The Peace Party candidates in Guildford: “live ALL Human Values by thinking, writing, discussing, working and praying for a Peaceful World and the Common Good”.

John Morris says,

a. Restore the vibrancy in our town so:

Ensuring the high streets in the Borough are vibrant places (by reducing business rates as necessary to ensure all shops are open, by keeping pavements and roads in good repair, by reducing car park charges)

b. Bring to an end the need for people to sleep on the street so:

Ensuring the homeless have a comfortable place for a night-time rest

c. Demonstrate that Britain is one of the richest countries in the world by ending the need for food banks.  They are not a necessity: they are a blot on our society and contrary to the values we all hold dear to, so:

Pressuring central government to ensure families are adequately supported financially so that no-one goes hungry and so that food banks can be closed.

d. Improve mental and physical health care that is the responsibility of local government by:

Bringing pressure to bear on central government to ensure there is adequate funding available

e. Pressure government to ensure all jobs are secure

and that pay is at least at the level of the minimum wage (for example, £10 per hour) but preferably ensure a basic income is available everywhere.

f. Deal humanely with people seeking refuge and asylum:

Continue to welcome a fair share of refugees and asylum-seekers to accommodation in the Borough.

Pressure the government to allow anyone to live in Britain provided they “register” with the same information we all give at census time.

Pressure the government to take out of use all detention centres and other inhuman restrictions and, instead to provide proper living accommodation, ensuring everyone has freedom to seek employment and access to all services

g. On the need for homes:

Ensure the Borough keeps to its new target of 562 new homes every year for the foreseeable future, encouraging building within urban areas and villages and on land of low agricultural and landscape value

(The Peace Party notes that 6.8% of UK land surface is urban land [that is “concreted over”] – where the 66.6 million of us live and work; another 10 million of us would increase the percentage of urban land to 7.8%.)

h. Funding: all measures require John to help others on the Council

Pressure the government to issue additional money to support councils like ours to deliver ALL the needs of our people.

(Increases in taxes only reduce the money we have to spend to support shops and tradespeople.)

i. Planning

Ensure that the planning of developments in the Borough meets the needs of the people

j. Investigate

The reasons some residents park cars partly on pavements

The reasons some cyclists choose to ride on pavements

Note on “The Common Good”

In ordinary political discourse, the “common good” refers to those facilities—whether material, cultural or institutional—that the members of a community provide to all members in order to fulfil a relational obligation they all have to care for certain interests that they have in common.

Some canonical examples of the common good in a modern liberal democracy include: the road system; public parks; police protection and public safety; courts and the judicial system; public schools; museums and cultural institutions; public transportation; civil liberties, such as the freedom of speech and the freedom of association; the system of property; clean air and clean water; and national defence. The term itself may refer either to the interests that members have in common or to the facilities that serve common interests. For example, people may say, “the new public library will serve the common good” or “the public library is part of the common good”.

(From the introduction to an article in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy – First published Mon Feb 26, 2018)