Silent
Majority Speaks
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 answeer 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
11, 2005 (741 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 1,610 US - 88 UK - >6,164? Iraqi - >17,300 civilians
- 25 media
May
31, 2005 (761 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 1,657 US - 89 UK - >6,164? Iraqi - >17,300 civilians
- 25 media
June
3 , 2005 (765 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 1,670 US - 89 UK - >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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A
new Europe
Editorial
- The Spectator - June 4, 2005
This
magazine has a good record of opposing the centralising treaties
of the EU. Alone in the media, The Spectator came out in
1985 against the single European Act, which marked the first big
expansion of the qualified majority vote. With a growing pack
at our heels, we then opposed the treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam,
Nice, and of course, we are pleased that this federalising 'constitution'
has been rejected by the French. Our jubilation is allayed, however,
by an embarrassing reality. The French people unquestionably did
the right thing. They did it, alas, for the wrong reasons.
The
French Non was largely a protest against the 'Anglo-Saxon' economic
model, when the truth is that the constitution goes no further
in entrenching free markets than do existing treaties; but then
the French weren't interested in the text. They wanted to register
a squawk of irritation against Chirac and against the way they
see France and Europe going.
French
workers and farmers are fearful of workers and farm products from
eastern Europe, and positively paranoid about the planned entry
of Turkey into the EU. They weren't rejecting the constitution
per se. They were recording their superstition that a free-market
Europe is already destroying their world of subsidy and welfare,
and they want someone to turn the clock back.
Already,
French demagogues are starting to respond to this nonsense. RPR
chief Nicolas Sarkozy is calling for more 'protection', and the
danger is that a concerted attempt will now be made to palliate
French opinion, by curbing the operation of the free market both
within the EU and on its borders. That would be disastrous for
France and for Europe.
The
French people are right to think that their economy is in a bad
way; but the problems are caused by too little Anglo-Saxon capitalism,
not too much. The country has unemployment running at 10.2%, a
five year high. That is not because France is suffering from the
effects of a free market, but because it has a rigid, unreformed
labour market in which it is too difficult to hire and fire. It
would be the height of insanity if French politicians were to
use this rebuff to promote more job-destroying Euro-concordats,
but they might. There's a risk that EU leaders will now try to
do what they did to the Danes after the 1992 rejection of Maastricht:
add some sops to public opinion and - one way or the other - try
to swivel the treaty past the French again. That must not happen,
and it is up to the British government to make sure that it does
not.
This
treaty is dead. It cannot now be ratified, in whole or in part;
and as long as it is dead there is no need for a British referendum.
It is absurd to ask British people to queue up, plunge the dagger
- just for the thrill of it - when the fatal blow has already
been struck. It would also be outrageous if Mr Blair made any
attempt to import the treaty by the back door. The constitution
involves a considerable expansion of EU competences. In calling
a referendum, Mr Blair conceded the principle that such changes
should be put to the people. They cannot just be nodded through
by some European summit, and he must acknowledge that.
All
of this leaves a power vacuum. The great Euro-bicycle has sustained
a major prang, and this time it cannot be righted by the French.
That job surely fall to the UK. No one else seems to understand
the problem. Jean-Claud Juncker, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg,
complained this week: "We who lead Europe, we have lost the
power to make Europeans proud of themselves."
With
respect to M. Juncker, the reason this constitution has been thrown
out is that it is not the function of the Luxembourg Prime Minister
to make the rest of us proud to be European. For too long the
EU elite have been trying to conjure up this Euro-patriotism,
by constructing ever more grandiose Euro-projects, such as the
euro - now in serious trouble - and the constitution.
When
Britain takes on the EU presidency, we should propose a programme
of reform: hacking back the CAP, axing the stock-destroying fisheries
policy, allowing all countries to opt out of the Social Chapter
and pushing on with the accession of Turkey.
What
we must now advocate is a wider, freer, less intrusive Europe
that abandons all pretensions to a single political entity, and
which will in due time also comprise the most advanced and powerful
Muslim country in a giant area devoted to the free movement of
goods, people, services and capital, in the knowledge that this
happy, benificent interchange of culture and bloodlines may indeed,
in a few centuries, produce a single European policy; but that
there's no earthly point trying to force it top-down through gimcrack
constitutionalising of some superannuated Frenchman.
The
French may object, halfheartedly, though they have no bigger or
better idea. We should remind them that any country that says
No to a treaty is conventionally deemed to have forfeited all
rights of influence. It's certainly what they would have said
to us.
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