1. PUT PEOPLE FIRST MARCH FOR JOBS, JUSTICE AND CLIMATE, CENTRAL LONDON, 28TH MARCH 2009.
2. G20 MELTDOWN, CENTRAL LONDON, 1ST AND 2ND APRIL 2009.
Let's melt down the G20 Titanic even faster than the icecaps or the Siberian permafrost. Peacefully and joyfully. Our protests, demonstrations and manifestations are merely the tip of the iceberg. Our movements run deep. The unelected and the unaccountable, posing as our leaders but failing to represent our needs, need not apply.
(Image above: From Nancy Conner Design)
MONDAY 20TH APRIL 2009 - ENCIRCLEMENT OF 'PARLIAMENT' WHEN IT RETURNS AFTER THE HALF TERM RECESS. CARNIVAL TO CELEBRATE THE CHECKMATE OF THE ABSURD 1KM 'EXCLUSION ZONE LAW'.
PLEASE JOIN THE LET'S FLOOD THE 1M 'EXCLUSION ZONE' AROUND PARLIAMENT WITH PROTEST FACEBOOK GROUP
PLEASE JOIN THE BRIAN HAW AND HIS ASSOCIATES FOR THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FACEBOOK GROUP
One of the most silly and ludicrous acts of this failed regime was an attempt to prevent protest in a 1km. 'exclusion zone' around Parliament, in a statuory instrument attached to the 2005 'Serious Organised Crime Prevention Act'. This was, in large measure, an attempt to keep Brian Haw quiet, which failed. He and his associates are in line to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The regime has received no prizes whatsoever.
(Image on right: the SOCPA 'exclusion zone' - image from BBC News)
There is currently a potential plan to repeal the provisions, with the so-called 'consultation period' having already been concluded, but that 'plan' is bogged down in the 'Parliamentary' process (which moves almost as slowly as geological time), and it is not yet clear what will replace them. The replacement the failed regime may be planning could be even more draconian.
THE DELUGE:
1. Organise a protest, demonstration or manifestation for a campaign or syndicate of campaigns that you believe in.
(Image left: carnival, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil)
2. Prepare that protest to be as colourful , vibrant, and loud as possible.
3. If you wish to protest 'lawfully' within the context of an unlawful and unnecessary 'law' then apply to the police to protest 6 days in advance (or within 24 hours in certain circumstances, e.g. a 'spontaneous' reaction to a particular event).
4. If you do not care about being hassled, moved on, or arrested under the strictures of an unlawful and unnecessary 'law', then protest without prior permission. Many rank and file police officers are fed up with being forced to enforce unnecessary rules against people who are not committing any crimes. Perhaps you might not be hassled, moved on, or arrested after all.
5. Collaborate with as many other campaign groups as possible to co-ordinate protests at particular times and particular locations within the zone. A human chain encircling the entire zone would be superb. Divided we fall, united we stand.
6. Bring Brian Haw and his associates hot beverages, cake and gifts when you get to the zone.
(Image above: from article "UN: Rebuild global economy through green investment")
PLEASE JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP "SUSTAINABLE NEW DEAL - BOOST LONG-TERM EMPLOYMENT"
Six fireside chats by former US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Charlie Rose interview with Muhammad Yunus, creator of the Bangladeshi Grameen Bank (microfinance)
After a free and fair General Election, the Red Rose Revolution proposes the creation of a nationally co-ordinated Sustainable New Deal in Britain. We welcome collaborations with Sustainable New Dealers around the world.
Our aim is to arrest spiralling unemployment and create long-term employment in sustainable occupations, centred on renewable energy. The proportion of power produced in Britain by renewable sources is currently 4%. This compares to approximately 15% in Germany. It also compares unfavourably with a micro-project such as the Zero Carbon Samsø in Denmark.
There is an enormous opportunity for the expansion of this figure, through the creation of a nationally co-ordinated network
of zero carbon micro-projects, and the provision of real employment in
tandem with it. The Sustainable New Deal should begin with this as the
centrepiece, but expand outwards in as many creative ways as possible.
