Silent Majority Speaks
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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October
9, 2006 (1262 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2744 US - 119 UK - >650,000? civilians - 25 media
October
28, 2006 (1279 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2811 US - 120 UK - >650,000? civilians - 25 media
Reid
U-turn as he returns foreigners to 'open door' jail
By
James Slack - Home Affairs Editor - Daily Mail, November 4, 2006
John
Reid has begun sending foreign convicts back to an open prison
notorious for escapes, it emerged last night. It is a dramatic
U-turn from the Home Secretary's concern that overseas criminals
would simply walk out of Ford open prison rather than wait to
be deported at the end of their sentences.
The
move was revealed on the day a judge attacked the Home Office
over the case of Iraqi asylum seeker Caliph Ali Asmar, who carried
out a vicious knife attack five months after he was mistakenly
freed from jail instead of being deported.
Earlier
this year, in a blaze of publicity, the Home Secretary ordered
500 prison officers in riot gear - some with dogs - to surround
Ford at dawn and round up the foreign nationals inside. Roads
were sealed off as a fleet of 60 vehicles was packed with prisoners
and driven off under escort.
The
extraordinary move followed the escape of 11 overseas inmates
there in a single month, and 33 altogether this year. But, faced
with an overcrowding crisis across the prison system, Mr Reid
has now quietly reversed the order. Figures seen by the Daily
Mail reveal that, of the 141 foreigners returned to secure prisons
in May, 20 have been sent back to Ford, which is near Arundel,
West Sussex.
Tories
said it is a classic example of Mr Reid appearing tough, only
to water down or abandon his apparent crackdown. The Home Secretary
ordered the removal of overseas nationals at the height of the
scandal over 1,000 foreign prisoners being released without being
considered for deportation. He ruled that, with the Government
now promising to deport all jailed foreign criminals, they had
too much incentive to escape to be in open prisons.
A
Home Office spokesman said at the time: "There is a massive
problem with prisoners absconding from Ford." But last night
the department said that, following 'rigorous and robust' risk
assessments, 19 of the foreigners had been returned to Ford, with
one waiting to be transferred. A further five of the 141 have
been moved to other open jails.
The
total number of foreigners in open jails is now around 140.
Critics
point to overcrowding as the reason for Mr Reid's U-turn. Last
night, there were 79.799 convicts in prisons, meaning the system
is effectively full. Inmates are already being housed in police
cells. This has forced officials to shift foreign nationals back
into open jails, despite the risk that they will flee.
Last
month, Ford governor Fiona Radford told her staff in a memo which
was leaked that Mr Reid had 'accepted as inevitable' that there
would be an 'increase in absconds'.
Tory
spokesman Mick Herbert, MP for Arundel and South Downs, said the
decision had been taken 'behind the backs' of local residents.
He added: "Foreign nationals have no incentive to remain
there, since they are supposed to be deported, so they are likely
to simply walk out. Yet, having moved them out, the Home Office
is trying to quietly move them back in. It is being driven by
overcrowding and the palpable failure to plan for enough prison
places."
Yesterday
Anne Owers, the chief inspector of prisons, said the failings
that had led to the mistaken release of foreign inmates still
exist. Her report said there had been improvements in how the
Prison Service dealt with foreigners, but serious difficulties
remained in the Immigration and Nationality Directorate.
The
judge's attack came at Hull Crown Court, where 25-year-old Caliph
Ali Asmar, one of the 1,000 prisoners released by mistake, was
given an indefinite sentence for attempted murder. Judge Tom Cracknell
had heard that Asmar stabbed a man in a row over a girl just five
months after ending a two-year sentence for a similar attack.
An
Iraqi Kurd, he was said to want to go home. He has been the subject
of deportation orders three times, but none was carried out. The
judge said: "It beggars belief that, with the resources this
country has, this man was not deported. It is a rather lamentable
state of affairs."
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