The UK Government wants to reclassify cannabis - yet again! - this time upgrading it from a Category C to B drug, in order to 'send a message' that drugs are bad. The reclassification is not to warn us off becoming degenerate hippies and dropouts though - it's for the sake of our mental health. Is this a reasonable argument for greater restrictions, or should we be free to choose our own poison, whatever its ill effects?

MEMBERS' ROOM DISCUSSION: Inspired by the 1 May London Mayoral Elections, the Manifesto Club is calling for its members around the world to submit their plans for a new city - the ways in which metropolitan life might be improved, in London, Paris, Sydney, New York, Prague, Shanghai, Mumbai, or any of the world's great centres. How should we organise transport, cultural life, and urban spaces? How can we better organise urban democracy? What should be our attitude to immigration?

Cities have been places that have fired the imagination, offering their residents freedom to experiment with different ideas, ways of living, working and collaborating. All of the significant cultural and political movements of the past century have come from cities. Yet too much of urban policy is now about containing the city and its residents - whether it's the regulation of drinking culture, CCTV cameras on street corners, or Ken Livingstone's congestion charge. A rejuventation of the metropolitan imagination is required....

The Manifesto Club's Campaign Against Vetting was formed in opposition to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act, which will mean compulsory vetting for all adults who work or volunteer with children. This briefing document is in response to the government's new timetable for the implementation of the Act - and finds that the vetting scheme will be one year late, nearly four times as expensive, and affect two million more adults than previously thought. Download the BRIEFING DOCUMENT (.pdf) (see this reported in The Times). See more on the Manifesto Club's Campaign Against Vetting.

The Manifesto Club has launched a petition on the Downing Street website, calling for the UK government to put the word 'education' in the names of departments dealing with schools, colleges and universities. The campaign is led by the Manifesto Club member Professor Dennis Hayes:

'Every generation has a crisis of education. This usually takes the form of worries about what should be the content of education for future generations. But a unique crisis seems to have afflicted the government which has set up a Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and a Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS). Spot the missing word? It’s education!

'Attention Please' is a photo-project to explore the way in which public space is polluted by a host of needless warning signs - slash tape over a crack in the pavement, or a puddle marked off with police cones. This project questions what such useless bureaucratic signage means for the look and feel of urban life - and calls for a more rational approach to public space.

A PHOTO-ESSAY, by designer Tom Mower, shows up the visual language of safety signage: Attention Please: A walk interrupted by safety signage

CALL FOR PHOTOS! Send in photos of needless safety signs you encounter in public spaces, for publication in an online photo-album. See week 1 of the photo album; or see how to submit your photos.

Our ambition at the Manifesto Club is to start to develop the theory and substance of a new progressive politics. As part of this, we have launched our Thinkpieces series: these are deep-thinking, spirited proposals for how to do things better in a particular area of life, written by Manifesto Club members from all over the world.

ABOUT THINKPIECES, by Josie Appleton, convenor of the Manifesto Club

SECOND SERIES