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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May 31, 2005 (761 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,657 US - 89 UK - >6,164?
Iraqi - >17,300 civilians - 25 media
June 17, 2005 (779 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,716 US - 89 UK -
>6,164? Iraqi - >17,300? civilians - 25 media
June 26, 2005 (788 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,737 US - 89 UK -
>6,164? Iraqi - >17,300? civilians - 25 media
July 6, 2005 (798 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,751 US - 90 UK -
>6,164? Iraqi - >17,300? civilians - 25 media
August 24, 2005 (847 days since
war ended)
Death Toll: 1,869 US - 93 UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
September
29, 2005 (883 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 1,928 US - 96 UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
October
11, 2005 (895 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 1,956 US - 96UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
October
20, 2005 (904 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 1,986 US - 97UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
October
25, 2005 (909 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 2,001 US - 97UK - >>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.
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December
1, 2005 (946 days since Iraq war ended)
Death Toll: 2,114 US - 98UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
The
Academy of RESPECT
It
was David Cameron's first port of call as the new Tory leader
- an inspirational inner city project turning 'bad boys' into
model pupils
By
Melanie Phillips - Daily Mail, December 9, 2005
Britain's
burgeoning culture of yobbery, disorder and violence has left
politicians wringing their hands in despair. Many schools find
that teaching is all but impossible given the level of disruption
and violence, not just from pupils but from parents.
The
jails are full to bursting. The persistent under-achievement of
black boys in school continues to cause concern, as does their
over-representation in prison. The Government's 'respect' agenda
has spawned myriad speeches, committees and even a respect 'czar',
and yet makes no difference.
But
there is one local initiative which appears to be making a difference
to these problems. What's more, it is based on simple, obvious
principles. Yet so deeply do these rub against the grain of fashionable
thinking that, rather than being widely imitated, the project
is regarded in official circles with suspicion and even disdain.
But
not by David Cameron, who on Wednesday chose to go there, on his
first official visit as the new Tory leader, to launch his Social
Justice Policy Group. In the East London district of Plaistow,
in an anonymous-looking building at 4 pm on three afternoons a
week or on a Saturday morning, you will be greeted by an unfamiliar
sight - a group of small boys, all of them black, standing smartly
to attention in rows while a stocky, pugnacious-looking black
man barks questions, instructions and homilies at them from the
front.
This
is Ray Lewis and his Eastside Young Leaders' Academy. Lewis used
to be governor of a young offenders institution. Distressed beyond
measure by the relentless procession of young black men drifting
through his jail to a lifetime of crime, he finally had enough
of presiding over this assembly-line of wasted potential. He decided
to break the vicious cycle of black under-achievement and criminality.
Two
years ago, following the example of a similar project in Louisiana,
he started his academy as a kind of supplementary school for young
black boys with promise who are in danger of falling into delinquency
and prison. He takes about 50 boys aged between eight and 16 who
are recommended by their teachers because, though bright, they
are prime candidates for exclusion through violence or disruption.
His
team consists of ten tutors, three 'leadership instructors' who
collect the boys from their schools, a cook and a full-time counsellor.
I spoke to a group of eight to 12 year-olds at the academy. They
were bright, keen, polite, articulate and neatly turned out. They
all sat up straight, and, above all, they were calm.
Yet
not long ago they had been the bad boys of their schools. They
fought, they bullied, they swore, they smashed up the schools
and set fire to them, they barricaded teachers into classrooms,
they were diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. Yet in a
short time they had been transformed from jail fodder into model
pupils. So how does Lewis pull off this feat of alchemy?
He
fills in some of the terrible gaps in the boys' lives at home
and school. First and most important is that he raises their expectations
of what they might achieve. He doesn't want to hear about them
becoming DJs or footballers; he expects them to go to university
and into top professions.
Accordingly,they
are taken on outings to big companies or institutions to which
they might aspire - Tate and Lyle, the Royal Navy at Portsmouth,
the House of Commons, Oxford University. They are hand-picked
for intellectual promise, but most have never known an orderly
life or self-discipline. So along with Maths
and English, Lewis and his tutors teach the boys social skills
- how to eat, how to speak when talking to people at dinner, how
to make a cup of tea, how to talk to women, tidiness, basic manners,
health and hygiene.