STEPS TOWARDS THE SUSTAINABLE NEW DEAL:
(Image on right: "Winning our Energy Independence" from the Power the Clean Energy Revolution Facebook group)
1. We must have an honest and open national audit of our current situation in terms of employment and unemployment. We cannot solve a problem by denying its true magnitude.
The media and 'politicians' have been repeating figures ad nauseam which profoundly underestimate the true level of unemployment.
As an example, the BBC reported on 17th December 2008 that British unemployment had risen in the three months to October by 137,000 to reach 1.86 million. The centre of this figure, which has been produced by the Office of National Statistics, is the 1.07 million people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA). This has led to an increasing chorus of voices talking about the prospect of "a potential 2 million unemployed by Christmas".
However, these figures are only the tip of the iceberg, and as a result what passes for public discourse on the matter grossly underestimates the scale and urgency of the problem (particularly as unemployment spirals upwards).
As an example, there are currently approximately 2.6 to 2.7 million people receiving Incapacity Benefit. This has recently been retitled as the "Employment and Support Allowance" - one of the tactics of obfuscation of the reality used by successive regimes has been to bring in a constant stream of new names (usually for old rope).
(Image above: "Industrial Life", 1941 mural by Seymour Fogel, Washington DC)
In part, the current high level of IB (or ESA) has been the result of successive governments (Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown) attempting to massage the headline unemployment figures in a downwards direction by transferring benefit claimants to IB. This has led, in particular, to concentrations of people on IB in the former manufacturing heartlands of the country, where the transition to a post-industrial 'services' economy has seen the destruction of the traditional employment base. The notion of people being benefits scroungers in such circumstances is patently ludicrous, since it is impossible to gain meaningful employment when it does not exist. The result has been the institutionalisation of poverty and unemployment spanning generations.
The rise of IB as a relatively hidden form of unemployment has been long-term and relentless. The number of people claiming IB for over 6 months increased from 570,000 in 1981 to 2.13m by 2003. The current level of 2.7m people represents 7% of Britain's working age population (the equivalent total is 2.1% in Germany and 0.3% in France).
(Image on right: from article "Why It's Time for a Green New Deal" in Newsweek)
New Labour overwhelmingly continued the policies of the Thatcherite revolution on benefits, welfare and employment. This involved the confusion of symptoms with causes, and the attempted treatment of symptoms with a range of authoritarian quack remedies and snake oil. These distractions have been tailored to suit the agenda of a press that is run by various media oligarchs, many of whom have their wealth sequestered in various tax havens and who oppose genuine policies to sort our problems out.
There are, of course, other sources of hidden or invisible unemployment beyond IB/ESA, with the numbers classified in the rather nebulous category of 'economically inactive' having reached almost 8 million in total, the highest level since records began in 1971.
(Image on left: Ecotality Life - Vertical axis wind turbine)
There are, therefore, many millions currently unemployed in Britain, and numbers are rising. Another relatively taboo subject has been not only the quantity of jobs available, but their quality. How many people are trapped in employment that is degrading, demeaning, or damaging to the wider environment and society? How many people are employed in positions that either do not pay or pay below what is valid for the work provided? How many people are trapped in work where the hours are too long and the labour rights too low? Why has the gender pay gap been allowed to become so large in Britain?
The sooner we have a properly conducted, meticulous national audit on
the realities of employment, under-employment and unemployment, the
sooner we can get on with dealing with the gargantuan challenge we
face.
Telling the truth has been a taboo for too long.
2.
Our next step is to formulate as coherent, detailed and meticulous a
plan as possible of how our Sustainable New Deal is going to work.
How
should we fund it? What cuts should be made in government spending, and
what alternatives should government money be spent on? What reforms
need to be created? Who should be employed to create and co-ordinate the
Sustainable New Deal? Please email us at redrose.revolution@gmail.com and use our Facebook group on the Sustainable New Deal as a forum to share ideas and information.
