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.
|
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 |
Blair's
secret slush fund conveys a stench that would cause a U.S. Congressman
to hold his nose. He has forfeited the right to be believed by
anyone and is no longer fit to hold office
by
Max Hastings - Daily Mail, March 17, 2006
Tony
Blair yesterday gave us his word that there is no truth in allegations
that he recommended three men for peerages simply because they
had given large loans to the Labour Party. "It shouldn't
be one in exchange for the other," he told his monthly press
conference, "and it wasn't."
Now
that we have established that, it seems almost impertinent to
ask: what, precisely, in addition to lending a million or two
to the Prime Minister's party, have these people done for the
public weal. Have they given long hours to hospices? Have they
offered years of service to local government? Are they famous
for helping old ladies across the road, or even for rescuing cats
from trees and goldfish from leaking bowls?
Beyond
the fact that they have also provided some cash for Mr Blair's
pet 'city academies, the answers to all these questions are straight
"Nos".
Guidance
Now,
we should be careful about doing the Prime Minister an injustice.
Maybe, unbeknown to you and me, they have booked his family holidays
or commissioned his wife for speaking tours.
Richard
Nixon of Downing Street Comment - Daily
Mail, March 17, 2006
Caught
red-handed, up to his neck in slush funds and sleaze,
the Richard Nixon of Downing St. attempts to distance
himself from cash for honours scandals by presenting himself
- risibly - as champion of reform.
The
gall of Tony Blair knows no bounds.
Suddenly,
the Prime Minister who so ruthlessly exploits loopholes
in the rules to secure secret loans for the Labour party
claims to have seen the light. Suddenly, the man who moves
heaven and earth to obtain peerages for wealthy cronies,
despite the objections of the Lords Appointments Commission,
wants to take politics out of the honours system.
Suddenly,
with breathtaking hypocrisy, he suggests establishing
an independent adviser on Ministers' interests - this
when only last week he rejected the plea of Britain's
chief sleazebuster, Sir Alistair Graham, for independent
inquiries into Ministerial wrongdoing.
But
nothing the Prime Minister says to get himself off the
hook can conceal the rottenness exposed by the furious
Labour Treasurer, Jack Dromey.
Mr
Dromey - whose wife Harriet Harman in a Government Minister-
reveals he was 'kept in the dark' over loans solicited
by Mr Blair's bagman and chief fundraiser, Lord Levy.
He accuses Downing St. of 'impropriety' for running this
murky operation behind the backs of the party's elected
officials.
No
wonder he demands investigations. This affair stinks like
a cesspool. Labour is awash in 'loans' from millionaire
benefactors who presumably expect something in return
for their moolah. And the great convenience of these handouts
- or should we call them bribes? - is that they don't
have to be made public, as straightforward donations must
be.
So
Blair places himself in hock to rich benefactors, while
taking care to keep it very quiet. He didn't even inform
the Lords Appointments Commission that some nominees for
peerages had virtually bought their way to an honour.
Now
he tells us that 'as a leader of the Labour party, I take
responsibility for all that is done in its name'. Really?
So why doesn't he tell us the truth? Promising to declare
future loans isn't enough. How much was squirrelled away
in slush funds? £10million? £19million? Who
stumped up the money? On what terms? What did they get
in return? Was cash spent in contravention of legal election
restrictions? How much remains? And if nothing is wrong,
why this conspiracy of silence?
But
answers come there none. Instead, the pitifully unconvincing
Home Secretary Charles Clarke blusters that 'the suggestion
there was cash for peerages ... is completely false'.
Well,
let's examine the record. Every donor who has given £1million
to Labour or one of Tony Blair's pet projects has received
a peerage or knighthood. No fewer than 16 of the 22 who
have donated £100,000 - plus have been honoured
too.
Yes,
some may have made it to the Lords anyway, on their own
merits. But in these numbers? This reeks of a corruption
as rank as the shameless sale of peerages by David Lloyd
George.
But
then, why expect any better from Mr Blair? Hasn't he always
showered spectacular and unmerited favours on rich cronies
who show him the size of their wallets, from Ecclestone
to Lakshmi Mittal and the Hindujas to Lord Drayson.
What
Labour's founding fathers would have made of all this
can only be imagined. A party once committed to helping
the poor is now on the make and on the take, grabbing
and getting, sinking deeper into sleaze by the day.
And
as in the case of Richard Nixon, the smell goes all the
way to the top.
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Perhaps,
with discretion of true philanthropists, they have offered marriage
guidance to Tessa Jowell or a country squat to Peter Mandelson.
But until such noble deeds are brought into the lime-light, we
are left to assume that these are common or garden rich people
who want handles, are no more or less honourable than any other
Roller owners in the fast lane of the M1.
Tony
Blair is the man who signs off Honours Lists. Even nowadays, when
somebody in a back room at Downing Street negotiates a franchise
to sell peerages off supermarket shelves, he can scarcely pretend
not to notice who gets them.
