Rescuing
Democracy in the United Kingdom from our current Elected
Dictatorship
|
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
|
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.
|
Forget
the French . . . . it is now more vital than ever that we British
have our say
N
O N!
French
give kiss of death to EU Superstate
How
Chirac the cynic lost touch with his people
Commentary
by Peter Oborne - Daily Mail, May 30, 2005
Cynically,
as he'd done so many times before, French President Jacques Chirac
calculated that the majority of French voters would do what they
were told. The size of the NO vote showed him how wrong he was.
But
what was it that made so many French people - whose country has
enthusiastically promoted the EU project - so against the constitution?
As I discovered when I visited Paris last week, the protest was
driven by many divergent and contradictory elements.
There
were the businessmen who have seen their livelihoods destroyed
by meaningless regulation; the wine growers in despair thanks
to bureaucratic meddling; the trade unionists who fear for their
jobs; the green voters who hate modern industrial methods; the
communists who want to destroy capitalism. These forces from the
Left joined racist voters supporting Jean Marie Le Pen's National
Front and anarchists who simply despise all rules and regulations.
But,
to those familiar with British politics over the last two decades,
there's a strangely familiar ring to many of the French complaints
against Brussels. For instance, conservative MP Jacques Myard,
a follower of General de Gaulle, told me in emotional terms of
how he feared the sovereignty of his country was threatened by
the growing power of Europe,and its historic culture at risk from
multi-culturism. I have met scores of Tory MPs who talk just like
Myard. Now at last it's acceptable to talk that way in France.
I
attended a rally organised by the Left-wing CGT union in front
of the French stock exchange. Workers paused from chanting revolutionary
songs to explain how they feared that the European Constitution
threatened their rights to a 35-hour-week. On the face of things,
these Left-wing trade unionists have nothing whatever in common
with a Gaullist MP like Myard. But they share an abiding suspicion
of the bureaucrats who govern France, whichever political party
is theoretically in power. These 'Enarques' - the elite graduates
of Paris's Ecole Normale Superior - define French political debate.
Highly
educated, they've always felt a deep contempt for the ordinary
people. Their real affinity is with their elite counterparts in
other European countries. In essence, the idea of European
Union - a distant class telling us how to live our lives - springs
from these highly intelligent but desperately out of touch French
bureaucrats. Jacques Chirac is the public representative of the
Enarques and there is no more cordially-disliked man in the whole
of France.
Yesterday's
NO vote, and the passions that drove the NO lobby, are of major
historic importance. The size of this rebellion has shown us that
at last the French themselves have revolted against the system
of government which for more than a generation has been tightening
its grip on our lives. It is sheer bad luck for Brussels that
yesterday's vote took place at the exact moment in history when
the European idea is being seen to fail.
Fifty
years of state subsidy and bureaucratic regulation have turned
France into a backward country and at last the French know it.
I've been visiting Paris since I was a schoolboy in the 1970s.
Back then it seemed more modern, cleaner, better maintained and
more exciting than London. But last week I was struck by how tired
and run down it has become. Dole queues are lengthening and dynamism
has been squeezed from the system.
Yesterday
was nothing less than the beginning of the second French revolution.
The first in 1789, was an explosion of anger from the people against
the corrupt and broken Bourbon monarchy. As I discovered when
I visited Paris last week, France is now in the grip of a revolt
against another sleaze-ridden ancien regime - the European political
class.
This
self-perpetuating elite, which has governed France since the end
of the Second World War, is even more arrogant and corrupt than
the Bourbons who were sent to the guillotine 218 years ago. The
consequences of this second revolution may be just as wide-reaching.
For this new revolution - the beginnings of which no French politician
can deny - could destroy the power of the complacent Brussels
bureaucrats who've defined how their fellow Europeans live their
lives for half a century.
Last
week, in a desperate attempt to rally the fading YES vote, Jacques
Delors, architect of the modern European Union, travelled to a
rally in central Paris to urge the French people to vote YES.
Fifteen years ago, as president of the European Union, he imposed
the Maastricht Treaty. His dream of a bureaucratic centrally-controlled
Europe seemed to be in the ascendant.
I
watched Delors, now an old man, as he delivered his speech. The
old passion and oratory was there but he was not a pathetic rather
than a formidable figure. The scale of the NO vote shows that
he spoke for the past, not the future.
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