User:Aidan Christopher Ulrich Powlesland

Aidan Christopher Ulrich Powlesland (born 29 October 1960) is a British inventor, entrepreneur and political activist, who first stood for Parliament for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in Harrow East at the 2015 general election.

Aidan Powlesland was born in Colchester, Essex and was educated at the Colchester Royal Grammar School. He read History at Robinson College Cambridge. He dropped out of a postgraduate degree in computer science at Robinson College Cambridge in order, in January 1986, to start his own company Historical Engineering. Historical Engineering developed and sold multiplayer computer games about military history, in the pre-internet era, direct to consumers using the Royal Mail as the medium of interaction. The first game Historical Engineering Limited published, in June 1986, was called Muskets and Mules and modelled The Napoleonic Wars in central Europe between 1805-1810.

Aidan Powlesland is a strong supporter of policies aimed at wealth creation. He believes in upholding the rights of responsible individuals over the rights of the collective and in the view that the best government is the one, up to a point, that governs least. He advocates the creation of government prizes, to be invested like venture capital funds, to kick start new technologies, for example, asteroid mining, interstellar colonisation and lighter than air aircraft carriers.

On 28-Jun-2017 Aidan Powlesland submitted a nomination to compete for leadership of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP)

Early Life and Career

Aidan Christopher Ulrich Powlesland is the son of John Powlesland, a former entrepreneur, civil engineer and designer who died in 2004 and his German born wife Ulrike Katharina Theresa Powlesland, a former entrepreneur, who died in 2011. He has three brothers, Gregory, Peter and Dominic an artist, an architect and an archeologist. Aidan Powlesland was born in Colchester, Essex and grew up there. He was educated at the Colchester Royal Grammar School and subsequently read history at Robinson College, Cambridge from where he graduated with a lower second-class honours degree in 1984. In 1985 he dropped out of a postgraduate degree in computer science at Robinson College Cambridge in order, in January 1986, to start his own company Historical Engineering, incorporated Historical Engineering Limited 18-Mar-1987. Historical Engineering developed and sold multiplayer computer games about military history, in the pre-internet era, direct to consumers using the Royal Mail as the medium of interaction. The first game Historical Engineering Limited published in April 1986 was called Muskets and Mules and modelled The Napoleonic Wars in central Europe between 1805-1810. This was followed in the winter of 1987 by both The Napoleonic Wars and World War II. Historical Engineering Limited sold the UK and US franchises to its three games in 1989. Later the company became dormant being dissolved 29-Jun-1993. After an unremarkable spell as Chief Executive of Cleanbrite Limited in 1990 Aidan Powlesland spent the period from 1991-1999 designing a suite of seventeen multiplayer computer games. In 2000 Aidan Powlesland re-formed his old company Historical Engineering Limited and in 2001 he published one of his 1990s designs, namely, First Bull Run 1861. It flopped. In 2003 Aidan Powlesland returned to Cleanbrite Limited as Chief Financial Officer and, from 2004, as Chief Executive Officer until he resigned in March 2009. After a period living in Moldova and Ukraine he formed a property management company of his own in 2012. The initial fate of this venture hinged on battles with the planning bureaucracy. These battles prompted him to join UKIP with the aim of repealing The 1947 Town and Country Planning Act and replacing it with an enhanced law of tort.

Parliamentary Candidate

At the 2015 general election Aidan Powlesland was UKIP candidate for the Conservative seat of Harrow East. On election night he came third, gaining 4.8% of the votes cast. Aidan Powlesland stood for UKIP in South Suffolk at the 2017 general election coming fifth with 2.7% of the vote. His 2017 campaign attracted attention from the national press as a result of his advocacy of £1.0 billion of venture capital style investments in the form of competition prizes to be offered to the first company to profitably mine the asteroid belt, his similar but smaller scale £230 million proposal to kick start the design of a crewed interstellar colony ship, an unmanned interstellar probe and an interstellar communication diasporanet as well as his proposal to offer another prize to convert the lighter than airship ML68X design, or equivalent, into a flying aircraft carrier.

Political Views

Aidan Powlesland describes himself as standing for a politics of wealth creation.

In the 23-Jul-2017 version of his UKIP leadership manifesto Aidan Powlesland declared a fiscally conservative programme to improve government finances by twenty six measures which would convert the government's £50 billion per annum deficit into a £5 billion per annum surplus.

He supports free trade arguing that bilateral trade agreements tend to mercantilism and that the best way to proceed is by lifting all tariffs and restrictions on imports without worrying about negotiating bilateral concessions from trading partners so that the Kingdom can get the best value for money when buying everything.

In the 23-Jul-2017 version of his UKIP leadership manifesto Aidan Powlesland advocated a 40% reduction in the welfare budget to increase the advantages of work over doing nothing. In his statement as to who would bear the cost of this change 53% of it was to fall on the wealthiest 40% as measured by gross income and so would be progressive, 38% of it was to fall on the poorest 40% and so would be regressive and the balance of 9% was to fall on no particular class.

He has declared himself an enemy of regulations claiming that the abolition of 80% of employment regulations would boost the British economy by £48 billion per year.

He is a supporter of private enterprise, not just small private enterprise, pointing out that nearly 50% of government spending, an amount sufficient to pay for the National health Service more than twice over, is provided by taxes on business. He is in favour of a tax system that plays no favourites and to this end has proposed combining Business Rates with Council Tax and setting the new rate at the level of Council tax thereby effectively reducing business rates by 80%. He has explained that not taking this step creates an artificial incentive for buildings owners to keep their buildings out of productive commercial use so as to reduce the liability for tax. For the same reason of equality before the law he advocates the repeal of corporation tax in favour of focusing on taxing the money when it is consumed (so taxing income) not when it is reinvested (retained profits).

In addition to his focus on economics Aidan Powlesland has stated that offering EU citizens in the UK British passports or a safe route to them is insufficiently protective as it compels EU citizens to make a choice of loyalty that they came, in good faith, to the UK not expecting to have to face as did their compatriot Britons going to the EU and that the government's duty of care to these several million people, as well as to the more than a million UK citizens living in the EU facing the same choice, means that what should be offered instead to EU nations, in the case they reciprocate, is dual citizenship forthwith. This proposal would apply especially to UK-Polish relations since Poles are the second largest EU nationals group in the UK and Poland (along with six other EU nations) does not at present allow its citizens to hold dual citizenship.

Aidan Powlesland supports, subject to greater offsetting cuts elsewhere, a 90% increase in defence spending so long as 75% of that increase is spent innovatively.

He supports housing reform not least by repealing The 1947 Town and Country Planning Act and replacing it with an enhanced law of tort and by ending exemptions from capital gains tax for sales of primary residences that have not been too rented out.

Aidan Powlesland has proposed that the government offer, subject to terms, £1.27 billion, out of a putative £5.0 billion provision for sovereign venture capital, to finance an asteroid mining, three interstellar space and one defence (flying aircraft carrier) project in order to kick start harnessing the private sector to the economic development of space, to innovative defence technologies and to radical innovation in general.