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 answeer 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
|
May
11, 2005 (741 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 1,610 US - 88 UK - >6,164? Iraqi - >17,300 civilians
- 25 media
May
31, 2005 (761 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 1,657 US - 89 UK - >6,164? Iraqi - >17,300 civilians
- 25 media
June
3 , 2005 (765 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 1,670 US - 89 UK - >6,164? Iraqi - >17,300 civilians
- 25 media
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.
|
Tony's
cronies and peerages up for sale
Stephen
Glover - Daily Mail, June 7, 2005
Sometimes
one wonders in the small hours whether Tony Blair is really as
untrustworthy as some of us have suggested he is. At the beginning
of a new Parliament there is a natural feeling to want to think
better of him and to ask oneself whether one may have been a little
hard on him in the past.
It
is true that New Labour's eight years in office have been dogged
with scandals, from the Bernie Ecclestone affair to Cheriegate.
And all this after Mr Blair came to power promising transparency
and to be whiter than white. Then, of course, there were the lies
and cover-ups before the Iraq war which have contributed so much
to public disillusion.
Yet,
though tainted by these scandals, the Prime Minister has never
quite been fully implicated. Unquestionably those around him -
Alastair Campbell, for one - were more than a little economical
with the truth. But is it possible that Mr Blair himself, though
happy to sail dangerously close to the wind, was in the end not
personally responsible? It is a sobering thought in the early
hours of the morning.
And
then something happens that destroys one's new-found hopes and
suggests that any idea that Mr Blair might have been misjudged
is hopelessly naive. The Sunday Times revealed over the week-end
that he has quietly - which means without consulting anybody -
axed an 83-year-old committee designed to prevent political parties
rewarding their donors with peerages, knighthoods and other honours.
This,
please note, was not a story that has been taken up with much
enthusiasm by most of the rest of the Press. As for the BBC, I
believe it ignored it altogether. But the story actually shows
Mr Blair and this Government in a most damning light. If the abolition
of this committee is a scandal, what wen on despite the committee's
existence during New Labour's reign was an outrage. Yet almost
no one seems to care.
According
to research which no one has been able to gainsay, three-quarters
of the individuals who have given more than £50,000 to the
Labour Party since 2001 have received an honour. Every donor who
has given more than £1 million to the party has been given
a peerage or a knighthood. In two cases, donors have been rewarded
with Government posts.
Some
80% of the money raised from individuals by New Labour has come
from people whom it has honoured. According to Suzanne Evans,
a statistician at Birkbeck College, London, New Labour donors
are three times more likely to be honoured than Tory ones.
Lord
Sainsbury, the science minister, donated £13.5 million to
New Labour and was created a life peer in 1997. He has held the
same junior post for 7 years, longer than anyone else in an equivalent
position in Government. Evidently, as new Labour's main donor,
he is simply unsackable.
A
more recent beneficiary of Tony Blair's patronage is Lord Drayson,
the founder of pharmaceutical company PowderJect. He gave £100,000
to the Labour Party before being given a life peerage last year,
whereupon he dug into his pocket for another £1 million
to add to the party's election fund, for which act of generosity
he has just been further rewarded with a junior ministerial post.
If
any of us were to read about a 21st century country in which a
substantial donation unfailingly bought someone a peerage, or
knighthood or even a position in the Government, we would rub
our eyes in disbelief and hoot with derision. Every schoolboy
knows - or, at any rate, used to - how at the beginning of the
17th century, James I raised cash by selling baronetcies, and
that David Lloyd George was censured in 1922 for selling honours.
Both men have been stigmatised by history. We like to think that
in our more enlightened age we have learnt how to behave better,
but we haven't. This corrupt country is our country, and we live
in it.
Clearly
the Honours Scrutiny Committee has been doing its job spectacularly
badly under New Labour. When its deliberations were leaked to
the Press 18 months ago, we had an insight into how a supposedly
independent committee had been lent on by the Government. Despite
assurances to the contrary, ministers were closely involved in
granting of honours that were said not to be political.
The
Honours Scrutiny Committee, set up after Lloyd George's excesses,
has been corrupted by New Labour. It has done nothing to thwart
the persistent rewarding of New Labour donors. Now, having undermined
the committee, Mr Blair has got rid of it altogether without even
bothering to tell anyone what has happened, or making any attempt
to explain himself.
The
powers of the Honours Scrutiny Committee have been passed to the
House of Lords appointments commission. It's supposed to scrutinise
the financial links only of candidates put forward by Mr Blair
and will not do so in the case of those recommended by ministers,
MPs or Labour fundraisers. In view of the corruption of the present
system, one can reasonably wonder whether names submitted by Mr
Blair will be properly investigated.
He
has, of course, been busy packing the House of Lords with his
own unelected supporters, as a result of which Labour has, for
the first time, achieved a majority in the second chamber. Having
abolished the right to vote for all but 92 hereditary peers, Mr
Blair is in the throes of creating a new House of Lords in which
his supine placemen will act as voting fodder for Government legislation.
Whatever the failings of the hereditary peers, they were at least
independently minded and not easily bullied by party managers.
Even
after eight years, isn't all this absolutely incredible? The Lords
is stuffed with Blairite stooges. A large donation to New Labour
will buy a seat there, or at any rate a knighthood, and, if you
are particularly generous, a job in Government. Yet no one - this
is the most depressing aspect of all - seems to think any of this
is particularly strange, or even noteworthy.
Believe
it or not, the abolition of the Honours Scrutiny Committee, which
in the days before New Labour worked with a degree of competence,
is now justified as an attempt to make the honours system 'more
open'. How cynical does one have to be to make such a preposterously
misleading claim? Only as cynical as Mr Blair. Look at what's
happened to Labour - party of democracy and the working man -
and weep.
I
shan't be lying awake in the small hours any longer worrying whether
I have been unfair to Tony Blair. This is a man who gives titles
and positions to fat cats for no other reason than that they bankroll
the party. He sweeps away a committee that once served a very
healthy purpose and which he has undermined.
And,
most tellingly of all, he does not bother to consult anyone or
tell anyone - from which we should deduce that he no longer cares
much about our good opinion, and will do almost anything to keep
New Labour in power.
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