Bernard Ingham: Why it's common sense to vote for a better Britain

They all have a vested interest in foisting on Britain the abomination of proportional representation which would land us, like most of Europe, with weak governments we could never get rid of. In turn, they would reduce us to a mere province of the EU. Their energy policies are also guaranteed to put the lights out.

Since no rational individual can vote Labour after the comprehensive and duplicitous Blair/Brown failure since 1997, it follows that the Conservatives are our only uncertain hope. The only justification for voting Ukip – a single-issue party – is to get rid of Speaker Bercow in Buckingham.

The crop of assorted Independents are a mere indulgence. They are no more likely to clean up Westminster than a muck-spreader.

This explains why I regret not getting round to launching my English Common Sense Party before television wrecked another British institution – the hustings – with celebrity-style non-debates.

I find my platform of a solvent, independent, self-governing state with freedom under the law and restored standards of behaviour, has a certain appeal.

In this election series, I have already pointed the way to solvency and independence. On the domestic front, standards are the heart of our failing society. To restore them, we have to reinstate personal responsibility and accountability.

I would require every organisation, public or private, to publicly identify the top man as accounting officer, who stands or falls by performance. To reinforce this, I would successively call in to No 10, chief constables, the Lord Chief Justice and the chief executives of local authorities, hospitals and the Border Agency, to tell them that they have 12 months to get a grip, or I would find someone who would.

The streets must be made safe for pensioners – no more city centre no-go areas at night – councils must understand their job is to serve people, not exploit them, and hospitals that they are there to restore patients in a clean environment, not meet bureaucrats' targets.

I would remind them they would no longer be handicapped by human rights legislation or European authority. They would shortly have a Charter of Individual Responsibilities enforceable only in British courts. Those responsibilities would apply to them, too.

Similarly, I would inform the education world that the days of Ed Balls' stupid micro-management are over. The only thing I am interested in is excellence through discipline, and if it takes grammar schools to get it, let's have many more of them.

Failing parents who undermine that discipline will be liable for 1,000 for every frivolous complaint or failure to end their offspring's truancy.

I want to end student tuition fees but I cannot do so as long as we adhere to the daft idea of shovelling 50 per cent of youngsters through universities, regardless of aptitude. We have to replace equality with quality as the driving force in education, while at the same time redirecting educational resources into practical training to raise the status of engineering, technology and manufacturing.

As for welfare, the party's over. This nation cannot afford seven million living off their fellow men, whether they have turned "a bad back" into a meal ticket, make no effort to find a job or are professional single mothers who expect me to pay for their children's upbringing.

In any case, it is outrageous that this nation is sinking under a rising tide of rubbish and is disfigured by graffiti while thousands of able-bodied youngsters idle their time away on the state. Britain must be cleaned up once and for all, with properly organised local authority no-work-no-benefit schemes.

Having already capped European immigration, I would put a complete block on the rest until the untold number of illegals have been sent home and asylum restricted to the hard cases it was always intended to help. We have enough of our own exploiting the system, without

positively inviting others to join in.

I am also against exploitation by vested interests. Union barons

warning of hell if the public sector is cut, should be careful. I could reasonably put their union funds at risk by extending the prohibition on strikes to all providing a public service. What gives them the right to muck up people's lives with impunity?

So there it is. Take it or leave it. If I had anything to do with it, Britain would be a better, fairer and more disciplined place from tomorrow.