Democratise Taxation, the short web version

There is a crisis, a crisis in the way politicians spend our taxes. A crisis made from making the super-rich richer and waging war for US interests.

Our government misleads us, Mr Blair over Iraq, Mr Cameron over the NHS.

One simple reform could address this, participatory budgeting, the involvement of citizens in spending decisions. We all pay tax, and if we pay tax we should have a say in spending.

We have the means to restrain our government from Trojan horse policies and using legislation and subsidies to pay back political donations - a democratisation of taxation.

We already have the tools to enact this reform. The internet.

For each to be sure their taxes are spent in line with their values and the views of all voters count; election manifestos should contain budgets and voters should have the right to adjust their share of the budget that goes to each policy.

We can mandate individual policies through participatory budgeting. We can democratically fund policies and end the incitement to profligacy in the civil service that stems from having to spend or hand back a budget within the year.

We can make public services more responsive and efficienct by using information from the consumers of those services, from voters.

Consent for taxation is the most ancient cornerstone of British Democracy. It is a right signed into the Magna Carta in 1215.

It is time to replace our spluttering, steam driven democracy with a more responsive, finely tuned, digital democracy.

We now have inexpensive ways to get consent from taxpayers directly. We do not have to be “represented” by politicians, or accept their manifestoes a la carte, or tolerate their broken promises. We should call out “no taxation without allocation”

We should write a modern Magna Carta, for 800th anniversary of the original, use particpatory budgeting to make our government more true to the title ‘Democracy’.

And stop politicians squandering our taxes on wars and bankers.