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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November
16 2006 (1281 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2863 US - 125 UK - >650,000? civilians - 25 media
November
29, 2006 (1294 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2885 US - 126 UK - >650,000? civilians - 25 media
Tom's
parents say he wouldn't have been killed if his attackers had
been better-educated. I disagree. Too many young people today
have no morals or fear of the law. That's called ANARCHY
by
Kwasi Kwarteng
Former
Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Brent East, ex-chairman
of the Bow Group and a close friend of the murdered city lawyer,
Tom ap Rhys Price
Daily
Mail, November 29, 2006
My
friend, (31 year-old) Tom ap Rhys Price, was murdered in northwest
London on his way home from work, I still can't believe that a
man who was so gentle, mild and considerate could meet such a
violent end. As students, we had both gone to Trinity College,
Cambridge, in October 1993, and for two years we had tutorials
together.
Tom
was bright and inquiring. He had much more patience than me when
it came to ancient philosophy. He was very keen on classical art
sculptures and architecture from the ancient world. He went on
to be a clever, hardworking lawyer with a promising future.
If
young people are rude, blame adults
Letter
from Eleanor Kirby, Crowthorne, Berks. - Daily Mail, November
29, 2006
They
say your schooldays are the best days of your life, and
to an extent, I agree. But there are times when I'd rather
be a fox being chased by hounds.
Most
adults seem to think teenagers are drunken troublemakers
with no respect for others. Apparently, we also waste
our lives and don't work hard enough. I'd like to challenge
these misconceptions. Teenagers are misrepresented by
the 'Asbo-loving alcoholics' stereotype - there's more
to us than hoodies, alcohol and weird hair-styles.
But
we care a lot more about politics and religion than we're
made out to do. We like being asked about world problems,
and we have some good ideas about how to sort them out.
We believe we can make a difference, that we can improve
the world around us. We are intelligent and generally
hard-working. We've workout out that this world we live
in has practically destroyed itself through greed. As
a result, teenagers support fair trade and justice charities.
We understand that the likelihood is that adults will
not talk to us about these things because they believe
us 'too young and irresponsible' to be of any use. This
is why we can appear rude and disrespectful. If we were
given a little more respect, we'd give more to adults.
We do have opinions that should be represented in our
'democratic' society as much as any adults. We could bring
a lot to the world - but will you let us?
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When
he was killed, we thought his murderers were opportunist muggers
who had resorted to violence on a whim. However, as their trial
unfolded this week, we have learned that the truth was much more
chilling.
His
killers, Donnel Carty, 19, and Delano Brown, 18, had a history
of violence and had committed hundreds of crimes. They were members
of a gang called 'the Kensal Green Tribe', who detectives believe
might have been responsible for up to 150 muggings in seven months.
At the height of their crimes, they were attacking 15 people a
day.
Violence
was their stock in trade. They revelled in it and celebrated this
lifestyle by singing rap songs with lyrics that talked of 'shanking'
and 'boring' - slang words for stabbing - anyone unlucky enough
to get in their way. What instilled in these youths such a disregard
for other people's lives, and how can we try to stop such horrific
attacks in the future?
Tim's
parents must be admired for their belief that a better education
would have helped to prevent their son being killed. But I strongly
disagree.
Patronising
My
worry is that after many decades of liberal sentencing, the terms
of imprisonment passed out to such thugs fail to reflect the awful
nature of the crimes committed. To suggest that this pair's utter
disregard for human life was the result of their deprived background
is patronising and insulting. Such a suggestion implies that they
can't help behaving like mindless vicious thugs.
There
are hundreds of thousands of people who manage to stay on the
right side of the law while living in a far worse environment
than the one in which Carty and Brown grew up. To suggest that
such mindless violence is the only possible outcome of being raised
on an inner-city estate by a single mother offends the law-abiding
majority of people brought up in similar circumstances.
Brown
got a string of GCSE's (in Maths, English and PE, among others)
and he attended Uxbridge College, where he gained a qualification
to teach sport to children. He might have pursued a useful career
but was thrown out of college for making violent threats. Carty
obtained no GCSE's, but I don't seen how it would have made any
difference if he had.
