MOST would be INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES stay away from STANDING in General Election because they can't afford the DEPOSIT. This deprives the Democratic function in Britain from many brilliant capable candidates.

The success of a country is judged by objective markers depicting economic, industrial, social, and cultural output, alongside the health and well-being of its citizens. The only mechanism people have to potentially secure this success is through the quality of a nation's operating democracy, and the central law making body at its heart. The latter is elected by 'informal promises' to hopefully achieve the best outcomes. In Britain's case, this duty falls on the workings of the House of Commons and ultimately by the quality of the party in government, supported in essence by a balance of 650 elected members of Parliament representing the regions and people of Britain. The British Parliament has been a historical role model, but deep and ongoing problems are now present. The system for electing MPs has not effectively changed for hundreds of years, the duties of an MP are not clearly defined and no task obligations are written down. This casual state is unheard of in every other walk of life. Many events are now challenging these loose foundations, change is badly needed to refresh and update the principles by which the Commons, government, and particularly MPs work. This is to ensure we have the most responsive central legislature that is fully equipped and in touch with a rapidly changing country, its people, as well as a very fast-moving highly technical world. Over the last decade or two, many calamities including financial, economic, banking, health, employment, infrastructure, education, as well as the very probity of elected members, have emerged as significant issues. In many cases, these issues fail the test of good government. Even now, we are unclear what expenses MPs are entitled too, what extreme views an MP can hold in office, whether MPs can be compelled to quality control, should they take on second and sometimes a third (or more) jobs, and why there are no basic qualifications which would make MPs 'fit for purpose'. All these points fundamentally return us to question whether the aspirations of the first and second paragraphs above are ever going to find success again. Not surprisingly, voter apathy reflects this deep impasse. This petition proposes that much greater tests on the suitability of people to become MPs must be put in place. We accept the principle that effectively any British citizen of diverse background can become an MP, but, we also suggest that as in any other walks of life where there is a very specific and demanding job to be done, the incumbent should be maximally prepared for the task in hand and certainly not merely possess 'casual well meaning' as the test for office. MPs will therefore have to be 'fit for purpose' in showing strong evidence of educational, vocational, and personal skills demanded both by their new job and by the electorate, and not just offer a test of arbitrary party loyalties to be finally selected. Hence, evidence that MPs can sit in our central law making House and are pre-endowed with the educational skills to steer economic and social reform to which the nation is entitled, becomes a pre-requisite. The issue is not therefore so much about female to male ratios, ethnic or indigenous grouping, or indeed gender orientation, but about exacting proficiency and technical competence, in the same way every other job in the country has rightfully become. The technical competence issue should now be raised as the central argument, whereby, only a person who is versed and learned in specified skills that are central to the demanding task in hand should be allowed to stand for Parliament. This will mean aspiring applicants must achieve set qualifications first, and for political parties to put in place a process where they steer prospective candidates through specific training before allowing candidates to stand. The qualifications will set the bar high, but Britons are especially well equipped to achieve this, as our educational history consistently shows. These qualifications, including all the subjects set out above, become preconditions of educational experience and attainment before finally sitting as an elected Member of the British Parliament. Furthermore, a special internal and external education, science, and culture committee should refresh this MINIMUM list of requirements on a regular basis, checking educational progress of elected members and demanding new updated units to keep pace with the changing world and the job types (secretarial/ministerial) which the member may be diversifying into. Sitting MPs will have to constantly learn and update skills too, this can be achieved as 'study within recess' periods and cover all the units newly elected MPs face. Learning and re-learning, up-dating and re-validation, becomes part and parcel of the discipline for a Parliamentary political career.

Year after year landlords and Councils have increased rents by at least 4%. This year many are levying 4% increases at a time when many ordinary people - 'hard working families' to use politician speak, are on minimum wage and who have not had a wage rise in 2 years. Private landlords and local Councils are proactively making people poorer as expenses increase and income remain stagnant. Just recently The Royal Bank of Scotland, that was bailed out by tax payers, has defended plans to pay £588m in staff bonuses despite suffering an £8.24bn loss in 2013 as it slumped into the red for the sixth successive year. Ross McEwan, its Chief Executive, is expected to earn £2.7m for simply doing a job he was brought in to do. However, the bank is still in the red, so he hasn't achieved the goal, yet he still receives more money in bonuses than most people earn in a lifetime. Barclays increased bonuses by 10% to £2.4bn. HSBC said it would increase salaries for its bosses to get around a European union cap on bonuses. Are we going to swallow this silently? We clearly are not 'all in this together'. Perhaps the worst offenders are those local Councils who are taking the easy option and passing on the costs of their central government funding shortfall to those in social housing and those who have to pay council tax - those who have the least ability to pay and do anything about the increase. It is sickening to hear politicians speaking about raising people out of poverty yet allowing this activity to continue.

