Capital flight, job losses and globally destructive competition can be reversed, claims British businessman in 2002 Schumacher Lecture

John M. Bunzl, author of The Simultaneous Policy: an Insider's Guide to Saving Humanity and the Planet, will speak about this "ambitious and provocative" Policy to the Schumacher Society at its Annual Lecture event in Manchester, northern England, on Saturday 6 April 2002.

He will argue that the destructive, vicious circle of global market competition, which prevents national governments from implementing ecologically and socially sound policies, can be broken. And that it can be replaced by a new non-party international politics of cooperation through the simultaneous implementation by all, or virtually all, nations of a range of democratically designed policy measures. 

He will show that Simultaneous Policy (SP) represents a new and vital consensus-building strategy for solving many urgent global problems because it removes governments' fear of taking unilateral action that might render them uncompetitive.

It is thus a strategy with far-reaching implications, provisionally concerning such major measures as regulating and taxing transnational corporations, modifying world monetary systems, combating global warming, and funding debt-free development in poorer countries. But its implementation is achievable through its adoption by parliamentarians, political parties, and voting citizens world-wide, all jointly developing a new process of democratic governance.

In this "new global politics of international cooperation and community", citizens who provisionally adopt SP not only engage with independent advisers and other adopters to help design its policy measures, they also crucially pledge to vote for any politician or party - within reason - who also adopts it. In this way, national groups working under the auspices of the International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO) aim democratically to agree the alternative measures recommended for simultaneous implementation. And, as support grows, politicians around the world will increasingly find they are forced to adopt SP for fear of being unseated at the next election. 

Already this year, the Canadian Action Party announced its provisional adoption of SP, and national SP organisations are forming in many countries. ISPO-UK will shortly be the first such body to be formally established. Participatory methods of policy formulation using both internet and conventional means are under development. And, while the adoption campaign is growing rapidly in Northern countries, a significant proportion of ISPO's membership is in the South.
 

Further information:
International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO)
www.simpol.org / jbunzl@simpol.org / Tel +44 (0)20 8464 4141 /
Fax +44 (0)20 8460 2035 / P.O. Box 26547, London, SE3 7YT, UK.
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John M Bunzl's book, with foreword by Diana Schumacher, is published in 2001 by New European Publications (14-16 Carroun Road, London SW8 1JT, UK): ISBN 1-872410-15-4 hardback £14.95; ISBN 1-872410-20-0 paperback £9.95. Profits from copies purchased direct from ISPO go to supporting the SP campaign. 

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Political party "opposed to the rise of corporate rule" first to adopt the newly published Simultaneous Policy

While John Bunzl, author of The Simultaneous Policy: an Insider's Guide to Saving Humanity and the Planet, was in Porto Alegre in January to present to the World Social Forum his proposal for a "radically innovative approach to solving problems of corporate globalisation that offers win-win solutions for voters, civil society activists, and politicians", it was confirmed that the Canadian Action Party (CAP) had decided to adopt the Simultaneous Policy (SP). 

By taking such an initiative, this radical new party has decisively marked itself out to the growing people-first globalisation movement within Canadian civil society as the party to vote for in future elections. As increasing numbers of Canadian citizens pledge their willingness to vote only for parties that adopt SP, other political parties will feel obliged to note this important electoral development by following CAP's example.

The International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO), based in London and active in 20 countries, with members in many more, provides a practical framework for the democratic development of a range of measures to re-regulate global capital markets and transnational corporations. The aim is to gradually force politicians of all parties around the world to adopt those measures and then, finally, to get them implemented by all, or virtually all, nations simultaneously.

To this end -- as a unique new development among NGOs -- ISPO is establishing the means by which voting members, functioning at national and international levels and interacting with globally respected independent advisers, can evolve effective alternatives to current macro and micro policies. Thus ISPO offers disaffected voters everywhere the opportunity to join a 'parallel democracy' with teeth, which demonstrates to ruling elites that re-election votes are at risk if its proposals are ignored.

The Canadian Action Party, under the leadership of Paul Hellyer, a former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, "dares to confront the powers that be and examine the true causes of unemployment, environmental destruction, the growing gap between the rich and poor, inflation, and threats to democracy". Both organisations thus have complementary objectives, aimed at creating real choices for voters within an overall vision of improved global governance.