Full Employment (Wikipedia)
Green New Deal (New Economics Foundation)
Jones, Van ("The Green Collar Economy")
New Deal (USA, FDR, Wikipedia)
(Image below: "City Life", New Deal mural by Victor Arnautoff, 1934, Colt Tower, San Francisco, California)
A SANE REVOLUTION: D.H.LAWRENCE
(Image above: Rote Rose)
If you make a revolution, make it for fun,
don't make it in ghastly seriousness,
don't do it in deadly earnest,
do it for fun.
Don't do it because you hate people,
do it just to spit in their eye.
Don't do it for the money,
do it and be damned to the money.
Don't do it for equality,
do it because we've got too much equality
and it would be fun to upset the apple-cart
and see which way the apples would go a-rolling.
Don't do it for the working classes.
Do it so that we can all of us be little aristocracies on our own
and kick our heels like jolly escaped asses.
Don't do it, anyhow, for international Labour.
Labour is the one thing a man has had too much of.
Let's abolish labour, let's have done with labouring!
Work can be fun, and men can enjoy it; then it's not labour.
Let's have it so! Let's make a revolution for fun!
"THE SANE SOCIETY": ERIC FROMM
(Image above: "Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe" with D.H.Lawrence, Garry Shead, oil on board)
ROSE OF ALL THE WORLD: D.H.LAWRENCE
I am here myself; as though this heave of effort
At starting other life, fulfilled my own:
Rose-leaves that whirl in colour round a core
Of seed-specks kindled lately and softly blown
By all the blood of the rose-bush into being--
Strange, that the urgent will in me, to set
My mouth on hers in kisses, and so softly
To bring together two strange sparks, beget
Another life from our lives, so should send
The innermost fire of my own dim soul out-spinning
And whirling in blossom of flame and being upon me!
That my completion of manhood should be the beginning
Another life from mine! For so it looks.
The seed is purpose, blossom accident.
The seed is all in all, the blossom lent
To crown the triumph of this new descent.
Is that it, woman? Does it strike you so?
The Great Breath blowing a tiny seed of fire
Fans out your petals for excess of flame,
Till all your being smokes with fine desire?
Or are we kindled, you and I, to be
One rose of wonderment upon the tree
Of perfect life, and is our possible seed
But the residuum of the ecstasy?
How will you have it?--the rose is all in all,
Or the ripe rose-fruits of the luscious fall?
The sharp begetting, or the child begot?
Our consummation matters, or does it not?
To me it seems the seed is just left over
From the red rose-flowers' fiery transience;
Just orts and slarts; berries that smoulder in the bush
Which burnt just now with marvellous immanence.
Blossom, my darling, blossom, be a rose
Of roses unchidden and purposeless; a rose
For rosiness only, without an ulterior motive;
For me it is more than enough if the flower unclose.
(Image above: "Tree of Life" tapestry by William Morris)
(Painting above: "Red Rose" by Cissie Kean, c.1920, oil on canvas, Whitfield Fine Art Gallery in London)
THE BRITISH RED ROSE REVOLUTION FACEBOOK GROUP
BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION. WHITE SUITS AND RED ROSES TO THE RESCUE.
ROOT AND BRANCH REFORMATION.
GOODBYE THATCHERWASM, 4TH MAY 1979 - AUGUST 2007
GOODBYE NEW 'LABOUR'WASM, 2ND MAY 1997 - AUGUST 2007
It
is now time for an end to the current Parliament in Britain and an
immediate General Election. That General Election must be free and fair
and monitored by impartial, independent and international observers. 
The
'consensus' held by the 'mainstream' parties has been shown over and
over again to be false. They have monopolised the current 'Parliament'
and the corporatised media with a 'debate' based on a certain set of
flawed assumptions which is, therefore, a monologue rather than a
dialogue. It has been the sound of one hand clapping. Real opposition,
and any form of conversation outside that framework, has been
suppressed, repressed and depressed.