Scotland's economy has lost out since 1999 when Tony Blair and Donald Dewar moved the continental plate to take in 7 of Scotland's oil platforms. This was done the night before the Scottish parliament was resumed after 300 years. It did not get debated on, it was done underhandedly though we do not get the taxes directly to Scotland the revenues from these 7 oil fields should count towards Scotland's taxes. Instead Westminster is claiming them towards their tax revenue and undermines what Scotland is actually contributing.

In April this year Mr Riley plans on moving to America whilst still retaining his seat on the council and collecting the £10,273.74 a year it pays, although Mr Riley plans on travelling back every six or seven weeks to deal with council work. He is quoted as saying " he did not feel it would be possible to remain a member of a district or parish council while living abroad because they deal with “nitty-gritty” issues." “But as a county councillor my role is more strategic and I don’t think it will be a problem doing my work from Raleigh.” I personally wholeheartedly disagree with Mr Riley, I do not see how he can serve the Hadleigh Community at best while some 3,966 miles away. What we need is someone on our door step that is easily contactable when they're needed, yes there is skype and what not, but there are many people in Hadleigh that do not have internet access, and/or prefer to have face to face talks in person. I think the actions of Mr Riley are detrimental to the local community of Hadleigh. Mr Riley should resign by March 20th to allow a by-election to happen the same time as the general election, otherwise he will keep that position until 2017. Its about doing whats right for the people of Hadleigh, and staying on whilst living in America does not meet that criteria.

Because Lord Green subsequently became a trade minister and is a member of the House of Lords. We need transparency and accountability and unless he gives an account of his activities, his position in untenable.

We deserve a certain standard of behaviour and serious protocols in the House of Parliament to ensure the business of running our country is done in an efficient and balanced way. Politicians should stop employing tactics to side rail issues that are important to us, the population of this country.

The NHS is being taken apart. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 abolished the legal duty on the government to provide key NHS services in England, and took marketisation to a new level. We need a law to reinstate that legal duty, stop marketisation and privatisation, and to re-establish accountable public bodies. Without a law, the process now rapidly underway will continue. This is why barrister Peter Roderick and public health Professor Allyson Pollock drafted a NHS Reinstatement Bill in August 2014. This Bill was put out for consultation, and dozens of individuals and organisations responded. The consultation on the proposed NHS Reinstatement Bill ended in December 2014. Revised to take account of the consultation results, the Bill proposes to fully restore the NHS as an accountable public service by: -reinstating the government's duty to provide a comprehensive universal health service, -reversing 25 years of marketization in the NHS by abolishing the purchaser-provider split, -ending contracting, -making the NHS TTIP-proof and -re-establishing public bodies and public services accountable to local communities. You can find out more about the bill here: http://www.nhsbill2015.org/nhs-reinstatement-bill-new-version-published/.

I keep hearing of brave veterans being left with only £10 of their War Pensions after being means tested. The rest of the basic War Pension, after this first £10, is counted as income when the Department for Work and Pensions calculates what level of means-tested benefits to pay and affects veteran's benefits and is, therefore, lost. Benefits affected are such as Income Support, Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance or pension credit. This is basically and morally wrong. The government work out how much you need to live on, but this pension should not be counted. These men and women fought and put their lives on the line to allow us to live safe lives today. Please don't take that well earned pension away from them, which also takes away their faith in this country and make them wonder why they bothered in the first place. Leave them some dignity and keep off their War Pensions.

This will be an utter disaster and will allow our government to make more cut backs on Britain's defence. We need a referendum now.

Simple democracy.

The Patriot Store is all pervasive on many pages on Facebook. Originally the domain was registered by Mr James Dowson (ex-BNP, ex-Britain First), but then transferred to Lionheart Products. EVERY Britain First, LionheartGB (and others) pages contain links to the Patriot Store. The newest page is Knights Templar International,which is being heavily promoted by Britain First. The website allows donations to be made (exactly the same as Britain First's), and it solicits donations from abroad. According to Electoral Commission rules, any donation of £500 or more must be returned to the donor if they are not on the UK Electoral Roll. It is urgent that the HMRC investigates the accounts of these 'businesses'. HMRC needs to find the links between the companies, just how many donations/profits are going to 'Britain First', whether or not the donations have come from abroad, and who is behind the entire 'group'.