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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June
29, 2006 (1146 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2529 US - 113 UK - >60,000? civilians - 25 media
Prison
works ... It's letting people out that doesn't
Andrew
Alexander - Daily Mail, July 7, 2006
Once
upon a time, when I was much younger, I used to think how grim
it must be to live in a country, a dictatorship for example, where
the forces of law and order were regarded with hatred, ridicule
and contempt. Now, alas, I know.
We
have become a nation where the police outrage ordinary citizens
through daily stories of blundering, inactivity and their inability
to distinguish between criminals and victims. At times they seem
determined to bring stupidity into disrepute.
As
for our judges - drawn from a curiously unworldly class once miscalled
Hampstead liberals - the public must constantly also wonder whose
side they are on. The lightness of their sentencing stems not
just from a shortage of prison places, but a belief that imprisonment
does not work.
They
can prove it, you see. Criminals emerge from prison and commit
more crimes. The punishment does not work. The fools! To use the
Latin which lawyers enjoy, they accept post hoc ergo propter
hoc - what happens after an event is caused by it.
To
the ordinary law abiding citizens, cause and effect are clearer.
Of course prison does not work if the sentences are too short
or conditions too easy. Softness incentivises the criminal. He
reckons that conviction is unlikely anyway given the low detection
rate and that a subsequent soft sentence makes crime worth the
risk.
I
once asked a judge why the courts did not make use of heavy fines.
But they would not pay them, came the feeble reply. In fact courts
can either imprison non-payers or, significantly, send in bailiffs
to seize the offender's goods - his beloved car, all his electronic
gear and anything else. All the courts need is determination.
The
Home Office acknowledges that shortage of prison space is making
difficulties. Yet it has scarcely touched its prison building
budget for a couple of years. But in any case, why not use some
of the more inhospitable islands around our coast for prison camps?
We,, you seem then it would be hard for prisoners to see their
families. That would be no bad thing. Less contact with criminal
fathers would be a benefit for children, not a loss.
We
should not, unfortunately, look to new Home Secretary John Reid
in the hope of sensible measures about crime. He promises to match
his hapless predecessors.
The
incompetence of the Home Offices has been revealed in various
instances because individuals in the department have leaked documents.
They show, in Reid's words, that the department is 'not fit for
purpose' - an odd and pompous phrase, incidentally. Why not just
incompetent?
So
what does he do? He reaches for a law - not one which will improve
Home Office efficiency but one which will keep it secret by imposing
new penalties on 'whistle-blowers'. He wants to shoot the messengers.
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