The current 'Parliament'
no longer has any legitimacy to govern. It is now time for an
independent, decentralised movement to clean up after their orgies in
the Augean stables (with potential collaborations with environmentally
and socially principled, so-called 'minor' parties, who have been
starved of the oxygen of publicity for three decades). The labour is
Herculean, and the salary average. With greenhouse gas emissions having
been allowed to go through the roof, and needing urgent correction, the
hours are long. Real representatives are needed.
Where are you standing? Which fields of policy are you focusing on?
(Image on right, entitled "Extreme Right", from Political Compass)
(Artwork on right by Alan Murray)
1. POLITICAL RENAISSANCE:
Million Campaign Homepage (Britain)
Million Campaign Homepage (Britain) Facebook group
2. CULTURAL RENAISSANCE:
Small Fish Online
Please help create the Max Keiser Show, Fridays, 10.35pm, BBC One (Facebook group)
Please help create the Max Keiser Show, Fridays, 10.35pm, BBC One (petition)
Housmans Books, London
Medialens
3. FINANCIAL/ECONOMIC/ECOLOGICAL RENAISSANCE:
Resources on the current financial and economic crisis and solutions to it (Facebook group)
NEW. ORDER.
The Red Rose Revolution proposes that we follow
the examples of the Carnation Revolution (Revolução dos Cravos) in
Portugal in 1974 and the Solidarity (Solidarność) movement formed in
Poland in 1980 to create a non-violent political transition towards
peace and democracy.
The image on the left is the Red Rose Revolution Guerilla Code. Decoded, it links to this website, demands the soldiers home, the scrapping of Trident, and the creation of an Environmental New Deal. Please feel free to print it off and distribute it. T-shirts with it on would be rather lovely, if anyone would be kind enough to produce them.
The Red Rose Revolution proposes the formation of a decentralised movement, involving electoral pacts and collaborations.
The Red Rose Revolution proposes the following fundamental principles in the transition to peace and democracy:
1)
RETREAT - The IMMEDIATE withdrawal of ALL British soldiers from Iraq
and Afghanistan. No further illegal invasions based on tapestries of
mendacity. The arrest of Gordon Brown and Anthony Blair and the
beginning of the process for their war crimes trial in the World Court.
If found guilty, life imprisonment. Life means life. We abolished the
death penalty in the 1965 Abolition of the Death Penalty Act. That is
one of the traditions that we should be very proud of.
2) NOW MORE THAN EVER - The IMMEDIATE scrapping of the Trident nuclear
weapons system (scheduled to cost up to £75bn - money we simply do not
have) and of ALL British nuclear proliferation. If we did have a spare
£75bn, the very last thing we should ever consider spending it on would
be apocalyptic weapons of mass destruction. Following the 1970
Non-Proliferation Treaty, rather than breaking it, is the way forward.
(Painting on right, "Red Rose" by John Lavery, 1923, oil on canvas, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Eire)
3) RRRRRRRRRRRRRR - The creation of an administration based on the principles of the fourteen 'R's:
REFORM
- Gradual, long-term reform of our institutions of state. As far as
possible, separation of powers between executive, legislature,
judiciary, civil service, media, banks, and so on. The removal of as much corruption
as possible.
REPEAL - The removal of all unnecessary
legislation, rules and regulations. As Montesquieu wrote, "unnecessary
laws weaken the necessary laws". We have seen a situation where
regulation has been absent when it has been needed, for example
concerning the buy-to-let housing bubble or the casino economy of
valueless derivatives, and a whole raft of regulation in place which
does nothing except diminish respect for the law even further. With
repeal goes real regulation, with real regulation goes repeal.
