Best of the Guardian's policy suggestions to win back support for the UK government

Needs a 'none of the above' option.

What happened to their suggestion yesterday (did I dream that?) that they scrap the current PM and cabinet and replace them with all the female backbenchers they could scrape together?

Let's assume we are living in a magical fantasy world where they might win the next election. (xpost)

Best idea, or idea that is best in terms of being most likely to succeed in winning back support?

Where is "all of the above except suicidally stupid Afghanistan diversion" option?

No "Scrap Trident"? "Major defence spending review" not nearly as sexy.

I don't think any one taken in isolation is going to win my support back. The ID cards one is the only issue I feel very strongly about so I guess I will go with that.

Are ID cards popular with the GBP or not, I forget.

Commit more troops to Afghanistan

lol

Launch a huge social housebuilding programme

they are doing this, kind of

Ditch the part-privatisation of Royal Mail

fairly agnostic, but no-one wants to buy anyway, so it's an easy way to appease the pro-state-ownership lobby

Abolish NHS waiting times

don't know what this means; feel they've done enough in this area

Cut class sizes

again this feels like old hat. i think cutting school sizes would be better, ditto hospital sizes, and they seem to be doing the opposite of that.

Cut prisoner numbers

sort of depends on the how! by solving society so no-one ever knifes each other would be good.

Major defence spending review

this is part of a bigger question to do with whether we finally accept that we're not one of the big clubs.

Engage more with Europe

bit vague!

Build a national high-speed broadband network

???
Profit

Scrap ID cards scheme

hell yeah

Abandon third runway at Heathrow

might shore up the vote in hounslow i guess.

Break up the banks into smaller units

yep.

Pretty sure not, xp. On basic libertarian principles.

A proper state housebuilding programme, none of this namby pamby PPP or affordable housing mandate crap. Proper flats of a decent size, well appointed for rent for life with no right to buy.

people want the right to buy. it's hard to get over, but the only people i ever hear argue against it are, shall we say, of the mortgage-paying classes.

Launch a huge social housebuilding programme

Hueg nimby opposition to this one though eh?

The thing about scrapping ID cards is that while it may make it less distasteful for some alienated old-school Labour supporters to vote for them, it won't actually be able to win them back very much support from the general public, as the media would cover it as 'OMG U-TURN WEAK WEAK WEAK'.

Thames Gateway is the big housebuilding scheme no?

gonna be "great" for the London commute of course...

Yeah some of these are annoyingly flaky and vague, especially the health one. Cut waiting times completely? Yeah! Just like that.

Why do they want RTB, because RTB supposedly gives them a secure asset that provides for their old age. IMO there should be an investment scheme for tenants that would equate to a bricks and mortar investment (maybe even some kind of tax free REIT that invests in social housing). If decent pensions were a right rather than a privilege, home ownership would be less of a draw. Also making social housing better than the crap that is new built in this country, which is not hard, then you take a great deal of demand out of the housing market and prices stabilise or fall and maybe i house price inflation mere matches retail price inflation, then it ceases to be this massively capital gaining inflation and merely a slightly costly way of aquiring somewhere to live.

(cf. housing associations refusing to buy new built flats at knock down prices due to substandard construction and floorplans)

So according to this GBP basically split 50/50 about ID cards (as of December last year).

had no idea it was ever as high as 60%

Engaging more with Europe is a great idea, but it would not make the UK government more popular with the littli Englanders who make up the electorate.

Fuck being popular, it's time - with only a year left of the gov - to do the right thing.

not really going to make much of a difference what they do in one year if the 5 years after it are the Cameron government.

that if should be when

wtf does "engaging more with europe" even mean?

idk, maybe im a little englander, but vehemently pro-european people tend to be lib-dem type cranks or pro-business tories.

Not privatising the Post Office would be good in terms of gesture politics, scrapping ID would rock (I think we are sufficiently identified by passport and everyone should have one of those).

^as a dirty furrener don't you get caught up in the first round of these?

I will ask Skip if her dad the Heathrow worker has to have one; I think they get them first, even before furriners like me. Still, nobody's asked if I have one or told me to get one and I got a new passport in summer 2007.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

good guess on the date matt dc

Lololol.

I voted for "Launch a huge social housebuilding programme".

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.