Silent Majority Speaks

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

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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.

April 9, 2006 (1065 days since war ended)

Death Toll: 2349US - 103UK - >60,000? 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

STOP PRESS

Murder of a good citizen

Tough on crime?

Comment - Daily Mail, April 14, 2006

Raymond Gange understood very well why millions of law-abiding citizens no longer feel safe in the street or even in their own homes. In a string of campaigning letters to his local paper, he warned again and again of the folly of being soft on crime and urged tougher sentencing 'before it is too late'.

His words were grimly prophetic. This week, a court heard how Mr Gange was set upon by a gang of known thugs and stamped to death, simply because he happened to cross their path. One of his killers had been freed from jail just two days earlier, released on bail while awaiting trial on other violence charges., Another of his murderers walked from court only the day before, having been given a conditional discharge for criminal damage.

They're not sorry Letter from Philip Codd, Davyhulme, Manchester - Daily Mail, April 14, 2006 Burglars and yobs don't go to prison, murderers spend fewer than 30 months behind bars, rapists don't get locked up and now even wife-batterers will get only a caution - if they show remorse. When I was a prison officer, I remember vividly that I never saw remorse from any of the inmates - unless it was a calculated, callous lie, designed to achieve some-thing for the yob involved. If an inmate wanted to use the phone, he told me his girl friend had 'loat' her baby and he was worried about her. If I said 'no', he would approach another officer claiming his mother had suffered a fall and he wanted to check how she was. If that officer said 'no', he tried a third officer with a tale about a father 'near death' or something similar. Inmates do admit remorse - but only when it will get them what they want. True remorse? Don't make me laugh.

So a decent family man becomes one more casualty of a criminal justice system that no longer seems capable of fulfilling its most basic function: protecting the public.

Nottingham jeweller Marion Bates, City banker John Monckton, London teacher Robert Symonds ... all killed by criminals who were jailed but released early. The killers of schoolgirl Maryann Lenaghan were on probation. And that is to say nothing of victims who have been raped, mugged, burgled or assaulted by convicts freed to strike again.

Yet it doesn't have to be like this. When Michael Howard was Home Secretary in 1993, he insisted that 'prison works', introduced tougher sentences and cut crime by 18% - an achievement no successor has come close to repeating. But then, the emphasis today is all the other way.

Only two weeks ago, judges and magistrates were ordered to keep more muggers and burglars out of jail, the latest example of leniency relentlessly promoted by this Government, even though two-thirds of those give community sentences reoffend. How very different it is in America, where a combination of more prisons, mandatory sentences and zero tolerance has cut crime drastically.

Here? Nobody listens to the message of Raymond Gange. Criminals laugh at the law. Justice is mocked. And the public is fobbed off with New Labour's cynically empty boast of being 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime'.

Murder of a good citizen

B A C K

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