We
are therefore left to think the unthinkable: that when the Prime
Minister told us yesterday that "it wasn't one in exchange
for the other", he was spouting a nose longer than Pinocchio's.
It is a fantastic notion, that a British prime minister should
have presided over a secret fund of which the existence and the
managers' identities were unknown to the Labour Party Treasurer,
Jack Dromey.
Even
now, we have no clue how much money its bank account holds, from
what individuals the cash was raised, and what incentives they
were offered to write cheques. This is the world not of British
politics, but of Tammany Hall. It makes the affairs of Tessa Jowell
and her husband sound almost respectable, and those of Tony Blair
convey a stench that would cause an American Congressman to hold
his nose.
This
is cringe-making. The man who pledged a decade ago that his premiership
would be 'whiter than white' has today placed himself, and by
association, the country which he governs, in a moral league with
his holiday host Don Silvio Berlusconi.
A
Downing Street cynic would say: "What does it all matter?
What are peerages anyway but silly flotsam from history, which
confer no power save when booking restaurant tables? In the United
States and across much of Europe, political leaders sell offices
ambassadorships, government contracts in exchange for party funding.
Tony Blair is peddling only meaningless baubles.
Yet
Blair's behaviour must be judged not only by the standards that
he set for himself when he entered office, but against the background
of all his behaviour since he blasted off from Plant Earth and
began to orbit Plant Fantasy, sometime early in his last term
of office.
There
was a moment when he lost contact with ordinary politics, normal
behaviour, the ability to look in the mirror and see a fifty-something-year-old
ex-teenage guitarist with thinning hair and a harassed look. Nothing
behind the railings of Downing Street, surrounded by armed guards
and deferential staff, Blair simply stopped caring what the rest
of us thought about anything he did. He admits as much publicly,
declaring recently that he would have to answer to God for his
actions in office.
This
means he has granted himself a nil-interest mortgage on criticism
from those who inhabit this world, redeemable only before his
Maker in the next.
Then
there is his wife. I cannot forget a dinner-table conversation
with Cherie Blair in the early months of 1997, when it had become
plain that she and her husband would move to Downing Street. Knitting
her brows earnestly, she said: "I'm determined that when
we get there, we're going to keep our lives as normal and ordinary
as we can manage."
There
seems a distance much longer than nine years between that remark,
and the woman who today cavorts the world touting for platforms-for-cash,
hits the shopping like a Desperate House-wife, and has shown herself
to be a sucker for every quack and charlatan who flatters their
way through her door.
How
bizarre it seems that this clever woman - and she was certainly
that - should have brought herself to such a pass. Most of us
rely heavily on spouses to save us from folly. Almost every man
and woman needs a partner - in the old-fashioned sense - who can
be counted upon to tell the truth: "Don't believe your own
publicity"; "Come off it"; "You look a mug
in that outfit"; "You made a fool of yourself at supper
last night".
Messiah
It
is impossible any longer to image Cherie Blair in that role. For
some years after 1997, she and her husband brilliantly acted parts
as real people. Today the masks are off. They are revealed as
perhaps the strangest couple ever to occupy Downing Street.
Their
belief in the rectitude of their own actions, however awful these
may be, is so absolute that I doubt whether the Messiah could
appear in their drawing room with any chance of convincing them
they have really, really done wrong.
Somewhere
in all this, we should spare some unkind words word for Blair's
Cabinet colleagues, and his parliamentary party. However desperate
Labour MPs may be to cling to power - and they were desperate
enough to swallow a rotten war without blinking - it is long overdue
for his followers to call time on their leader.
Amid
all Blair's shameless deceits and shoddy transactions, only a
handful of Labour figures have broken ranks to say his behaviour
is unacceptable. True, this week more than 80 MPs abstained or
voted against his Education Bill. But that was mere politics,
Lefties flaunting their consciences.
Surely
there is some colleague out there with the guts to say: "Prime
Minister, you can't do this", when Blair's acolytes prove
to have concealed his dirty peerage deals even from Labour's Party
Treasurer.
Deceived
I
may be on weaker ground than some to denounce Tony Blair, because
I once believed that he was indeed a different and better kind
of politician. I thought that he deserved his election victory
in 1997, and that the Tories did not deserve to win in 2001. Others,
perhaps more perceptive than me, were never deceived, and are
today vindicated.
Yet,
for those who supported Blair in the past, as well as for those
who never did, today he stands naked. His conduct shows that,
supremely skilful politician as he once was, he is no longer fit
to occupy his office. He has become a mockery of the man who embraced
his family on the steps of Downing Street almost a decade ago.
It
may be argued that the Honours scandal is a small thing, alongside
the catastrophe of Iraq. But if this does not sink Blair's premiership,
it should. He is personally and absolutely responsible for what
has been done. He has thus forfeited honour, dignity and any right
to be believed by the rest of us about whether this is Friday
or Saturday.
Soon,
he and his wife will quit the stage and set about selling themselves
in the marketplace for whatever they can fetch. That, at least,
will be honest prostitution on their time, not ours. It cannot
start too soon.
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