Rescuing Democracy in the United Kingdom from our current Elected Dictatorship
|
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
|
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 |
The
Bill that could turn this country into a dictatorship
The
Melanie Phillips Column - Daily Mail, March 12, 2006
Forget
bloody revolutions, military coups or terrorist attacks. A stealth
weapon to destroy democracy is currently being deployed - in the
calm and sedate surroundings of the very cradle of that democracy
- which threatens to do the job while no one is looking.
It
is the tactic of political anaesthesia - sending the country to
sleep by a measure that sounds so unutterably tedious that the
very mention of its title induces a national loss of consciousness.
But when people eventually open their eyes, they find too late
that Parliament has been emasculated by the very government they
elected, and the democracy they took for granted all but extinguished.
People
are currently transfixed by scandals over Tessa Jowell, the sale
of peerages and undermining of our once-dispassionate Civil Service
- through brazen cronyism. There is rightful concern about the
damage all this is doing to the integrity of government. But while
attention is concentrated on these sundry excitements, those attempting
to draw attention to a measure which has the potential for destroying
Parliamentary democracy altogether have failed to ignite similar
outrage.
Tyranny
This
is because this proposed new law, the Legislative and Regulatory
Reform Bill which is currently chugging through the very Parliament
that it threatens to neuter, sounds like a dry and dreary bit
of back-room administration.
Far
from it. Its real title should surely be "The Abolition of
Parliament and Institution of Tyranny of a Lord Protector Bill".
That is not some flight of exaggerated fancy. It is precisely
what this Bill has the potential to bring about.
According
to the Government, it is nothing more than an attempt to remove
the burden upon business of official red tape by making it quicker
and easier to tackle unnecessary, outdated or over-complicated
regulation.
But
as critics have pointed out, the only red tape it will remove
is entirely necessary regulation of Parliamentary scrutiny. For
the Bill is drafted so widely that it gives the Government the
draconian power to amend legislation or enact new laws by ministerial
order without any Parliamentary debate at all.
The
implications of this cannot be overestimated. It means that ministers
could tear up or alter legislation or pass new laws at whim. They
could arbitrarily change the common law of the country. Tony Blair
could postpone the General Election and stay on in Downing Street
indefinitely.
The
Bill doesn't mean that any of these things would
happen, but it gives ministers the power to make them happen if
they wanted to. The safeguard of Parliament and the courts - the
essence of our Parliamentary democracy - would be almost wholly
overridden.The Bill is , in short, arguably
the biggest single threat to our freedom since Oliver Cromwell
dismissed the Rump Parliament in 1653 and assumed the powers of
a quasi-dictator as Lord Protector of England.
The
Cabinet Office Minister, Jim Murphy, has tried to pooh-pooh such
fears by claiming that the only measures on which ministers would
bypass Parliament would be 'minor' and 'technical'. The Bill would
only be used, he said, to implement Whitehall's 'simplification
plans' (don't laugh), legislate on 'uncontroversial' Law Commission
recommendations, and reform regulatory bodies.
Either
Mr Murphy doesn't understand his own Bill, or he is trying to
pull the wool over our eyes. For the Bill does not limit itself
to such measures.
The only things it will not allow ministers to do unilaterally
are create new jail sentences, or extend existing ones, to more
than two years, create new powers for forcible entry, search or
seizure, compel the giving of evidence and impose more taxes.
But it allows them to do everything else!
Abolish
No
fewer than six distinguished Cambridge law professors have been
sufficiently alarmed to warn that, in theory, the Bill would allow
ministers unilaterally to create the offence of incitement to
religious hatred which was recently thrown out of Parliament;
curtail or abolish jury trial, permit the Home Secretary to place
citizens under house arrest; allow the Prime Minister to sack
judges; rewrite the law on nationality and immigration; and abolish
what remains of Magna Carta.
To
which the Government says soothingly that all this is just so
much fevered nonsense because business leaders support the Bill.
Indeed, organisations such as the CBI and chambers of commerce
have displayed their customary absence of any political acumen
whatsoever in welcoming it.
The
burden of red tape is caused by the fact that too much unnecessary
and intrusive law is being passed. That's an argument for passing
less of it. But the Government is not proposing to do so. Instead,
it is giving itself the power to pass even MORE laws - but in
a different way, by ministers acting without the oversight of
Parliament. So, in fact, regulation is likely to increase - while
democratic oversight goes down the pan.
Mr
Murphy claims that the Bill will contain safeguards, such as limiting
these ministerial powers to 'uncontroversial' measures. But
who is to define what is controversial or whether any of the other
supposed safeguards have been met? Why, none other than the very
ministers who wish to assume these powers in the first place.
Worse still, the Bill can be used to destroy any of these safeguards.
For
if the Government wanted to remove them, it could use the Bill's
own provision to do so with-out having to get Parliament's approval.
The fact is that it is only Parliament that acts as our
safe-guard against government's abuse of its power - and it is
Parliament that this Bill will silence.
Cynicism
So
why hasn't there been a huge outcry? Passions rage over identity
cards, smoking bans and anti-terrorist measures which are all
seen as a threat to democracy. Yet as the Lib-Dem MP and law don
David Howarth has said, this Bill gives ministers the power -
if they so choose - to make carrying ID cards compulsory, outlaw
smoking in one's own home and alter the definition of terrorism,
which is already punishable by life imprisonment, to cover ordinary
political protest.
Where
are all those Labour backbenchers who normally scream blue murder
about the erosion of civil liberties but on this are strangely
silent? And where are the Tories? A couple of their MPs have been
performing sterling service opposing the Bill in the Commons.
But
why hasn't the leader of Her Majesty's Opposition been pitching
in to defend Parliamentary democracy? Or isn't this issue cuddly
enough for the touch-feely Cameroons? And where are the media
campaigns? Why isn't John Humphrys regularly pinning Mr Murphy
into a corner in the prime slot on the Today programme?
Partly,
it is because this is an abstract issue which lacks the visceral
thrill of the personality-based politics which so obsesses the
chattering classes and which is all about whether politicians
are on their way towards power or out of it.
But
there's surely something more disturbing at work here. On the
Left, concern for civil liberties seems to be restricted to perceived
threats to the 'rights' of criminals, terrorist suspects, asylum-seekers
and other marginalised figures. Mainstream traditions just don't
get the same attention.
More
widely, a corrosive cynicism caused by a government that has systematically
by-passed Parliament and torn up the constitution, has desensitised
the public to the danger to our system. Is this the way democracy
dies, not with a terrorist bang but a Westminster whimper?
If you have
suggestions for additional subjects, or material to include in the
pages linked to the subjects listed, please contact the webmaster.
