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 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
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
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
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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An
overdue jolt for Europe's tram on the line to ever-closer union
By
Christopher Fildes - The Spectator, June 4, 2005
There
has to be a first time for everything, and now the French have
taken my advice. 'Allez France', I urged them last week,
'votez Non, votez souvent' - and they did. Offered Europe's
new constitution on a plate with lettuce round it, they sent it
straight back like a grounded souffle. Now I expect to be told
that the souffle's collapse was all my fault. It has to be somebody's.
Blame is drifting round the Eurosphere like a dark cloud, looking
for someone to rain on. Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair now look
all set to blame each other. Eurocrats blame the folly of asking
impossible questions like this, and try to pretend that that the
whole aberration never happened.
This
gambit has worked in the past, after all. Too many careers have
been invested in the notion that Europe is on a tramline towards
ever-closer union for mere voters to be allowed to push the tram
into a siding. Career investments on these lines, or tramlines,
are a French specialty. Before signing up for the euro, France
insisted that the job of its bank manager should revert to Jean-Claude
Trichet, of the Banque de France. In the grand tradition of jobs
for les garcons, he's taken his place alongside Jean Lemierre
in the European Boondoggle for Remuneration and Disbursement,
and Pascal Lamy, now heading for the World Trade Organisation,
who drove the grand Europrojet forward in Brussels as Jacques
Delors' devoted chief of staff at the European Commission.
Benefit
performance
Such
placement have helped to make the projet grow in France's
image, or at least for France's benefit. The constitution itself
was the work of the grandest of all placement, Valery Giscard
D'Estaing, sometime president of France. While he was still an
ambitious finance minister, he spoke at the International Monetary
Fund's meetings and I would make a point of listening.
It
was like an evening at the opera: I could not pick up the words,
but the performance was impressive. Jacques Chirac may have been
relying on this effect, but it seems to have worn off - either
that, or the rules have changed. Europe is no longer the small,
cosy club that the French founded and could expect to manipulate.
New members have found their way in, and even the Turks are readying
themselves to face the candidate's committee. The voters could
like to know what is in it for them. In Calais, they voted
NON by 70-30. Perhaps they want to rejoin England.
A
predictable kicking
At
the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet has been creating
a diversion, by finding fault with the Bank of England. It's decisions,
so an ECB study says, are insufficiently predictable. The Governor,
Mervyn King, must find this hurtful - he aspires to make central
banking more boring - but surprises help to keep the markets on
their toes. They had time to adjust to the idea of a NON
vote, but this week they were still taking it out on the euro,
as well they might.
Without
sure or early prospect of a constitution, and without a pact to
keep profligate countries in order, Europe's single currency finds
itself short of a backstop. It will need one if a profligate country
comes under pressure, and needs to be bailed out by its partners
in the euro or by the Central Bank itself. Which country that
may be I forbear to say, but I'd hope to pick up warning signals
on my negroni index.
It's
a totem
Others
might then wonder, as I do, why Europe should need a single currency
at all. We seem to be able to manage without it. The idea made
sense, in its way, when it was first proposed, half a lifetime
ago. In those days, countries built fences round their currencies
to stop them escaping. Our own exchange controls were as obstructive
as any. A single currency would be one way to overcome them. Now,
though, barriers are down, money can flow freely across frontiers,
we can pay our bills with plastic and debit our accounts at home
or extract negroni vouchers from holes in the wall - and Europe's
biggest money markets are still in the City and outside the eurozone.
All
this was under way long before the European Central Bank arrived
to impose its monetary policies on a dozen different economies,
with different results. The euro, of course, is a totem but so
is, or was the constitution.
The
price is wrong
Totems
come at a price, and Professor Patrick Minford has been working
out what all of them will cost us. The short answer is: too much.
The longer answer can be found in Should Britain leave the
EU? (IEA, £15), full of graphs and tables and multi-decker
equations, used by economists to mesmerise their readers. Our
subscription to this club (or 'net contribution') is only the
start of it. Then comes the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP),
which does so much to penalise hard-working eaters.
Then
the barriers, all sorts of them, that still obstruct our trade
in goods and services. Total, so far: £33 billion a year,
just about. Even this would be dwarfed by the costs still to come,
labelled harmonisation, and including directives and charters
designed to confer (or remove) rights and gum up the market in
labour.
We
may be invited, once again, to join the euro and enjoy its rollercoaster
ride. We might even be asked to bail out our improvident friends.
When Tony Blair sets out on his next round of euro-diplomacy,
I hope that he'll tuck this book under his arm. It might serve
to remind our neighbours that we have a sticking-point, and to
remind him, as the French has reminded us all, that sometimes
in life the right answer is NO.
Missing
the moment
Pleased
as I am that the penny (or centime, or eurocent) has dropped in
France, I have to say that it has taken its time. A dozen years
ago, when we were still labouring within Europe's exchange rate
mechanism, the French were preparing for a referendum on the Maastricht
treaty. A OUI vote would open the door to monetary union.
The Danes had already voted NEJ, and I urged the French
people to follow their lead. By the narrowest of margins they
were found to have voted OUI. If they had taken my advice,
they would have saved us all a lot of trouble.
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