Rescuing Democracy in the United Kingdom from our current Elected Dictatorship
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Spin,
not face-to-face confrontations with the voters, is the Government's
chosen method of communication. Ordinary people are dangerous. Ordinary
people might ask a question which throws a politician 'off message';
the Cabinet member might reveal himself or herself to be a human being
like us, and not a programmed android. Worse still, he or she might
tell the truth.
Ann Leslie - Daily Mail, September 16, 2004
Blair wants to leave his
mark on history - looks more like a stain to me.
Peter Thorndyke, Diss,
Norfolk - Daily Mail, May 23, 2005
I know I'm me - why do I
need an ID card?
"Sorry, officers, I
don't have an ID card. I never applied for one. It seemed a bit steep
at 300 quid. I do have my free passport, my driving licence and my
London freedom travel pass, each with my photograph. I have my NHS
medical card, with its lengthy number, given me at birth, my RAF
service book with my Armed Forces number, and a chit authorising me to
wear a few gongs -including a General Service Medal with Malaya bar,
for fighting communist terrorists on behalf of my country, or so they
told me.
"I've also got various credit
cards and store cards, all with my signature on the back, generally
good for buying the everyday requrements for life as well as the odd
luxury. If you decide to arrest me, I suppose I'll have to be
photographed and given another number, besides my PINs.
"I'm afraid I haven't got a
pension book; it was taken away."
"By thieves, sir?"
"No ... well, not exactly. By the
Government. By the way, may I see your warrant cards please, gentlemen?"
Oh dear, they've disappeared. E.
Harry Gumer, Romford, ESSEX - Daily Mail, June 1, 2005
NO means NO
When does NO mean MAYBE?
When it's not the answer the EU wants. With the courageous French
NON resounding in their ears, shabby, undemocratic self-interested
leaders of Europe propose ignoring the part of their precious
constitution that requires ratification by all members and
continuing without one of the biggest founder members to
prevent derailing the gravy train.
As in Ireland,
they refuse to accept any NO votes, ignoring the will of the people,
and re-stage votes until they can engineer the 'correct' answer. Sadly,
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw dances to their tune like a puppet on a
string. With tactics such as these, how can anyone really believe the
EU has our interests at heart. Letter from Steve Penny, Kingsnorth, Kent - Daily
Mail, June1, 2005
Surely
the French result makes the £1million the EU recently spent on a
treaty signing ceremony seem a trifle premature and extravagant. Letter from Keith Wiseman, Bury, Lancs. - Daily Mail,
June1, 2005
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Britain has
traditionally been one of the biggest net contributors to the EU
because we do not get as much money back from Brussels in farm and
regional subsidies as our rivals.
According to
Treasury figures, between 1995-2002, Britain's average contribution
taking the rebate into account, was £2.6billion, or £43.55
per head of population.
The French -
the biggest recipient of farm subsidies - contributed £1billion a
year or £16.08 per head of their population.
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Tony
Blair should know that respect comes by example - from the
top. If a country's leader has no respect for the rule of
international law and no respect for the truth, how can
he expect anyone to have respect. Letter
from P.J.Atkinson, Ashford, Kent - Daily Mail, January 12,
2006
The
Chancellor's single greatest act of vandalism in almost
nine years in office has been his wanton destruction of
Britain's private retirement industry. By slapping a massive
tax on pension funds, now worth
£7.3billion a year, he has helped to turn
the best private retirement industry in Europe into a basket-case
in perpetual crisis. Together with the adoption of European
accounting rules - which make it much riskier to operate
a company pension scheme - hundreds of firms have shut their
final salary plans to new employees and slashed benefits
to existing staff. From
Allister Heath: "I've seen the future and its grey"
in THE SPECTATOR - April 15, 2006
Nine
years ago the British people were sold a fantasy of clean
and competent government of principle and honesty. Its shiny
wrappings stripped away, the product now reveals its true
nature: Personal greed, arrogance, incompetence, shamelessness,
rash warmongering and an inability to accept - as is clear
to almost everyone else - that it is time to go. Editorial
- The Mail on Sunday, May 28, 2006
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August
18, 2006 (1210 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2601 US - 115 UK - >300,000? civilians - 25 media
September
4, 2006 (1227 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2644 US - 115 UK - >300,000? civilians - 25 media
Revealed:
80,000 failed asylum seekers our inept Home Office can't be bothered
to track down
By
James Slack - Home Affairs Editor - Daily Mail, September 9, 2006
UP
to 80,000 failed asylum seekers have been granted an 'amnesty'
to live in Britain, it emerged last night. They have been in the
UK so long that the Government has decided not to even bother
considering their claims. It is the last shocking indictment of
Home Office incompetence. Officials had lost track of up to 30,000
of the claimants, or did not even know they were here in the first
place.
