at a time.
Solution: Immediate euthanasia for anyone wearing a hat in the car when the ambient temperature is above 5 Celsius (and they are not a fireman wearing a fireman's hat, though strippers dressed as fireman should still be euthanased).

The word 'euthanased'
Problem: It's a hateful scientific sounding euphemism for killing, when everyone knows what "put to sleep" means, it's the same number of syllables and works perfectly well.
Solution: Anyone using it (i.e. all American and Australian commenters) should be "put to sleep". Except me. In the dictatorship of me, you have to do as I say but I don't.

Continuity announcers and voiceover artistes who use unnatural intonation that'd get you funny looks/punched if you tried using it in ordinary life
Problem: Almost everyone doing the V/O for programme trails on every radio and TV station in the UK, and almost every v/o in adverts, uses a very peculiar intonation that sounds like something between a children's television presenter demonstrating how to yodel and an adolescent boy whose voice is in the throes of breaking i.e. it sounds silly.
Solution: Remove the vocal chords of anyone found guilty, and execute any director or producer who asks any performer to debase themselves in this way (unless it's for comic or satirical effect). If they then retrain as a sign language interpreter and use exaggerated signing in the same way, chop their yodelling hands off.

The "Degree Celsius"
Problem: The Fahrenheit and Centigrade temperature systems used degress on their scales. The accepted SI unit of temperature is now the Kelvin (Celsius is acceptable if the scale starts at the freezing point of water at STP). The whole media establishment, with barely a science GSCE between them, now thinks that the "degree" part indicates temperature, so they talk about "degrees Celsius".
Solution: As for yodelling continuity announcers. The removed vocal chords/hands can be disposed of by incineration at 1000 Celsius.

"Sharp showers"
Problem: The meteorological establishment in the media now talk about sharp showers, but the public don't. This wouldn't particularly matter, if only the weather forecasts gave some kind of definition of what constitutes a "sharp" shower. Are the raindrops pointy and bladed, for instance?
Solution: Actually - you can thank me later, folks - I have already solved this one, by the simply procedure of asking the Met Office what they mean by "sharp shower". It means, officially, a "sudden, short, heavy shower". I know you've all been worrying about that one - you can relax now.

Lastly (for now)Male wigs and hairpieces
Problem: Male pattern baldness makes some men so insecure about their looks that they wear wigs, weaves, and so on in the hope that it will make them look more attractive. It doesn't, of course - they look the same, only with a thatched roof woven from the pubic hair of ginger people (qv Elton John. Even if it's dark hair, it still looks a bit gingery (qv John Travolta).
Solution: Point and laugh at every man wearing a wig or hairpiece that is not part of a special fancy dress or drag costume. In fact, make it illegal to wear a wig or hairpiece (or get a transplant) without dressing in full drag. Leave the ladies for us real men *gleams, scalpily*
( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 17:49, 3 replies)

The age of sexual consent should be lowered to 12.
This has the dual benefit of making nonces far less prevalent, and making qotw and much friendlier place.
On the downside, a lot of kids will get fiddled with...
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 17:41, 6 replies)

Testicles/womb shrivelled up, through lack of use?
Failed to fulfill your biological purpose?

Rather than moaning about how much you hate children, can't we just grind you up for fertiliser? This will keep the population down, and ensure that the successful members of our species get nutritious, tasty food.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 17:38, 3 replies)

One from a former flatmate
Make the biscuit aisle in Asda 3' wide. If you can't fit down it, no biscuits for you.
( MatJ LOOK, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 17:31, Reply)

Pavement Lanes
There should be a white line along the length of every pavement in the town centre. On the shop side of the line, you are free to stop, chat, stare into shop windows, busk, stand around wondering what the hell you were supposed to be doing, smoke, and so on.

Conversely, on the other side of the line would be all the people who actually want to WALK ALONG THE FUCKING ROAD from one end to the other, without having to weave their way between three old ladies having the same conversation they've had every day since 1956, a group of 30 spanish schoolkids who don't seem to understand the concept of NOT BEING IN THE BLOODY WAY and a woman who seems to be transferring the entire contents of her shopping bags into her baby buggy.

Anyone who blocks the "moving" lane can be pushed into traffic with impunity. Wardens with electrified ferrets on a stick would patrol particularly busy streets, ensuring that things keep moving with well-aimed prods.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 17:26, 4 replies)

More motoring
Bronze, Silver and Gold driving licenses. To be renewed every five years.
Todays standard test would give you a bronze license.
Extra training and experience would get you Silver and eventually Gold.

Perhaps then you wouldn't get 80% of people to claim above-average driving ability, and the 18-year-olds would spend money on extra driving skills before extra speakers, lights, body kits, ...
(Rich T has a clever and witty sig, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 17:22, 1 reply)

Motoring
One year as a pedestrian before being allowed to ride a bike.
One years cycling before being allowed to ride a motorbike.
One years motorbiking compulsory before being allowed a car.
(Rich T has a clever and witty sig, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 17:15, 4 replies)

Football
If you dive, you are banned for two matches with no pay. Regardless of whether or not you're penalised by the referee. Every single time. I don't care if it's the world cup final and you're the only goalkeeper.

I guarentee that this would fix 95% of the problems with the game.
( MatJ LOOK, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 17:14, 6 replies)

kill everyone except me
and maybe you
(Mortal Wombat - he's just an excitable boy, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 17:14, Reply)

Reality TV shows
Round up everyone who's applied to be on a reality show and sterilise them. Find the programme producers and feed them to dogs.
(uncle whippity, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 17:12, 2 replies)

Politician's second homes...
They don't need them. They're in London to work, not play at housies.

Get them staying in something along the lines of student halls of residence.
(gordonjcp, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 17:10, 6 replies)

Parenting permits
If you want to adopy a child, you have to go through and long and arduous process to ensure that you're suitable. If you want to foster children, it's much the same. You may not be judged suitable.

If you want to grow your own, it's somehow seen as entirely fine and dandy for you to do it. Once in a while social services or the like intervene (and not always correctly, to be honest), but as a rule no-one gives a hoot.

So - long-term contraceptive implants into children of both sexes from as near to the moment of sexual maturity as possible, with no removal without some serious checking.

And a limit on how many kids you're allowed, too. If you get sterilised and haven't had your quota of children, you can sell your permit.
(uncle whippity, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 17:09, 2 replies)

All numbers should be rounded up
On everything.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 17:07, 7 replies)

Pay and Display - Gimme my change!
Force councils to make their Pay and Display machines to give change OR at least make the machines give the parking time that's paid for (e.g. 10 minutes per 10p rather than 60p for an hour - with no change from your £1 coin).

Alternatively, take all the extra money that this odious practice generates (£2.4bn a year apparently) and use this to fund an inquisition to root out waste and inefficiency in local government, and maybe fill in a few potholes too...
( Fireflier La la la la, not listening on, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 17:06, 1 reply)

The legal right
to push any cyclist (aged 11+ or not accompanying such) who sounds their bell at people whilst on the pavement, into traffic. If there's a cycle lane they should have been using, you're allowed to then spit/urinate on their mangled body.

And for christ's sake, if you've got a group of children with you on bikes, scooters, skates etc. form a single-file line! Then nobody has to jump into a bush to avoiding being crushed by your clan.
(sailorspoon started wiping his own arse from, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 17:00, 3 replies)