The Unity Party/May 2009 TUP Manifesto
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The Unity Party is the largest party in the UK and the twentieth biggest in the world, with around 400 members.
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Contents
TUP May 2009 Congressional Manifesto
Every month TUP produces a single, national manifesto upon which we stand. This manifesto represents our legislative program for the coming month. Voting for TUP is not about voting blindly and hoping that your candidate will represent you based on party, it's about voting for policies.
Vote TUP on the 25th May
Military Policy
The Unity Party believes that the military should be developed into a modern fighting force. To this end we support the creation of the new corps, but we also accept that more needs to be done to restrict their creation and to budget each month for military spending.
Therefore we propose that there is a committee made up of all existing, accepted commanding officers and the Prime Minister who vote on the creation of new corps. The Prime Minister shall have the power to veto. This committee will analyse new corps based on the following factors:
- The proven loyalty of the leadership
- The proven self-sustainability of the corps
- Membership numbers
In addition to these factors members of the committee may raise any issue which may be central to the acceptance or not of the corps. Corps will come under the direct command of the Ministry of Defence and will be folded into the existing command structure.
In addition, we propose the creation of a War Budget. It will be the duty of the Ministry of Finance to create the War budget at the end of each term, on the first day of each month. This way each Minister budgets for the following one. This means that the armed forces spending becomes an apolitical issue. The Budget will be based upon expected spending, and will be divided the following way:
- Capital Expenditure on new companies etc (around 20%)
- Capital Expenditure on Defence systems and hospitals
- Weapons and moving tickets
In addition to this budget (the 20% rough guide is intended to create armed forces self-sustainability) extra funding may be allocated in the event of a direct war on British soil. If other funding is needed then the MoF must bring the issue to congress, who can then vote for extra funding.
The goal of these two measures is to make the military more accountable, and to bring their spending into check.
Taxation and Financial Policy
The UK is currently a mixed economy. We have high taxes, and a mostly private economy save a few companies for new players and some military companies. We feel that a mixed economy will not, and can not ever be successful. We are seeing now complete economic slowdown because of high taxes, and yet the only proposal is to slightly reduce them. We feel we need a more hollistic change to the entire economy. Therefore we propose two alternative plans, both of which are controversial. We hope that congress will choose one or the other, and not just muddle along down the middle route once again:
Option 1: Fortress Britain
Fortress Britain model focuses on the following tax changes:
- Income Tax to 10%
- VAT to 5%
In addition to this, we would vastly increase the size of the Department for Work by nationalising 1/4 of the top 100 companies. By this method we would control pricing and the value of the currency directly. We would also be able to regulate wages much more closely, and make some more money for the country. In addition owning these companies means that the government would be able to stockpile goods for both conventional and economic warfare.
Option 2: International Trade Hub
Our second option is to create a hub of international trade. For this I would propose:
- Income tax to 5% across the board
- VAT to 5% across the board, except food where it would remain at 10%
- Income tax on Raw Materials to 1% across the board
What this would do: This would effectively mean we could produce insanely cheap manufactured goods compared to the rest of the world. We could use the money we would have used to nationalise to subsidise export licenses. The goal would be for every company worth more than 50 gold to have more than one market available to sell in.
What effect would this have on the economy? Our domestic RM companies would mostly go under (except grain), we'd have a massive growth in manufacturing companies. The logic behind this overhaul is this: it is better to have ten very profitable manufacturing companies than 5 RM and 5 Manufacturing companies, all of which are massively uncompetitive internationally.
Mentor Program
TUP understands that lack of knowledge is a problem almost from day one. It's almost impossible for new players to find the guides, and if we want to have a rich community forum this isn't something we can do much about. So what we suggest is to create a mentor program, like some colleges and universities do. Basically, each new player who requests it gets assigned one older player to be their mentor. The Mentor will respond to their queries, add the new player on msn (if they want to), direct them towards guides and so on. So how will this work?
We'll publish an article advertising the program in the media, and then get newbies to sign up on a form. They'll then be put into a database. At the same time we'll have a mentor sign-up form which will be advertised on the forums (where the experienced players tend to be). The only requirement to be a mentor is to be over level 12 and to be willing to sign up to the program. So all forum-goers would be welcome, including those currently expatriated.
Then we'd divide the new players amongst the mentors. Parents would would be paired at random. Hopefully our children will themselves sign up to the scheme. Parents could also offer money or food if they wanted to. It would hopefully structure what is now an informal system and allow new players to make friends and contacts quickly.
Foreign Policy
After the problems last month we feel it is important that we clear up the issue of Political take-overs, and our policy on it. Therefore our policy is that takeovers are unacceptable in all friendly countries, both allied and neutral.
In addition, we would like to state our support for Britain's entry into a new alliance, and our opposition to entering PEACE at this moment in time. We feel it is in our best interests to pursue an alliance with the United States, Ireland and Canada, our closest friends in eRepublik. We must take a firm stance in favour of these countries, and the Unity Party wishes itself to be known as a friend of Ireland in particular. We therefore favour any alliance which includes these countries and has a strong military (defensive) and economic factor. At the moment that means the Raleigh Alliance, but if other options arise we will consider them.
Entertainment Policy
Our key idea in this area is to get more people onto the IRC. IRC is basically a series of chat rooms where members of the eUK and other nations meet up to chat and have some banter.
Basically what we do is advertise the IRC. This is something we only do on the forums. People are much more likely to come on a chatroom than to use the forums, and having loads of people in our IRC= more accountability and more entertainment at the same time.
So basically we advertise:
- How to download chatzilla (here)
- How to access it directly through http://irc.erepublik.co.uk
- Why use the IRC
Hopefully we can run this from the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Work Policy
We believe we need to look at stockpiling weapons. If we have a Ministry of Work companies stockpiling them all the time when it comes to war we won't have to worry about buying them from the market (for our soldiers). It would be a constant output and the cost can be charged to the MoD budget already prepared. So basically we put say £5k a month into paying wages for a weapons company, and we get three times that value in weapons stockpiled. When war comes we hand them out to our soldiers
NHS Policy
Although TUP is working on more radical reform to the NHS (Which is currently disbanded) for now our only proposition is that it is restarted for citizens with under 45 health. A lot of citizens are in a situation where they can't take advantage of war (foreign or domestic) as a means of increasing wellness. That is the purpose of the NHS and we believe dismantling it has been confused and that it needs reopening for this service at least.