For more information about ISPO, see www.simpol.org
And about the Canadian Action Party, see www.canadianactionparty.ca

Further information:
International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO) 
www.simpol.org / jbunzl@simpol.org / Tel +44 (0)20 8464 4141 / 
Fax +44 (0)20 8460 2035 / P.O. Box 26547, London, SE3 7YT, UK. 
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John M Bunzl's book, with foreword by Diana Schumacher, is published in 2001 by New European Publications (14-16 Carroun Road, London SW8 1JT, UK): ISBN 1-872410-15-4 hardback £14.95; ISBN 1-872410-20-0 paperback £9.95. Profits from copies purchased direct from ISPO go to supporting the SP campaign . 

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"Provocative" book offers real, practical alternative for anti-globalisation protestors and disaffected voters

As the G8 prepare to protect themselves from Seattle- and Genoa-like protests during their 2002 Summit and even some economists admit modern capitalism is inherently unmanageable, British businessman John M. Bunzl provides the civil society movement with a boldly different way to make its alternatives heard. His book suggesting how this can be done -- The Simultaneous Policy: an Insider's Guide to Saving Humanity and the Planet -- will be launched at the Foreign Press Club in London at 11:15 on Tuesday 22 January 2002.

Endorsed by Noam Chomsky as "ambitious and provocative", it argues that the global free movement of capital and corporations has brought virtually all nations into a vicious circle of destructive competition where the needs of business and speculators damagingly predominate over those of society and the environment; a potentially fatal vicious circle no government alone can control and from which there is ordinarily no way out.

With the slogan "Adopt SP: Vote Globally!", Bunzl shows how the growing "anti-corporate globalisation movement" and the wider public can use the concept of Simultaneous Policy (SP) to oblige national politicians to heed their priorities or risk being unseated at the next election. It provides a practical framework for the democratic development a range of measures to re-regulate global capital markets and transnational corporations, to gradually force politicians around the world to adopt those measures and then, finally, to get them implemented by all, or virtually all, nations simultaneously. 

By removing governments' key objection to 'going it alone', SP represents a vital consensus-building strategy. As one member of the leading world-wide activist group ATTAC put it, "With a system like SP, there's no way for governments to wriggle out. All excuses evaporate. It's a system which unmasks all those seeking to hide behind theoretical impossibilites. I can't wait to see what follows." 

Under the guidance of the International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO), the SP campaign is already active in 20 countries and has members in many more. In short, the widespread adoption of SP uses existing national political systems and institutions to create an entirely new international politics of cooperation, in which robocops and batons are nowhere to be seen. 

Subject to the approval of SP adopters, ISPO-UK will shortly be incorporated as a non-profit company democraticaly controlled by UK adopters with plans for direct voting and for refining policy proposals in on-going collaboration with independent researchers and world-renowned advisors. ISPO-UK is to serve as a model for other national SP bodies in keeping with democratic principles and local legal requirements. 

Further information:
International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO)
www.simpol.org / jbunzl@simpol.org / Tel +44 (0)20 8464 4141 /
Fax +44 (0)20 8460 2035 / P.O. Box 26547, London, SE3 7YT, UK.
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John M Bunzl's book, with foreword by Diana Schumacher, is published in 2001 by New European Publications (14-16 Carroun Road, London SW8 1JT, UK): ISBN 1-872410-15-4 hardback £14.95; ISBN 1-872410-20-0 paperback £9.95. Profits from copies purchased direct from ISPO go to supporting the SP campaign. 

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 Welcome
to our seventh SP newsletter and best wishes for the New Year to all SP adopters and friends of ISPO!
 

First Adopters Meeting a Success
Held on Saturday, 13^th July last year, about fifteen of us got together to discuss how best to progress the SP campaign and to clarify what our strategic aims are. Peter Merry facilitated the meeting which came up with a number of action points which have been pursued in the meantime. For a full report, please contact us at jbunzl@simpol.org.

New Renaissance
New Renaissance, the magazine of the Prout organisation, published an interview with John Bunzl in their Autumn 2002 issue (Vol.11, no.3, Issue 38). It was recorded following John's lecture to the Schumacher Society in April last year. For copies, contact New Renaissance at 3a Cazenove Road, London N16 6PA. Tel. 020-8806 4250 http://www.ru.org.

SP and ATTAC
John Bunzl gave a presentation on SP to Attac UK in London in October 2002. We hope this will lead to greater cooperation with this important global NGO.
 