I
simply don't see how more education would have made them less
violent. These tearaways had absolutely no fear of being caught.
They thought they were invincible. They lived in a world beyond
good and evil. In their own view, they could do whatever they
wanted. The more people they attacked without being caught, the
more confident they became of being able to get away with it.
This
is society's fault.
Until
he was sentenced yesterday, the worst punishment Carty ever received,
despite committing so many violent offences, was a conditional
discharge for assaulting a police officer and a caution last December
for possessing cannabis. Brown's record was spotless, even though
detectives believe that the pair could have been responsible for
'scores' of attacks.
Such
lawlessness is nothing but anarchy. Thomas
Hobbes, the 12th-century English philosopher, described anarchy
as a state of perpetual war of all against all, where no morality
exists and everyone lives in constant fear. Such is the state
of parts of London and Britain's other large cities today.
Many
people are asking how did things get so bad. I am convinced that
trendy sociological views about morality and crime are to blame.
A society that eliminates all sense of personal responsibility
and all sense of right and wrong quickly starts to create a world
that Hobbes described.
If
you throw into the mixture an increasingly bureaucratic police
force, hamstrung by political correctness and a crumbling prison
infrastructure, which forces judges to give criminals shorter
sentences because there aren't enough cells to squeeze them all
into, this anarchy spreads.
Carty
and Brown attacked innocent people because they realised the law
no longer exists to deter potential offenders. The prospect of
going to prison never entered their heads because they were convinced
that they would never even be caught.
For
this reason, the minimum terms handed out to them - 17 years for
Brown and 21 years for Carty - will have no deterrent effect on
the many others who think they can get away with murder.
Meaningless
This
is why the Blairite mantra of 'tough on crime, tough on the causes
of crime' is so meaningless. We know exactly what caused this
crime: greed, an absence of any sense of right and wrong and the
youths' absolute confidence that they were not going to get caught.
How can you get tough on this? You can only get ;tough on crime'
once the criminals have been caught.
If
you can't actually catch criminals and allow young people to run
amok without consequences, you have anarchy - where you can't
be tough on anything. Instead. We need to thrust the idea of individual
responsibility back to the very centre of British life. For years,
social commentators have explained away vicious acts by claiming
they are a reaction against inequality, expressions of envy of
big City bonuses or the consequences of perceived racism.
What
ridiculous arguments. Why can't we blame criminals and punish
them instead. Instead of letting people get off with lighter sentences
because we have too few prison places, we should invest in building
more prisons, then do the very best we can to rehabilitate them.
Discipline
The
tragedy is that any action taken now is already too late. The
absence of any meaningful discipline in schools and the lawlessness
and arrogant sense of invincibility we see in today's criminals
is a result of decades of soft penal policies, promoted by 'enlightened'
judges and sociologists. Not to mention a police force whose confidence
has been undermined and which is drowning in a sea of form-filling
- and the absence of any meaningful discipline in schools.
People
are ready for tough measures. Honest, law-abiding people of all
ethnic groups and religious denominations are beginning to tire
of the hand-wringing, cringing attitude of the liberal establishment.
The law was made for the people, not for lawyers or judges. If
people no longer feel safe, then surely sentences should reflect
that.
One
of the main obstacles to reform is the human rights legal mafia.
More than 30 convicted killers have won reduction in their sentences
under the Human Rights Act in the past six years. One judge, Sir
David Calvert-Smith, showed the way when he condemned the man
who killed London banker John Monkton in his own home in Chelsea
two years ago and ordered him to serve at least 36 years.
Of
course, my friend Tom's killer, Carty, hasn't been sentenced to
life in prison - just 21 years. Even if he serves his entire sentence,
he will be a free man by the time he is 40. Meanwhile, Brown will
be in his mid-30s when he is released.
While
justice of some sort has been done in this case, the anarchy and
arrogant impunity we see on the streets will take much longer
to eradicate.
I
have
always thought capital punishment is a step too far, as it puts
too much power in the hands of the state. Yet, faced with increasing
anarchy, it is not surprising that more and more people think
it is the only real deterrent left.
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