Would feeding Asbo kids to the lions save our society? If failed politicians were exiled would the government be more trustworthy?
From tax to democracy, the politicians of ancient Greece and Rome听had very different ideas about how to run a country.
Classicist Peter Jones believes that some of them provide sensible solutions to many of today's most pertinent political conundrums.
The Olympics
Every four years cities compete, at vast expense, to win the right to stage the Olympics. Those that win usually end up broke.
Do what the Greeks did: hold the Olympic Games in the same out-of-the-way venue every time. I suggest Benbecula.
The House of Lords
Ancient Athenians appointed people to posts by lot, after an initial selection process.
Do the same with the House of Lords. Vote for your candidates at local level, appoint by lot at national level. That will guarantee a huge range of experience and an end to undemocratic party politics.
Democracy
The Athenian people took every decision that our MPs take for us today.
Restore a little real democracy to our system, like Switzerland, and allow more referenda on important national topics and referenda on decisions taken by local councils.
Taxes
Ancient Athenians levied taxes only for specific, ear-marked purposes. The Greek word for this was 鈥渉upotheke鈥 meaning pledge or deposit, from which we get our word hypothecation.听
Introducing hypothecation would mean听that road tax would go on roads. The government could then be applauded for adding two pence to a packet of cigarettes because it guaranteed the money would be spent on lung cancer treatment.
Water
Romans could transport water for hundreds of miles without pumps, along exquisitely graded aqueducts.
If our water companies cannot do something about drought in south east England, let them follow the Roman example.
Education
Plato argued that university education should be听restricted to students with a real passion for the subject. This would stop those听who merely want a 'sun-tan' education, as he calls it, turning over occasionally during lectures till nicely educated on both sides.
Europe
The Romans could control an empire almost twice the size of Europe without imposing laws, currencies, and the tens of thousands of regulations that Brussels now demands.
Instruct the next Euro-person who proposes a law to do so with a rope round his neck and a trapdoor beneath his feet to be opened by popular vote if the people do not like it (as was done by a Greek community living in south Italy).
Peter Jones' book Vote for Caesar, How the Ancient Greeks and Romans Solved the Problems of Today is available from Orion Books.