ISPO Governance Taskforce
A 'taskforce' of SP adopters started work at the end of November 2002 on an agenda with a view to producing recommendations for all adopters to consider. Chaired by ISPO's Public Awareness Coordinator, Brian Wills, the taskforce comprises, Kiki Paquet (NC for Mali), Zubaida Hussain (NC for Pakistan), Bal Khela, Dr. Doug Everingham (NC for Australia), Brian Jenkins (RC for Western Australia), Don Chisholm (NC for Canada), Patrick Andrews, Dick Stimson (NC for USA), Yves Falck (NC for France), Mike Brady and John Bunzl. Their agenda is as follows:

1. The wording of ISPO's 'core message'. It is obviously important that any global campaign has an agreed core message which remains the same in all countries but which individual national SP organisations can add to according to local circumstances. 

 
2. The recommendation of a governance model which clarifies the role of ISPO's global organisation and how it should relate to national ISPO organisations. It would also specify the minimum criteria to which all national SP organisations must meet. 

 
3. The clarification of whether and how ISPO should organise the formulation of SP's policy measures and whether and how non-ISPO organisations should play a role. 

 
4. The recommendation of a decision-making protocol for ISPO's global organisation. 

 
5. To finalise the above recommendations as a draft briefing for ISPO's legal advisor early in 2003 and to seek 'no-objection' approval from all SP adopters as soon as possible thereafter. 

Major SP Meeting held in Perth, OzFormer Labor Health Minister and Australian NC for ISPO, Dr Doug Everingham, flew to Perth from Brisbane to address a public forum on globalisation issues organised by RC for Western Australia, Brian Jenkins. The session was held on Saturday, 27 July in North Fremantle. Dr Everingham explained how the SP network is empowering citizens to exert a forceful influence on public policy through coordinated lobbying and electoral tactics. Saturday's meeting was attended by about 100 people, including public sector professionals, educators and representatives of non-government organizations and trade unions.

 ISPO: The Voter Apathy 'Party'?
SP's ability to attract the world's fastest growing political sector, namely apathetic non-voters, was well demonstrated with the recent adoption of English entrepreneur, Mark Davey. 

"In the twenty years that I have been afforded a vote", Davey said, "I am unashamed to say I have never used it. My theory was that not to vote was the best way of securing my protest to all or any political parties. As the years have gone on, my decision at 18 to adopt this tactic has been fuelled by what is happening in the world. As soon as I had digested your information I signed up [to Simultaneous Policy] without hesitation and now feel almost compelled to get involved...congratulations!" 
 

World Federalists Warm to SP
Following initial contacts with World Federalist Association (WFA) Executive Council member, John Roberts, John Bunzl gave a presentation to a WFA Executive Council meeting in December 2002. 

The talk provoked a very positive reaction. John Roberts has kindly agreed to become a special advisor to ISPO and we are hoping for opportunities to cooperate more closely with WFA during 2003. For the full text of John's presentation, please contact us.
 

Will You Help?
Next time you go to a public meeting on issues relevant to SP, please help us by handing out some SP leaflets. Help us spread the word! Contact us today for a supply of leaflets jbunzl@simpol.org.
 

Ontario Green Party Chief adopts SP
Frank de Jong, leader of the Green Party of Ontario, Canada recently adopted SP. At the 22nd annual conference of the Council of Georgist Organizations held August 21-25, 2002 in London, Ontario, de Jong addressed the conferees on four topics: The Green movement and the Green Party, the Simultaneous Policy initiative, Green economics and the relationship between Georgists and Greens.
 

'Network'
Network, the magazine of the Scientific and Medical Network had this to say about The Simultaneous Policy: "This is an important book about a potentially very important idea - the Simultaneous Policy. The author asks the question: how can the world get beyond the escalating problems of global competition to a framework of global co-operation? As we have seen with single issues such as arms control, it is hard for an individual country to justify making the first move. This is where SP comes in. It provides a rallying point for those who would like to see the vicious circle broken and a new world system inaugurated." 
 

Veteran of UK Left Supports SP
Tony Benn, former UK Labour Party Member of Parliament and former Member of Labour's National Executive Committee has come out in support of SP. "Simultaneous Policy is a very stimulating book and by substituting internationalism for globalization, co-operation for competition, humanity for markets and wisdom for materialism you have unlocked a powerhouse for good." These encouraging words lead us to hope that Tony Benn may be prepared to give more concrete support to ISPO in the future.
 

