Dear Santa, can you spare a moment to change the world?

I know you must be quite busy today, but if you find the time here are ten changes which I believe would make the world a much better place in 2017. Changes which are urgently needed.

I’ve already written to you with a personal wish list, but these ones are public. Perhaps you won’t be able to deliver on all of them, but others reading my letter to you on the RT website might be able to do their bit too.

Radical redistribution of wealth

Half of the world’s entire wealth is owned by just 62 people. Yes, that’s right, 62.

At the same time, more than half of the world’s population in rural areas live and work without access to essential health care services.

How can we accept this state of affairs?

Now Santa, I know you’re not Robin Hood, or Che Guevara, but could you help us share the wealth out more equally - so that everyone on the planet has adequate health care and a roof over their heads? If this means we’ve got to change our economic system then so be it. We can’t carry on as we are at present. 

Action to save the world’s disappearing wildlife

We’re on course to lose two-thirds of wild animals by 2020. Some of the most iconic species on God’s earth are threatened with extinction: Africa’s lions and elephants, for instance, could be gone for good by 2050. How terrible it would be if we lost such magnificent beasts.

Read more

The world’s wildlife in peril and it’s time for urgent action

Not only must we ban hunting, and eliminate poaching altogether, we need to protect habitats. We must accept the fact that we share our finite planet with other creatures who have just as much right to be here as we do. Can you help us to get our act together on this one?  

Get politicians to listen to the people

I know this is a big ask Santa - but could you get the political class to serve us - and not themselves and special interest lobby groups? If this is impossible, and I fear it might be, could you assist us in bypassing self-interested ‘Members of Parliament’ altogether and establish direct democracies? Modern technology makes it easier than ever for us to cut out the ‘middle man'. Abolishing Parliaments would also mean more money for health care and things that really matter. 

Urgent action on climate change 

I had a look at the world’s weather for Christmas Day. In London, 14 degrees Celsius is forecast.

That’s a temperature we should be getting in late March, not on 25th December.  2016, according to the UN, is ‘very likely’ to be the warmest year on record- and set a new high for the third year in a row. I’m sure that living in the Arctic, you need no reminders about what’s going on. I only read a few days ago how reindeer - (which I know you’ve got quite a few of) could be the next victims of global warming.    

Media Lens (who incidentally I recommend you following if you’re on Twitter and Facebook), recently posted that record-breaking Arctic warmth was ‘extremely unlikely’ without climate change. 

Mankind has to wake up to what’s happening, before its too late. 

Perhaps you could put in a special note about what’s going on at the North Pole, among the presents you leave tonight (including at the White House).   

True internationalism & solidarity to replace elite-friendly globalization and xenophobia 

Virtue-signalling Establishment figures in the West love to tell us how much they oppose ‘racism’ and the ‘politics of hate‘.  But their aggressive policies- such as ’liberal interventionism’ and ‘regime changing’ are also inherently racist, based as they

are on a smug sense of superiority over others and a belief that international law does not apply to them.

Instead of the phoney internationalism of the Western elites and ‘liberal’ commentators, we need a genuine one based on mutual respect-and not people from one group of countries dictating to others. Can you help us achieve this?  

The US to change its foreign policy

This is very important. In his book ‘Rogue State’, William Blum listed the 24 different countries the US had bombed between 1945-99. Since then the US has bombed at least 7 different countries. In 2015, a report called ‘Body Count’ revealed that at least 1.3m people had lost their lives as a result of the so-called US led ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.

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Causing genocide to protect us from terror

Recently, President-elect Trump promised: “We will stop trying racing to topple regimes” and that the US policy of ‘intervene and chaos’ would come to an end.

Perhaps its just words. But a change in US foreign policy - if you could deliver it, Santa - would be one of the best Christmas presents for the world that one could imagine. It would be warmly welcomed by all good people across the globe, who are sick and tired of the bloodshed that war hawks in Washington have caused.  

A ‘Christmas Carol’ visitation for the world’s worst people

A tiny group of sociopaths are responsible for most of the misery in the world. These are the ultra-selfish individuals who hoard their wealth, who exploit and attack others, who promote and propagandize for illegal wars, which they then profit from - and other people's children die in. If these immoral creeps changed their ways, think of the benefits to humanity. Perhaps they are beyond redemption. But they probably thought that about Ebeneezer Scrooge too and look what happened to that old bastard. 

An end to people bringing politics into sport (and song contests)

Geopolitics shouldn’t affect international sport - or even song contests, for that matter, which were designed to bring people together. But it did this year - with bans on Russian Paralympians in Rio 

and a blatantly political NATO-endorsed dirge winning Eurovision.

Can we have a break from all of this in 2017, please? Politics take up so much of our lives, it’s nice to have a few areas where it doesn't intrude. Or is that too much to ask for? 

More Erich Fromm and George Lansbury and less Harry Potter

Erich Fromm was one of the 20th century’s wisest thinkers, but how many read his books today? 

The good Doctor told us that "Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence." He also believed that "A healthy economy is only possible at the expense of unhealthy human beings" and that no man should be the means for the purposes of another man. I am convinced that if more people read Fromm, and works such as 'The Art of Loving' and ‘To Have or to Be’, the world would be a much happier place. Please drop a few copies down some chimneys tonight Santa - particularly at 10, Downing Street.

We also need more principled public figures, like the 1930s British Labour leader George Lansbury, a man who had a wonderful vision for humanity and who went to prison for his beliefs. Lansbury - a socialist but not a liberal, advocated the abolition of war - and proposed turning over the British Navy and the Royal Air Force over to the Board of Education for educational cruises. "I would tell them (the Admirals) that hence forward, with dismantled guns, their duty was to enable the children of this country to see the world".

What a beautiful idea. And in a world in which love, solidarity and true internationalism replaced selfishness, aggression and greed, and neocons were banished forever from the corridors of power it could become a reality.  

You might think I’m asking for too much, but Christmas is a time of miracles and hopes. If we can’t dream big at this time of the year then when can we?