(Image on left: "Trellis" wallpaper by William Morris, 1862, from the William Morris Gallery)
RETRENCHMENT
- Firstly, we require an honest national audit conducted by imparital
accountants to determine precisely how much, or how little, we have in
the way of resources, particularly after North Sea oil (which will run
out very soon) has been thrown away on short-termism over the past
three decades. Government borrowing is currently rocketing unsustainably, leading to further potential crisis, for example in the area of government gilts. Sales of these gilts have averaged approximately £20bn over the past decade but have reached £146.4bn in 2008. Such a burden accompanies the ruinous short-termism of off-balance sheet Private Finance Initiatives. The failures of the regime have, in essence, been deferred to us and to future generations to pay for.
The audit includes the creation of genuine and real inflation and unemployment figures which are openly published. Secondly, we require forensic cost-cutting in all branches of our government, with an attempt to minimise any cuts in public welfare. Silly and pompous wastage of public money, such as the permanent machine gun-toting police guard outside Jack Straw's house in south London, should be removed without any delay. We must also make serious economies of scale: big projects such as the Olympics, if we cannot afford them, must be withdrawn. Spending £4bn on two aircraft carriers is another example of decisions that must be reversed as soon as possible. The creation of an environmentally sustainable economy, rather than a war economy, is an urgent task.
The paper on which plans for flagrant absurdities, follies, farces and lunacies are written, such as those for a state funeral for Margaret Hilda Thatcher (at an alleged cost in the region of £3 million), should be recycled without any further delay. The ideology (derived from Hayek and the 1955 Institute of Economic Affairs) that has dominated British politics since 4th May 1979, Thatcherwasm, ended when the circuit of valueless derivatives was shorted in August 2007. As a result, state funerals or statues are not appropriate uses of limited public resources. The illusion that the only possible political party position is Thatcherite has also been unmasked as a fabrication.
NO STATE FUNERAL FOR MARGARET THATCHER - THE INDEX (Facebook group)(Image on left: "Thatcher Illusion" by Visual Illusions)
In the post-Thatcherite era, we must also formulate sensible ways of dealing with the fact that British personal debt is now higher than GDP, and the savings rate has collapsed. When Solon (Σόλων) became the prime statesman of ancient Athens, he cancelled the debts that the people had towards the aristocracy. Today, we citizens have been forced to live, like serfs, in thrall to a banking 'aristocracy' that has failed us through irresponsible gambling. How about a form of Jubilee-style debt cancellation here (bearing in mind the correct balance between personal responsibility and helping those who have exploited), rather than yet more taxation being thrown towards the banking 'aristocrats' in so-called 'bailouts' which are really just perverse incentives to failure, rewards for irresponsibility, and invitations to future moral hazard? Either way, significant belt-tightening is on the horizon. Bread and butter first, before any consideration of jam tomorrow. The very first place to start should be the salaries of elected representatives, which should be the average national salary without extra perquisites (please see below).
Nationalise My Student Debt Facebook group
(Image on right: The Rose collection of Malmaison by Pierre-Joseph Redouté,1817-24)
RELEASE of all the innocents, from Guantanamo Bay to the psychiatric wards and Belmarshes of Britain. Release of all people who are currently being bullied by the regime on an unjust basis, for example all those people being unfairly harassed over false claims of tax credit 'overpayments'.
HMRC tax credits system is a joke Facebook group
Tax Credits Suck Facebook group
Tax Credits Overpayments Facebook group
Reform/Abolish the Tax Credits system Facebook group
Tax Credits - Bunch of A*** Facebook group
Tax Credits: How many people have they screwed over? Facebook group
RENATIONALISATION (on a decentralised basis) of vital elements of the commanding heights of the economy and the ecology, including the major banks - the precise details of which should be based on the findings of a Renationalisation Brain's Trust (see below, number seven). The 29 year, neo-Hayekian, Thatcherite 'revolution' has just ended. It failed. NHS, not NHS PLC.
RULE OF LAW. Be ye ever so high, the law is above ye. No more abuse of the monarchical 'prerogative' by 'elective' dictators. As Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense in 1776, "For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other."