LC for Torridge & West Devon
Former Liberal Democrat campaigner, Ken Ockenden, has been appointed Local Constituency Coordinator for this West Country UK parliamentary constituency. Won at the last election on a paper-thin majority of just 1194 votes, this constituency could offer ISPO its first opportunity to make a decisive impact! 
 

SP in Non-Offensive Defense (NoD)?
A relatively new defensive strategy for armed forces around the world is explained in a study by Steven Schofield entitled The UK and Non-Offensive Defence. Defined as a posture in which "armed forces should be seen in their totality to be capable of credible defense, yet incapable of offense", the study explores the potential for such a posture being adopted by the UK.

In respect of the UK, the study points out that "The UK is... incapable of re-orienting its forces to a defensive mode as long as it maintains a collective security approach dominated by US military doctrine. Where NoD emphasises the build-down of weapons, there is the real danger that Nato's present strategy will result in a potentially dangerous and destabilising nuclear and conventional arms race." Although acknowledging the competitive global environment which prevents wider adoption of NoD, the study does not make a link to SP or other global political initiatives which might assist its aims. It is hoped that co-operation between NoD and ISPO might soon develop.
 

Where does SP fit in to Evolution?
John Bunzl reports on the surprising links between SP and Evolutionary Biology:

Having struggled for the best part of two years to articulate the SP concept and having completed my book, I was contacted by evolutionary biologist John Stewart, who indicated SP's relevance to evolution. This led me to read John's excellent book entitled "Evolution's Arrow" and immediately made me aware that SP was more than just a highly ambitious political idea "for saving humanity and the planet", as my book is sub-titled, but also had a strong grounding in evolutionary theory.

Stewart points out that "SP has general similarities with all of the major evolutionary transitions in which cooperative organisations were formed from aggregations of entities that were initially capable of evolving independently and that competed with one another (examples are the formation of the first cells from aggregations of molecular processes, the formation of the modern eurykaryote cell from associations of simpler cells, the formation of multicellular organisms from aggregations of cells, and the formation of societies of organisms from aggregations of organisms. What all these have in common with SP is that the cooperative organisations were formed through the emergence of constraints that limit the independence of the independent entities. These constraints (e.g. governance, management, etc) restrain destructive competition and enable cooperation to emerge. And the constraints have to operate simultaneously across all the entities in the organisation. If any entity is not constrained, it will continue to compete, and destroy the organisation." 

By "major evolutionary transitions", Stewart is referring to the transitions which progressively formed new higher-levels of co-operative governance (also known as a 'holons'). So atoms competed but subsequently came to form molecules; molecules competed and subsequently came to form cells, and so on. This holonic process, each new level transcending and including all previous levels, continued from cells up to multi-celled organisms, up to animals and humans and from small-scale human societies up to today's nation states. 

Evolutionists such as Stewart are sometimes described as 'Post-Darwinist' since they have moved beyond the Darwinist theories of competition and natural selection as a random process to recognise the importance of co-operation in evolution. Under globalization, nation states represent competing holons, struggling for supremacy in which either catastrophe or a historic evolutionary transition to a new and higher planetary level of governance awaits us.

Thus, Stewart continues: "SP also has some differences to all the previous transitions. None of the previous transitions involved intelligent entities. As a result, the systems of constraints that emerged were not intelligently designed. In most cases they 'over-constrained' the entities. They restricted their freedom more than what was necessary just to establish cooperation. In addition the transitions took millions of years to evolve by trial and error. Humans, through a process like SP, can intentionally and consciously decide to introduce simultaneous global governance to prevent destructive competition. And they can design constraints that do not restrict independence and freedom any more than is necessary to provide the benefits of co-operation." 

Another well-known evolutionary biologist who has recognised SP's potential as a tool or 'technology' for humanity to achieve planetary co-operation is Elisabet Sahtouris. In her presentation entitled Globalization as an Evolutionary Leap she explains: "I invite you to consider three fundamental possibilities. First, we are part of a living planet, in a living universe. Second, the patterns of Earth's evolution actually help us understand the current human process of globalization. Third, we're in a process of species maturation. We are moving now from competition to cooperation, from fear-based economies to love-based economies. 

