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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December
28, 2005 (959 days since Iraq war ended)
Death Toll: 2,172 US - 98UK - >>30,000?
Iraqi - 25 media
Janyary
10, 2006 (972 days since Iraq war ended)
Death Toll: 2,209 US - 98UK - >>30,000?
Iraqi - 25 media
ALL
CARROT - NO STICK
RESPECT?
This only deserves contempt
Respect?
No, just rehash
Analysis
by Edward Heathcoat Amory - Daily Mail, Jan. 11, 2006
Tony
Blair lauched yet another anti-social behaviour initiative yesterday,
a 44-page document with the same failed ideas he's peddled for
nearly a decade. He even mentioned a plan to cut housing benefit
for badly-behaved families, first proposed by Frank Field in 1997,
and last heard of as having been dropped by the Prime Minister
in 2003.
There
were, of course, a few revisions and the odd new intitative -
'house closure orders', a 'national parenting academy8', police
hauled in front of 'prople's courts' - designed to catch the headlines
after which they will fade away like all the other schemes. Here
is an analysis of how all of Mr Blair's anti-yob intitatives have
either failed or been dropped before they were even brought in.
Parenting
Orders
First
introduced in 1998, parenting orders can force parents to attend
classes - or residential courses - on parenting skills. Breaching
an order is a criminal offence and can lead to fines. So far,
only 1,425 of these orders have been used so their effect after
eight years is vanishingly small. Now Mr Blair wants to extend
the scheme to allow schools to apply to magistrates to impose
orders on parents who won't help discipline their children. But
headmasters are unlikely to want to waste time with the courts,
let along antagonise their most difficult and aggressive parents.
Verdict:
Ineffectual
Fixed-Penalty
notices
First
raised by Mr Blair in his famous remarks from 2000: "A thug
might think twice about kicking in your gate ... if he thought
he might get picked up by the police, taken to a cash point and
asked to pay an on-the-spot fine." Ridiculed by police, penalty
notices were introduced in a watered-down form. A government study
found that a third of those given fixed penalties for disorderly
behaviour while drunk did not pay up. Now Mr Blair wants to raise
the fines under the scheme, despite an official pilot study concluding
that this would mean even fewer offenders paying it.
Verdict:
Watered down and ineffectual
Anti-social
behaviour orders
Asbos
were one of the first weapons in Mr Blair's anti-yob campaign,
and since 1999, around 6,500 have been issued. Each Asbo is unique,
imposing different restrictions on an offender - where they can
go, who they can see, etc., - and breaching the conditions is
a criminal offence. But courts have consistently failed to enforce
them. This week Mr Blair promised to improve Asbos and even made
the ludicrous proposal that they could be used to tackle 'enviro-crime'.
Verdict:
Failed
Night
courts
First
raised by the Prime Minister in 2001, and much trumpeted by ministers
during that year's general election, night courts are a US idea,
where offenders are marched straight into court and tried then
and there. Barely thught through when Mr Blair suggested them,
a pilot project was set up to save face. In 2003 it quietly reported
that the scheme cost £3,257 more per defendant, and that
only 4% of those seen by the courts were youths, the group that
Mr Blair had intended to target. The plan was shelved.
Verdict:
Dropped
Uniforms
for community offenders
This
goes back to a suggestion from Mr Blair in 2001 that communities
should propose punishment for offenders and then watch them doing
the work. But when Home Office minister Hazel Blears argued last
summer that community offenders should have to wear some kind
of uniform it was seized on as a new suggestion and universally
derided. Within two days, the idea had apparently been dropped.
But that didn't stop it creeping into yesterday's Respect document,
disguised as the Community Payback scheme, complete with high
visibility pilots - the same Blears proposal that we all thought
had been dumped.
Verdict:
Derided but not dropped
Child
curfews
Since
2004 police have been able to designate area curfews, banning
children under 16 from entering parts of town or cities during
the evening and night. In July last year, however, the High Court
ruled that it would be a breach of the Human Rights Act for police
to use force to remove children from within the curfew zone, effectively
rendering the legislation pointless.
Verdict:
Thrown out by courts
*******************
RESPECT?
This only deserves contempt
Comment
- Daily Mail, January 11, 2006
With
stunts and soundbites, photo opportunities galore, eye-catching
initiatives and Ministers in full cry, New Labour proclaims its
doctrine of 'respect' across the land. And yet again the public
can only wonder at the glaring contrast between rhetoric and reality.
Yes,
the Government has reason to be concerned when so many communities
are blighted by yobbery and vandalism. So do we all. Isn't it
shameful then that the sheer scale of this exercise is matched
only by the vacuousness of its content?
Some
ideas now being trumpeted have already been tried and found wanting,
such as the plan to increase the level of instant fines imposed
on drunks and thugs - even though a third of those penalised so
far haven't bothered to pay.
Then
there is the promise of another crackdown on truanting, even though
the Government has already spent millions trying - and failing
- to solve the problem. And are we really to believe that other
'respect' schemes - such as the parenting academy - will make
a difference?
Yet
while such 'solutions' positively invite scepticism, it can be
argued in Mr Blair's defence that his diagnosis of our social
malaise is in many ways spot on. He is right, for example, about
the disruption out-of-control children cause in the classroom.
He is right,abut the miseries inflicted on neighbourhoods by problem
families. He is right to point out that police might not bother
to arrest a yob who spits at an old lady in the street, because
of the time it would take in paperwork. And he is right to say
there should be more sport for young people.
But
if he is so good at identifying the problems, how come his own
Government has made each and every one of them so much worse?
Take school discipline. Didn't New Labour make it nearly impossible
for heads to expel disruptive pupils, a policy that provoked near
anarchy in some classrooms before it was watered down?
That
is only the beginning. While other EU governments encourage marriage
as the bedrock of social stability, New Labour discriminates against
married couples in the tax and benefits system - even though Britain
has Europe's highest rate of family breakdown.
Who
cares about evidence that children from broken homes are more
likely to suffer educational failure or slide into drugs and crime?
Not this Government, which never allows facts to get in the way
of its politically correct prejudices.
Armies
of experts say 24-hour drinking will encourage crime and disease.
They warn more casinos will cause gambling addiction and social
dislocation. They point out that cannabis causes mental illness,
leads to harder drugs, and may end in criminality or death.
Now
look at Blair's Britain; pubs and clubs open all hours, cannabis
declassified with disastrous results, mega casinos on the way
(after 27 private meetings between Government and gaming moguls).
And the folly goes on.
More
sport for young people, trumpets our Prime Minister - the very
same man who allowed 2,540 school playing fields to be covered
in concrete. Set the police free to arrest yobs, he says - having
tied the force down with so much red tape.
Respect,
respect, respect, he preaches - this when he shows such contempt
for the Commons, the Lords, the BBC, the Civil Service and every
other institution that helps hold society together.
The
sad truth is that this Prime Minister had done more than anyone
to erode the values Britain once took for granted. And it will
take more than yesterday's rehashed, recycled, heavily spun schemes
to undo the damage.
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