RELAXATION. It is impossible to have a functioning country when the population is being spied upon all the time. An immediate end to the CCTV state, the surveillance state, the biometric state, the ID card state, the nannycam economy, the taser state, the 'mosquito' state, and the secret police state. The woeful avalanche of so-called 'security' legislation, such as the 2006 'Terrorism' Act, actually made us more insecure, just as the so-called 'securitisation' of valueless derivatives created a deeply insecure global economy. As a key part of relaxation, an end to the Prohibition on speech by the regime. The liberty to speakeasy in public, so long as people speak with kindness and compassion towards others. The legalisation of cannabis and the return of cannabis coffeeshops and an open investigation, through a Brain's Trust, into the transformation of all drugs policy.
(Image on left: Model of the original Rose Theatre, London, founded 1587)
REPRESENTATION - Representatives need to be public servants, not 'masters'. Representation needs to be arranged in clear, Orwellian English (though not without a healthy Romance language complement, of course).
REFUGE - If you invade other countries, and destabilise their governments through Machiavellian power games and arms trades, how can you be surprised when people emigrate to your country? Equally, why is almost nobody in the 'mainstream' discussing the large scale of emigration and the causes underlying it? Particularly in the era of global warming, migration is a fact of life. Illegal immigrant amnesty, and immediate Brain's Trust to formulate sensible policies allied to underlying realities and an awareness of limited resources and opportunity costs, whilst fundamentally based on ethics and an awareness that our historical wealth in Britain has been founded in large part upon the piracy and slave trading of colonialism.
RESPECT - No more of the culture of rudeness and bullying that has embedded itself. Respect, however, does not require a 'government agenda' that represents further wastage of limited taxation on overpaid consultants and a hotch-potch of draconian measures that make people even less respectful towards each other because they do nothing to address the real socio-economic malaise at the heart of our society. Instead, respect requires basic everyday politeness, and some genuine attempts at making society more rather than less equal and less rather than more polarised. These efforts should be organised on a long-term basis rather than through short-termist gimmickry focused upon headlines instead of fundamentals.
(Image on right: "Red Rose" by Ernst Haas)
RECALIBRATION - As part of the retrenchment national audit, we require the replacement of outdated modes of measurement with more realistic alternatives. As an example, GDP should be replaced with a measurement such as MDP, Measure of Domestic Progress (Prof Tim Jackson, Surrey University) or ISEW, Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, that include environmental and social factors in the calculus.
REPLACEMENT - In all fields and sectors of administration, we require the replacement of people who have been overpaid and under-delivering with those who have been underrated and can 'over-deliver'. There are millions of people in Britain who are currently unemployed or under-employed. What could we achieve together if we harness those talents?
REDISTRIBUTION - The past three decades have witnessed the creation of
a deeply unequal and polarised society, between 'have-nots' and 'have-gots'. This must not continue. 
(Image on left: "Richard Diamond - Red Rose" by Rita Kohel)
RECONSTRUCTION - The woeful spectacles of mass distraction of the 'war on terror' have been used to mask the burial of a smorgasbord of bad news. One of the underlying disasters is a situation of both inadequate quality, and inadequate quantity, of housing stock. One of our urgent tasks is, therefore, to build a large number of houses which are sustainable and environmentally sound. We need to bring back to the fore all of the intelligence, hard work, and pragmatic commons sense of the planners and designers of the New Towns in the past (with the first wave, before the Second World War, in the Garden City movement following the work of Ebenezer Howard, the second wave immediately after 1945, and the third wave in the 1960s). We urgently need a fourth wave: affordable housing and genuine eco-towns which are well designed in theoretical terms, using the most up-to-date biomimicry architectural advances, but also allowing for enough grassroots and bottom-up contributions and decentralisation of decision-making by local communities to be properly fruitful. We need legislation like the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, updated for the twenty-first century.