"[There is] a cycle of evolution that occurs all over, across time and space, at the tiniest levels of biology, and in the largest cosmic processes. It always begins with unity that then individuates--as in the ancient Vedic creation story in which a little wavelet forms in a smooth sea, and forever after is torn between loving its own individuality and wanting to merge back into the One. This universal tension between part and whole, and among parts, drives evolution. Individuation always leads to a kind of tension and conflict. And if the parts don't kill each other, they start negotiating. Negotiations can lead to resolutions of some of the tensions, moving from conflict to cooperation, and then to some new level of unity. 

"One way this has played itself out is that young species are found to have highly competitive characteristics: They take all the resources they can, they hog territory, they multiply wildly. Sound familiar? But a lot of species have managed to grow up, to share things and territory, to cooperate. It's what keeps them alive. 
"I believe that life is just too intelligent to proceed by accident--and that makes me a post-Darwinian evolution biologist. Although evolutionary theory is shifting, there are not many of us post-Darwinians around just yet, but this kind of thinking is coming in. We're moving from the idea of accidental assembly and evolution by random accident to a theory of evolution in which all of life is intelligent self-organization responding to crisis and stress. Knowing this, we can ask: "We as a species have created some major crises and stresses in our environment. Can we evolve in response to the stress we've created?" 

"Now let's look at the cycle of evolution playing itself out because of the dynamics between self-interest and cooperation. At every level of a holarchy, self-interest is driving cycles of negotiation, compromise, and cooperation all the time. (it's happening throughout your own body at this very moment.) Self-interest is not bad unless it's uncontained by community interest. In order to grasp that we live in a cooperative world, we need to look at holarchies, and see that people are embedded within families, communities, nations, the world. 

"If only our human populations could learn some of the age-old negotiation tricks practiced by bacteria for eons. I believe that globalization is a natural evolutionary process, and that cooperative biological and ecological ventures are possible. Global cooperation is already happening in many ways: in the arts, in travel and transportation, in our communications, in our international exchange of money, in space exploration, in our United Nations, in science, and in spirituality. These are all ways that humanity has already demonstrated an ability to cooperate globally. 

"But there's a problem with our economics: Suppose our bodies' northern industrial organs could exploit the bone marrow all over the body for its raw-material blood cells. They are then swept up into the heart-lung system where the blood is purified, and oxygen is added. Suppose, now, that the heart distribution center demands a price for blood, and some organs cannot afford it. Could our bodies stay healthy in such a system? 

"Similarly, our world has to learn the lessons of cooperation that our bodies know so well. We need negotiated self-interest at all levels, including the level of international commerce. For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) will succeed only when it realizes that it has to empower local economies. The demonstrations against the WTO are the struggle of local economies and people trying to make their self-interest known. It's a very healthy response. 

"Remember, all species co-evolve, no species can evolve on its own. Knowing this, we can ask ourselves, "What's our commitment to all our fellow life forms that made us possible?" Are we ready to become a mature species? Will we learn to share Earth's resources fairly with all the other species, and to ensure natural capital for our own future generations? We have a choice: We can continue on the road of competition and greed, or we can we create an equitable, participatory, healthy, happy, loving glocalized humanity."

The above is a shortened and edited version of Elisabet Sahtouris's Globalization as an Evolutionary Leap. She is the author of a number of books on evolution including EarthDance. For more information visit http://www.sahtouris.com. She made the following comment on SP: "From my vantage point as an evolution biologist, Simultaneous Policy is an idea whose time has come and an imperative if we are to evolve humanity from its juvenile competitive stage to its cooperative species maturity. A wonderful "no risk" strategy for finding agreement on important issues in building global community!"

A pdf version of John Stewart's book, Evolution's Arrow - The Direction of Evolution and the Future of Humanity, can be downloaded at http://www4.tpg.com.au/users/jes999/EvAr.pdf. He commented on SP saying: "The SP proposal is a practical means of moving toward global governance. It should be an effective means of achieving cooperation where any individual government that behaves cooperatively will be disadvantaged until all other governments also do so. ...I wish you the best of luck with your important work."

 Welcome! To our eighth SP newsletter. The number of new adoptions still remains frustratingly low, but we're hoping that will change soon now that more of our members are getting stuck in to the SP campaign and offering their time and skills! See what others are doing to help SP and let us know how you can help too!

Planet Radio, Oz

St. Pauls Leafleting

ISPO Taskforce News

The International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO) is a growing association of citizens world-wide who use their votes in a new, co-ordinated and effective way to drive all nations to co-operate in solving our planetary crisis. Transnational citizen action is vital because global markets and corporations so comprehensively overpower individual nations that no politician dares make the first move to solve global problems for fear of competitive disadvantage. 

