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
A
year ago, Britain's streets were swarming with police. The great
mystery of life is: where are they all today?
By
Tom Utley - Daily Mail, July 7, 2006
I
have two vivid memories of the aftermath of the London bombings,
a year ago today. One is of the astonishing emptiness of the Tube.
For at least a week after the attacks, I often had an entire carriage
to myself, where before I had been squashed in like a pressed
ham.
As
the days passed, of course, my fellow Londoners woke up to the
fact that life had to go on - and that the risk of being slaughtered
on the Tube was only a little greater than the chance of winning
the Lottery jackpot. After a fortnight, my carriage was as packed
and sweaty as before.
But
my other memory, and the one that I want to write about, is of
a capital absolutely swarming with police. I was amazed. Where
had they all sprung from?
Until
July 7 last year, I had lived in my South London suburb for nearly
20 years, and I swear to you that I had never once - not once
- seen or head a policeman walking up my street. Certainly, I
had seen dozens of offers swooshing up in their cars, usually
a day or two after the burglary or mugging they had come to investigate.
But no coppers on foot. None at all.
That
was before July 7.
A
couple of days after the atrocities, however, there were two police
officers trudging up and down the platforms of my local station,
West Norwood. It was the same at every stop on my way to work:
Tulse Hill, Herne Hill, Peckham Rye ... oh, never mind.
Frightening
London
Bridge, my terminus, was positively heaving with officers - many
of them wearing body armour and carrying sub-machine guns. I will
not pretend that their presence comforted me. Armed police always
look very foreign and frightening to me. But the sheer numbers
of them did make me think: what an awful lot of police officers
there are in the capital. And what on Earth do they all do for
the rest of the time, when there isn't a national emergency to
cope with?
I
hate to sound like an old bore, but I spent much of my childhood
in a Berkshire village, now a small town, where every single one
of us knew the local bobby, and he knew all of us. He was called
PC Gutteridge, and to us children he as both an authority figure
and a bit of a joke.
He
was a joke only because all the young of Kintbury found his name
terribly funny. Don't ask me why? Children are very cruel - and
I apologise immediately to any readers called Gutteridge, which
I now realise is a perfectly sensible name. But I remember collapsing
in fits of giggles every time I say to him: "Good morning,
Mr Gutteridge."
He
would look at me perplexedly and answer: "Good morning, Tommy."
(All right. In those days I was Tommy. Today I am strictly Tom.)
I
don't know what Mr Gutteridge's hours of work were, but he always
seemed to be around, from early morning to late at night. I can
still remember the tick of his bicycle wheels, and the clump of
his boots, lulling me to sleep at night. You didn't have to look
out of the window to know who it was, pushing his bike up Kintbury
High Street. There is no football in the world that sounds quite
like a bobby on the beat.
If
ever a crime was committed in Kintbury - and in my idyllic childhood
that was very seldom - Mr Gutteridge would know immediately who
was guilty. Sometimes a cuff round the ear would suffice. On rare
occasions, there would be an arrest and a summons to the magistrate's
court in Newbury.
Why
can't we have policing like that any more?
I
felt like screaming with frustration this week, when I read the
story of Det. Superintendent John Fox. He was the child protection
officer, with an impeccable record, who had the courage to confront
a bunch of young hooligans who had thrown a stick at his car.
He seized one of them by the collar - and, for his pains, he was
arrested and made to wait 14 months for a two-day trial before
justice was finally done and he was acquitted.
Sudden
But
it is not only this fatuous political correctness which inhibits
proper policing. Nor is it that the police are short of manpower
- as witness the sudden appearance of thousands of officers in
Central London a year ago this week. I looked up the figure only
yesterday, and the Metropolitan Police has no fewer than 31,000
officers on its payroll. So where are they all? They appeared
in their thousands after July 7. But less than three weeks later,
they had all melted away.
I
know how to find a traffic warden, in about 20 seconds flat. All
I have to do is dash into the dry-cleaner to pick up my suit and
half-a-dozen of them are swarming all over my car. But a policeman
when you need him?
The
trouble is that so many of them are sitting in patrol cars or
helicopters, or staring at CCTV screens or filling in forms at
the police station. What is wrong is that so very few of them
are on the beat. In my time as a journalist, I endured more than
50 party conferences - Conservative, Labour, Liberal and LIb-Dem.
At every single one of them, I have heard speakers - either on
the platform or the conference fringe - demanding more bobbies
on the beat Every speaker who has uttered those words has received
a rapturous round of applause.
Well,
it's blindingly obvious, isn't it? You don't have to be a genius
to work out that the very best way to tackle crime is to have
a visible police presence on every street in the land. Yet nothing
is ever done.
Promise
When
my children are mugged, which has happened four times in the past
five years, it is impossible to raise the faintest spark of interest
from the police. Occasionally, when I make a big fuss, they turn
up days later to take a statement - but only for the crime statistics,
not because they plan to investigate. These things happen dozens
of times a day in Central London, after all.
But
I am not entirely without hope. As I have mentioned before, I
am a tribal Tory, and I am forever scratching around for something
to admire about David Cameron. He has let me down on grammar schools,
taxation and the public sector. He has let me down on his promise
to pull conservative Euro-MPs out of the European People's Party
(an umbrella group of federalist, centre-Right parties in Brussels)
- the one pledge that he had it in his power to honour, as an
Opposition leader.
Bur
there is a simple idea, now bobbing around in Tory think-tanks,
which I earnestly hope will find its way into Mr Cameron's manifesto.
It comes from America - but despite that, it may hold the key
to beating crime over here.
The
idea is that police chiefs, or sheriffs, should be accountable
to local voters - and not to that farcical organisation, the Home
Office, as they are now. If that happens, then the next time somebody
breaks a promise to put more bobbies on the beat, we can just
sack him - and elect somebody else who will actually do it.
I
don't pretend that this will be the answer to terrorism. I simply
don't understand the workings of the Islamic fundamentalist mind.
But I do know that every household in the land would be happier
and safer for the steady clump, clump, clump of Mr Gutteridge's
boots in the night.
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