4) HEADUCATION. In education, the restitution of a curriculum that
begins with the fundamentals of the three 'R's - reading, writing and
arithmetic, updates them with the new three 'R's of reducing, reusing and recycling, and expands out from there in Fibonacci spirals and
fractals. This applies to paper studies as well as to craft and
vocational studies - making a chair, for instance, involves reading,
writing and counting with wood. Headteachers and teachers at the
coalface to rule the school, not a 'politician' in Whitehall. An
immediate end to grade inflation and the illusion of 'perpetually
rising standards', which has been as fraudulent as the illusion of
'rising prosperity' caused by the housing bubble that the regime
inflated rather than regulated. An honest assessment of the level of
ignorance in the country and an Education Brain's Trust created to
formulate policies to counteract the ignorance. There should be an immediate block on the development of all '(City) Academies' up and down the country.
(Image on left: New Deal mural, USA)
5) GREEN NEW DEAL. A genuine, long-termist Ecolonomic New Deal, centred on support for the renewable energy sector and the creation of employment to deal with rocketing joblessness, and shaped to deal with the challenges of the post-peak oil and global warming era. Resources are probably going to be very limited, so the Ecolonomic New Deal should be organised on a microfinance and microcredit system, as with the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh or the schemes supported by Triodos Bank, supporting progressive decentralised movements such as the Transition Towns.
6) DE-CARBONISATION. Immediate creation of schemes to help create a future Zero Carbon Britain, and a Britain that is weaned off oil supplies, building on currently existing projects and bringing in ideas and practice from around the world, for instance the zero-carbon Samso in Denmark and the zero-waste Kamikatsu in Japan. As a first step, we also demand an immediate block on all proposed airport expansions.
7) SPEAK YOUR BRAINS. A vital stage will be the creation of Brain's Trusts. For each field of administration, there should be a communion of people with skill, integrity, wisdom, talent, ideas and creativity, with academic and non-academic backgrounds, to formulate ideas for policies.
8) CURRENCY REFORM. If the pound sterling collapses, we should approach another currency bloc and ask politely to join it, for instance the Euro. Alternative currencies such as LETS and the Transition Pounds (Totnes, Lewes etc) should also be explored. As a form of personal protection, it might be worth moving your money out of the pound sterling as soon as possible in case of an impending crisis, perhaps into Euros, silver or gold. Alternatively, why not invest in physical assets as a superior store of value - artwork, Windsor chairs, double-breasted high gorge Savile Row suits or, perhaps even better, a well-stocked up larder of tinned goods in case of impending food shortages, as in Iceland after the meltdown of the krona?
(Image on right: "Young Woman with Red Rose" by C.S.Lidderdale, oil on canvas)
9) WAX LYRICAL. The return, restitution, and resurgence of poetry within the national discourse. Plato wanted poets banned from his 'Republic'. Karl Popper anatomised the roots of totalitarianism in that 'Republican' blueprint, and offered us a glimpse of its alternative - the Open Society. This is the name of the Institute run by George Soros, who brought the £ out of the ERM in 1992 and who was mentored by Karl Popper at the London School of Economics. Our Open Society should be founded on open source software and operating systems. Philip Sidney wrote "In Defence of Poesy". Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel are poets. The metaphor is the message.
10) REAL REPUBLIC - Thomas Paine asked which made less sense - a hereditary monarch or a hereditary mathematician. Our Republic should have neither.
11) TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION. Independent and impartial
investigations, with integrity, and with appropriate compensation if
necessary, into a sequence of mysterious but 'convenient' deaths of
public figures and figures in public spaces, for example David Kelly,
Jean Charles de Menezes, Princess Diana, Alexander Litvinenko, Roberto
Calvi and all those who died on 7th July 2005 in London. The truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
12) ARBORETUM NATION. How about mandatory tree planting as a prerequisite of citizenship?
(Image on left: "Houses of Parliament" by Claude Monet, oil on canvas, 1905, Musée Marmottan, Paris)
13) PEOPLE'S PARLIAMENT. After a free and fair General Election, we should consider turning the current Houses of Parliament into something completely different, for example an art gallery or historical museum. This would serve two purposes: saving (and making) money, and also drawing a line between our epoch and the one that has already passed into history. The silly and pretentious 'security wall' outside it, which represented yet another flagrant waste of taxation, should be covered in peaceful graffiti, in the manner of the Berlin Wall. It could then be subdivided into pieces, and each one could be then sold off on internet auction sites, which might gain us a small amount of revenue to help us deal with the gargantuan tasks ahead.
