Guaranteed increase of the minimum wage so those who actually work can support themselves.
It'll never happen for many reasons I'm well aware of but until it's worth people's while working at minimum wage this country will always have people sitting on their arse taking and not contributing.
With the advent of Tax Credits you are indeed always better off than you are on Jobseeker's Allowance. Jobcentre Plus use a 'Better Off Calculator' to inform customers of this. The minimum wage was championed in Parliament first by the contingent of 'Red Clydeside' Labour MPs way back in 1922. The NMW until the current incumbent Prime Minister, then Chancellor introduced the NMW and Tax Credits in '98 and '03 respectively.
Unfortunately it appears your post(s) have been infected by disgruntled Daily Mail reader bug, a virus than can seemingly infect any political or social discussion and usually culmulates in proferring the problem as 'those sitting on their arse' or 'chavs' or a timeless classic 'asylum seekers' whilst paying lip service to the quite considerable 'bigger picture'.
Referring back the original question, no one policy would sway me. However I would want a number of things currently moved forward by the next government, which I'm praying will be formed by Gordon Brown and usher in a fourth term for the Labour Party; one that hopefully will bring about a change however gradual. In times of catastrophe, the British have always had a habit of turning disaster into triumph. The austerity post WWII ended when the Bretton Woods conference enabled us to create the NHS. What can the greatest restructuring of the global economy since the industrial revolution give us? Time will well.
Policies that I support are:
-Brown's proposed National Care Service, seperate from the NHS.
-The restoration of the earnings index to the state pension, the current pension system and pension credit system is littered with anachronisms and complications. It's one benefit that bears close scrutiny as the population ages.
-I think the retirement needs to be extended to 75, with National Insurance payable up until then, but with the options of part retirement and a tax credit for workers post 65.
-Job Creation and returning manufacturing to areas that have been steeped in industrialisation. It wasn't the Government's fault Tata pulled out of Teesside, but the fact 11k of skilled Teesside workers' will be either signing on or working in homebase is not the answer to trade that is part of the North East's heritage.
-Remutualisation, with relaxed regulation on borrowing against asset bases so remutualised banks (hopefully among them Northern Rock) can still compete with banks and still create more jobs.
-Further taxes on the super rich and the aristocracy. There has never been a better time to be super rich in the UK and non domiciles are not actively investigated or in one or two cases investigations by HMRC have been waved off by nervous looking Civil Servants.
-Greater efficiencies in the civil service, administrative jobs relocated out of the South East and London to the Midlands, North and Scotland.
-1bn a year lost to malpractice and fraud in Tax Credits. Tax credits needs to be handed to the DWP sooner or later so the HMRC can focus on tax evasion.
-A Co-Operative approach to housing and consumer lead business by local authorities, which I think lead to greater accountability.
-Co-Operatisation of the Post Office
I don't support the additional bank taxes, robin hood tax or any such levy as the free market and cosying up to the City was something we all chose back in the 80's and consolidated in the 90's. There's no point in building a bombproof wall when the Horse has well and truly bolted, ran around and destroyed everything in it's path.
In my opinion, a few of the many ways we can build that Future Fair for All