ISPO overcomes this paralysis by bringing all nations to adopt in principle - and then to simultaneously implement - the Simultaneous Policy (SP), a range of democratically selected regulations to bring about economic justice, environmental security and peace around the world. 

By adopting SP, ISPO's members pledge to vote in future elections for ANY political party or candidate - within reason - that also adopts SP. As more and more citizens act in this way, politicians will adopt it too if they wish to remain in office. Adopting SP involves no risk because simultaneous implementation removes everyone's fear of first-mover disadvantage. SP thus transcends party politics by providing a powerful tool for citizens to drive politicians and governments to deliver the measures our world so desperately needs. With SP, global citizens are replacing destructive competition with fruitful co-operation. With SP, we are together taking humanity to the next stage in our evolutionary future. 

Work on the remaining agenda items is on-going but should be completed soon. Watch this space!

Oxford Economics Forum

London Café Meetings

Standing for SP

Take Back the World!

New SP Project, "S+", Gains Support of One World Trust

Overall aims:

1. To make ISPO better known through active campaigning. 
2. To learn-by-doing through: creating a volunteer taskforce collectively responsible for running the project; and through interacting creatively with external individuals and organisations.
3. To use this campaign in the UK as a trial project for potential application in parliamentary constituencies elsewhere, and thus enhance the strength of the global justice movement by increasing political awareness among the voting public world-wide.

Planned activities:

1. To monitor the Hansard website (www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/) and identify which Bills and their Amendments proceeding through Westminster concern Sustainability, Economic Justice, and Accountable Governance (= 'Sustainability-Plus'). 
2. To agree which among those Bills should be listed under ISPO's Sustainability-Plus Index because of their direct relevance to SP issues. 
3. To cull data from that website on how MPs vote; and compile and keep updated an 'Accountability Profile' on an Excel file based on each MP's ay/nay/abstain voting record, expressed as spreadsheet with the following title and entries: 

ACCOUNTABILITY PROFILE OF WESTMINSTER MPs :

Voting choices expressed as cumulative scores in the Sustainability-Plus Index compiled by International Simultaneous Policy Organisation volunteer monitors Constituency MP, and votes received at the last election (to be updated in the event of a by-election)
• Political party
• Majority (similarly updated after a by-election) 
• Vote (i.e. how the MP voted: + = ay; - = nay; 0 = abstain/absent)
• The Bill or Amendment selected for monitoring 
4. To derive from this file ("MPdatabase") the ISPO Sustainability-Plus Index, comprising cumulative positive and negative scores for each MP based on his/her voting choices. (For instance, MPs who abstain or vote against the government's recent proposal to beef up the Criminal Justice Bill to include the new offence of corporate manslaughter would score negative points because of its obvious relation to Economic Justice.) 
5. To express these scores in a range of different ways for use in campaign leaflets or ISPO news releases, or perhaps for publication on internet: in tables or graphics; grouped by party or green/foreign/development/etc. issues; grouped as Top or Bottom scorers; as percentages or subdivisions of any of these; and so on, as required to achieve maximum public impact. 

Voluntary action already on offer:

• Project webmaster (from Nick Worrow -- a great offer from an experienced professional) 
• Project coordination (from Brian Wills, but naturally subject to taskforce agreement/amendment)

• Work with others in the taskforce to create a structure minimal enough to take decisions (by consensus or vote?) on activities 2 and 5, but inclusive enough to encourage innovation and creativity: in short, participate in evolving an efficient, democratic way of getting this particular ISPO job done. 
• Spend time monitoring Hansard online, and present to the taskforce for assessment and decision the reasons why selected Bills/Amendments justify inclusion in the S+ Index . 
• Work with non-adopters (fellow voters, community groups, MPs, political party stalwarts, etc.) in ways that publicise ISPO's existence and encourage others to support the S+ campaign, even if they are hesitant about adopting SP. 

If you'd like to help out on the S+ project, please contact Brian Wills directly at brian.wills@wanadoo.fr or at 345 Chemin de Tavion, 30140 Anduze, France.

SP Website News

Getting Active in the UK

Who's Doing What?