Sir
Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch, UK, said: "This
amounts to an amnesty by default. It is Home Office inefficiency
that has led to these claims being granted."
The
shambles dates back to 2003, when then Home Secretary David Blunkett
announced a desperate plan to clear the spiralling asylum backlog.
He said families which had applied for refugee status before October
2000 and had been in Britain for four years could stay and be
given full rights to work.
Mr
Blunkett asked his officials to trawl for who might be eligible
and made a prediction that 15,000 families, or 50,000 people,
would benefit. But the Daily Mail can
reveal that the exercise, which is now on the verge of being completed,
has already led to 24,030 families being given indefinite leave
to remain. It is the equivalent of almost 80,000 people, with
another 500 family cases still to be considered.
Most
of the claims are likely to have been bogus- Government statistics
show fewer than one in ten applicants whose claims are actually
processed is granted asylum. But, simply by staying in the country
for long enough without having their claims considered, they will
now be allowed to stay.
Equally
alarming is the Government's woeful underestimate of who may be
eligible. It follows revelations of up to 450,000 asylum claims
sitting in boxes, waiting to be dealt with. Almost 10,000 of the
families granted an amnesty, or 30,000 people, were either not
known to officials or had had their paperwork lost.
Tory
immigration spokesman Damian Green said: "This is yet another
example of a huge failure in the government's ability to make
reliable estimates. No wonder they can't run a properly managed
system of asylum and immigration when their predictions of what
will happen are so often completely wrong."
The
amnesty, known as the Family Indefinite Leave to Remain exercise,
will be an acute embarrassment to the Home Office. It is a shocking
combination of two of its biggest failings - producing accurate
immigration and asylum estimates, and dealing promptly with refugee
claims.
Earlier
this week, it was revealed its prediction of the number of Eastern
Europeans who would head to Britain following EU enlargement was
hopelessly wrong. It predicted 13,000 a year, but was forced to
admit at least 600,000 have flooded in since May 2004.
The
failure to process asylum claims has also caused repeated embarrassment.
Earlier this year, the Daily Mail revealed at least 6,000 failed
asylum seekers who should have been deported from the UK were
being allowed to stay so they could have a second go at winning
refugee status. The farce stemmed from the failure of officials
to get the estimated 400,000 failed refugees out of the country
within a reasonable time of being turned down.
They
are staying here for so long, they can legitimately claim that
their circumstances back home have changed dramatically since
first being rejected. The Home Office, under Human Rights obligations
not to deport people to countries where they could face ill-treatment
or torture, is then forced to reconsider.
A
second tactic for clearing the backlog had run into trouble. Ministers
are offering a £3,000 bribe for failed refugees to go home,
payable after they leave the country. But, incredibly, they are
being allowed to then return to Britain. At least nine have already
done so - four Albanians, three from Kosovo, a Pole and a Nigerian.
One of the ex-asylum seekers has already received
a second free trip home.
The
Home Office originally defended the amnesty by saying that the
families which are mainly from Kosovo and Turkey would otherwise
be living on benefits, unable to work. Mr Blunkett said at the
time: "Granting this group indefinite leave to remain and
enabling them to work is the most cost-effective way of dealing
with the situation and will save tax-payers money on support and
legal aid."
The
Government has ruled out giving an amnesty to the hundreds of
thousands of failed asylum seekers living in Britain. Ministers
admit it may act as a magnet for other refugees to travel here
to make a claim.
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