The
second crucial component is discipline. On the basis that they
can only build self-control, self-confidence and achievement if
they respect adult authority, he makes them conform uncompromisingly
to very strict rules. Each session begins with a roll call where
the boys stand in drill lines before marching off to classes.
They are not allowed to slouch in chairs, are told where to put
their hands and to make eye contact with the tutors.
When
they walk, they do so in a straight line with no deviations and
no talking. If they say 'yeah' or 'right' they are corrected.
"After a few months," says Lewis, "all of them
are expected to be able to speak to an adult with humility, honesty
and courtesy."
What
Lewis is dealing with is not just the disintegration of family
life but also catastrophic failure of the education system. The
boys themselves speak scathingly of their schools, where they
describe a horrifying degree of sloppy practice, indifference
and low expectations among teachers.
"At
school, they'll give you 50% for work that you should only get
1% for," said one boy. "Here, they are straight up and
tell you if you have to do something again."
"
At school, the teacher puts work on the board but half the time
he's just reading a paper. When you ask for help he shouts at
you," said another.
According
to Lewis, many senior teachers have no idea of progress, or lack
of it, of individual pupils or if they are getting into trouble
- until their behaviour gets so bad it can no longer be ignored.
"At school, these kids are not corrected," he said.
"Some parents are told that their children are top of their
class, but this may be a support class. If the child has turned
up on time, that's considered good by his teachers. But that's
not even on the starting block for me."
Unlike
in those schools were teachers clearly expect bad behaviour and
thus lose the battle before it even starts, at Eastside good behaviour
is not even an issue. It is simply taken for granted. There are
no excuses. "At school they are given a lot of chances,"
said Lewis. "If they do something wrong they might be barred
from a school trip, say, but then they apologise and go back on
the trip. And so they know they can get away with whatever they
do. Here, it's not like that. If they don't do what's expected,
they don't go on the trip."
According
to Lewis, the fact that he and his staff are black is crucial.
High expectations and tough demands from strong black characters
creates respect among black children. What Lewis is effectively
doing is giving these boys father figures to look up to, the only
ones may of them have ever known. "I treat all these boys
as my sons," he says, "and we believe that the constant
practice of good habits makes such behaviour permanent."
It's
not just the boys who are held uncompromisingly to account, but
their mothers too who all pay a small fee.
"Most of the time the parents are the problem," said
Lewis. "I tell them they have to be here on time, they have
to turn up to meetings. They don't have order at home. They don't
eat together; nothing happens there that can be described as family
life. So we work with the parent as much as with the child."
"We
have a family meeting once a month. We might gently point out
various things to them like they cannot be having sex with a guy
in the bedroom with the child in the next room, or that maybe
a nine-year-old should not be going to bed at 10.30, or what are
they seeing on their PlayStations. We throw out six to eight boys
per year and always because the mother has refused to get involved.
I'm not a baby-sitting service."
Some
local schools even asked Ray to show them how he does it. "The
first time we went to one school we showed the head how we take
a class. We're using a style that was used years ago. I said to
the boys: 'We're learning today abut how to be successful, now
shut up, put your magazines away, my name is Ray Lewis and your
mouth opens only if I say so.'
"They
very quickly learned by my manner that I was there to provide
them with knowledge and not to be messed about. At the end of
the lesson I said, if you don't want me to come back I won't,
because I'm not getting paid. To a boy, they all said please come
back."
But
far from emulating Lewis's example, most local teachers and Newham
Council appear to recoil from this approach. They take one look
at the roll-call and hiss 'boot camp'. You can see why it regards
him as a threat to the status quo. He shows up its own chronic
failure as an education authority and challenges all their beliefs.
All the usual fashionable excuses for boys' failure are given
very short shrift indeed.
"I
don't believe in attention deficit disorder," Lewis declares.
"If these boys can concentrate on their PlayStations for
hours they can listen to me for half an hour. Self-esteem? Our
boys have got too MUCH self-esteem. We need to take this
out of them and then we build them up. We love them and we believe
in them, which is why I won't listen to this rubbish."
What
Lewis is doing is hardly rocket science. It's just plain common
sense, old-fashioned teaching and a robust attitude towards wrongdoing
and personal responsibility.But it works.
To
Lewis, the shattered lives of black boys amounts to a state of
emergency. The rest of us might wonder why public money is being
spent on people who, far from acknowledging what they must do
to address it, continue to be its principle cause.
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