• Website: Regular updates; search-engine optimisation; links research; developing sites for National SP campaigns in different countries; advising on new website ideas and projects. To help out, contact Sarah Urmson at s1mp0l@hotmail.com.
• Media/Journalism: writing press releases or articles; sending them to selected media contacts to raise the SP profile; etc. To help out, contact Mary Finnigan at lotusdemon@blueyonder.co.uk.
• E-mail campaigning: creating interest for SP on various listserves, websites and discussion fora; etc. To help out, contact Nick Worrow at worrow_nicholas@hotmail.com
• Leafleting: Go to a talk on globalisation, distribute some SP leaflets, and have a drink! Contact Tony Harvey at tonyharvey60@hotmail.com.
• Presenting SP: If you speak well and are good at presenting, we need speakers to attend various conferences, workshops and meetings to present SP. To help out, contact John Bunzl at jbunzl@simpol.org.
• Member Development: If you have personnel management or training skills, we want to increase our members' understanding of SP and of its relevance to solving world problems. The more we understand about SP, the more willing we'll be to participate in campaigning for it. If you have skills in this area and would like to help out, contact Tim Hart at timhart@justice.com.
• Targetted Campaigning: Select a well-known personality from our special database now being compiled, contact them directly and persuade them to adopt SP! Contact Rob Wicke at wickerobert@hotmail.com.

New Books by SP Adopters

• 'Seven Steps to Justice' by Peter Challen and Rodney Shakespeare focuses on monetary reform, binary economics and other necessary steps to social justice. Contact rodney at rodney.shakespeare1@btopenworld.com. 
• 'Global Solutions: An internet community takes on globalization' edited by Richard Stimson and Adriaan Boiten explains globalisation, the banking and corporate oligarchies and offers new routes to democracy. Downloadable free at www.fixgov.org in either Word or PDF formats.
• 'Value Wars: The Global Market versus the Life Economy' by John McMurtry argues that 'globalisation' is driven by an unexamined and absolutist value system whose principles and unseen meaning it lays bare. It goes on to define the moral compass and constitutional standards of a global 'life economy alternative'. Pluto Press, ISBN 0 7453 1889 4.
• 'Re-inheriting the Earth' by Brian O'Leary awakens us to 'sustainable solutions and greater truths'. Contact Brian at oleary1998@yahoo.com ISBN 0-939040-9.
• 'Un regard citoyen sur l'économie' by André-Jacques Holbecq. (In French) Editions Yves Michel. ISBN 2 913492 11 8. Contact André-Jacques at ajh@wanadoo.fr

SP People

• Canada: Don Chisholm has decided to stand down as our National Coordinator (NC). Diana Jewell, previously Regional Coordinator (RC) for Western Canada, has replaced Don as NC. 
• Australia: Doug Everingham, until recently our NC, has opted for a quieter life as RC for Queensland.Brian Jenkins has taken over as NC while retaining his RC responsibility for Western Australia. 
• Switzerland: Joe Fleury has decided to stand down as NC. No replacement yet.
• UK: Mark Barrett has been appointed RC for the West Country.

Another Competition 'Classic' shows desperate need for SP

From the London 'Financial Times', 2nd May 2003:

The UK's long-standing appeal as a low-tax location for companies is being chipped away by tax cuts in rival EU states, according to a survey by KPMG, the professional services firm. Competition between governments to attract businesses is driving down taxes on companies around the world, intensifying pressure to raise tax on individuals, KPMG found. The average level of corporation tax in the world's richest countries fell from 37.5 per cent in 1996 to 30.8 per cent in 2003, the survey found. 

John Battersby, head of strategic tax policy at KPMG, said: "The UK's corporate tax rate of 30 per cent is now only a whisker from the OECD average. The UK can no longer afford to be complacent on this issue." As companies become increasingly multinational, it has become easier for them to shift activities between states or allocate their profits to countries with lower taxes. Accountancy experts believe that the threat to corporate tax revenues was masked by high profits during the boom years of the late 1990s. But the problem should become increasingly obvious in coming years as lower profits reduce the tax take, said John Whiting, a tax partner at PwC. "I believe that corporate tax is in near terminal decline," he said. "Over the next 10 years governments may have to deal with a lot less corporate revenue and will have to raise tax from elsewhere." "It's a battle governments will never win," said Mr Battersby.

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International Simultaneous Policy Organisation 
P.O. Box 26547, London SE3 7RE, UK 
www.simpol.orgjbunzl@simpol.org       Fax: +44 (0)20-8460 2035