(Image below left: "Red Rose/La Rosa Roja", Pregones Theatre, The Bronx, New York, USA)
14) As a replacement, we should consider using a different
building as a new Parliament. To save money, it might be better not to
build a new one but to use one that already exists, if an appropriate
deal could be struck to suit both sides. An example of a possible
building is the one that is currently described as the "Queen Elizabeth
II" conference centre. It is only a few streets away from the current
'Parliament' and has an internal ambience better suited to the business
of 21st century government. An alternative might be the Park Plaza
hotel, a few streets away from Big Ben, which was apparently scheduled
for August 2007 but is still currently in construction. Alternatively,
that could be used for offices or as cheap Parliamentary apartments
instead of elected representatives throwing away exorbitant amounts of
taxation on ludicrously expensive bubble mortgages, a proportion of which are
presumably now in serious negative equity. Of course, such a deal would
need to be negotiated with Park Plaza, assuming they have not gone out
of business by the time such a deal would be necessary.
THE RED ROSE REVOLUTION: STRATEGY AND TACTICS 
(Image on right: "Bobby Fischer" by Carina Jørgensen)
Currently, the Red Rose Revolution is not a registered political party, so our aim at the moment is to act as a force helping other parties, individuals, organisations, campaign groups and pressure groups to be elected. We are open to electoral pacts and collaborations in anticipation of the next General Election.
Our current decision not to be registered as a standard political party is based to a large extent on the obstacles placed in the way of political representation by the regime. As just one example, the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act (2000) has attempted to entrench further the position of the 'mainstream' parties and preclude alternative representation. A critique of this Act was provided to us by Mike Davies of the Alliance for Green Socialism:
"Dear Red Rose
The Political Parties, Electons and Referendums Act 2000 introduced the concept that you could not stand in an election using a ballot paper description (other than "Independent") unless you were a registered political party. For example, you could not put up a "Keep our primary school open" or a "No third runway" candidate unless you registered a political party to authorise that description.
Registering requires a constitution, a financial scheme, registered officers, annual re-registration, annual ubmission of accounts, quarterly returns on donations, weekly returns during elections, etc, etc. You get, and sometimes have to respond to, dozens of missives every year (about three inches thick per annum). Your treasurer becomes liable for imprisonment for around sixty new criminal offences, including such heinous crimes as paying a bill a day late.
The PPERA was
presented as a response to the Nolan report on financial corruption by
the main parties. It does little to prevent that. Its actual purpose
is to make it much harder to mount any electoral challenge to the big
parties.
Mike Davies
Alliance for Green Socialism."
(Image on right: "Day and Night", M.C.Escher, woodcut, 1938)
Clearly, with such an inadequate and undemocratic system ahead of us, which is so desperately in need of root and branch reformation - but is engineered precisely to avoid such reformation - we need, collectively and individually, to develop creative, intelligent and wise short-term tactics and long-term strategy to bring about a genuine democracy in Britain.
We would love to hear your views on how it can be achieved and how we can work together to make it happen up to, and at, the next General Election - please email redrose.revolution@gmail.com.
(Image above: Vogue magazine "Red Rose" cover, by Norman Parkinson, August 1956)
LIBERTY. FRATERNITY. SORORITY.
DEMOCRACY. PEACE.
THE RULE OF LAW.
w.e.
h. a. v. e.
o. v. e. r. c. o. m. e.
m.a.y.
a.
t.h.o.u.s.a.n.d.
r.o.s.e.s.
b.l.o.o.m.
(Image above: Japanese Matryoshka)
(Image below: The absolute necessity for nuclear disarmament - it is 5 minutes to midnight, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists):
