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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December
28, 2005 (959 days since Iraq war ended)
Death Toll: 2,172 US - 98UK - >>30,000?
Iraqi - 25 media
January
16, 2006 (978 days since Iraq war ended)
Death Toll: 2,219 US - 98UK - >>30,000?
Iraqi - 25 media
March
8, 2006 (1033 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2304US - 103UK - >>6,164? Iraqi - >>17,300?
civilians - 25 media
| 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 |
Yes,
we do need some immigration. And of course we should offer asylum.
But there is only so much any society can take
by
Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of MIGRATIONWATCH UK
Daily
Mail, March 15, 2006
So
if you thought the asylum system was a shambles, you were dead
right. A devastating report by an all-party House of Commons committee
has lifted the lid on just how bad things are behind the scenes.
For years, the Home Office has sought to conceal the real state
of affairs - aided and abetted by the asylum industry, which must
have known what was going on but chose to remain silent.
The
report focuses on the failure of the Home Office to remove asylum-seekers
whose cases have been rejected. The Public Accounts Committee
concludes, in remarkably tough terms, that
'the UK's asylum policy has been undermined by the inability of
the Home Office to deal promptly with asylum-seekers shoe applications
fail ... it is difficult to conclude that the taxpayer is obtaining
value for money ... '
Quite
so. The numbers are stark. Since the present Government came to
power in 1997, about 500,000 people have claimed asylum, but 300,000
have been rejected and refused permission to stay in Britain.
So what happened to them?
Well,
most of them are still here. Only one in four has been removed,
voluntarily or otherwise. The Government doesn't even know how
many are still here - not even roughly. It puts the figure at
somewhere between 155,000 and 283,000. That is just the applicants
themselves. If you add another 20% for dependents, you
are looking at anything up to 340,000 people still in Britain
who have no right to be here.
Suspicion
And
this report tells us for the first time that the Home Office has
completely lost touch with three-quarters of them, even including
400 criminals who should have been deported. At the moment, the
Government is making no inroads into this number. The committee
concluded that, even if the present rate of removals was applied
to that total, it would take ten to 18 years to remove them.
MPs
demand tags to tackle asylum crisis
by
Matthew Hickley, Home Affairs Correspondent
Daily
Mail, March 14, 2006
Thousands
of failed asylum seekers should de detained or electronically
tagged to stop them vanishing, a report claims today.
In a scathing indictment of Labour's failure to remove
rejected claimants, the Public Accounts Committee warns
the huge backlog of up to 283,500 is 'undermining' immigration
policy.
Yesterday
Ministers revealed tagging trials had produced a 90% compliance
rate among rejected claimants and announced plans to extend
its use. But so far the device has only been used to ensure
the wearer is living at a specific address during certain
hours. Little use has been made of more sophisticated
applications like satellite tracking.
MPs
say tagging should be used to keep track of failed claimants,
who are staying in Britain in growing numbers because
they know there is 'very little likelihood they will be
apprehended and removed'.
The
Home Offices says it has little idea how many rejected
claimants remain in Britain because of incomplete records,
but estimates the figure at between 155,000 and 283,500.
Astonishingly, immigration officials told the committee
they did not have current addresses for three quarters
of them.
That
means more than 212,000 failed claimants vanished completely
- including at least 400 released criminals. Committee
chairman, Tory MP Edward Leigh, said at the present rate
it could take 18 years to clear the backlog even if no
new bogus claimants arrived.
"The
fact is no one really knows how many failed asylum seekers
remain in the UK, or where most are living," Mr Leigh
said. "The situation is extremely serious and the
Immigration and Nationality Directorate must take a hard
look at its approach to removals. It must without delay
establish a target for making substantial inroads on the
backlog of older cases. The integrity of the UK's asylum
application process is at stake."
As
of last September, failed asylum seekers were being deported
at the rate of 1,350 per month, but even that was failing
to keep pace with the number of new cases turned down.
The Committee also recommends arresting more failed asylum
seekers when they attend reporting centres, rather than
in raids on private homes.
More
immigration staff should be switched to front-line enforcement
duties, MPs say, and deportees should be encouraged to
use free voluntary removal schemes. Until 'significant
inroads' are made into the removals backlog, the report
says there is little prospect of taxpayers getting any
value for the £1.5billion spent a year on the Immigration
and Nationality Directorate.
Shadow
Immigration Minister, Damian Green said: "It is disgraceful
that the Government does not know where failed asylum
seekers are or how many are leaving the country."
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All
this is the end result of a legal process that costs half a million
pounds a day and drags on for months, if not years. Yet those
who fail too often disappear, making law look like the proverbial
ass. Nor is there much cheer for the taxpayers who are forking
out £5million a day on this process (including legal costs),
much of it to little or no effect.
But
the ultimate irony is that it is the genuine refugees who suffer.
Last year, 75% of the cases were rejected, but the one in four
who was found to be genuine was caught up in the widespread abuse
(David Blunkett's description) that is causing endless delays.
And, even when granted asylum they will find themselves the object
of suspicion by a public who are well aware that many others have
been making false claims.
What
is to be done? The Government is talking about tagging asylum-seekers
while their cases are heard, and the latest gimmick is voice-recognition.
It is surely obvious that both these ploys are simply window-dressing.
It will be perfectly open to an asylum-seeker when he thinks his
case will fail, to take off his tag and do a runner. So much for
technology.
No.
The only humane way forward is a much faster process altogether.
This means much more use of detention so that most asylum-seekers
are detained while their cases are decided. This would, of itself,
reduce delays by enabling legal advice and interpretation to be
available on the spot. Those found to be genuine could then receive
the welcome they deserve, while false claimants would be much
easier to remove.
Borders
Meanwhile,
Government trumpets the fall in the number of asylum claimants.
But it may well be that people are still coming but are not claiming
asylum, at least until they are discovered. Even when they are
discovered, they may simply be released.
What
the Government is not so keen to tell us is that other forms of
immigration are going up as asylum claims come down. Foreign immigration
trebled under the present Government. In 2004, it reached 342,000,
of which only about 40,000 were asylum-seekers.
Immigration, generally, is now seven times that of asylum.
This
is where the major problem lies. The Government has deliberately
encouraged large-scale immigration without first securing our
borders. It has also, alone among major European countries, opened
our labour market to citizens of the new Eastern European members
of the EU on the basis of an absurdly low estimate of the numbers
likely to come: 5,000 to 13,00 a year, it said.
So
far, 345,000 have come. No one knows how many have gone home.
Government claims that all of this is wonderful news for the economy.
Of course, some immigration is certainly valuable, indeed inevitable,
in an open economy, But that is not the same thing as large-scale
immigration.
Target
All
international studies show that the benefit to the host community
is very small. Most of the benefit goes to immigrants - which,
of course, is why they come. On the present scale, immigration
has a major impact on our infrastructure.
Only
yesterday, the Government issued household projections which showed
that 65,000 houses will be needed every year simply for immigrants.
That amounts to one-and-a-half million houses in the next 23 years.
The
Government has recently raised its target for house construction
from 150,000 a year to 200,000 a year, with huge effects throughout
England. We can now see that this recent increase is entirely
down to immigration.
Even
more important is the impact on our society. The head of the Commission
for Racial Equality said recently that 'we are sleep-walking towards
segregation'. He is right, although he dares not make the link
with immigration. The truth is that we cannot integrate a third
of a million people into our society every year.
That
is obviously impossible, and everyone with an ounce of common
sense recognises that to be the case. It is time this government
addressed this major issue which, as a result of its sheer carelessness,
confronts our society.
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