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
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
|
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
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.
|
The
EU TITANIC
For
years, ANN LESLIE has warned that the European dream would end
in tears. This week she witnessed a political elite in denial,
unaware that on the listing euro deck the orchestra might be playing
its last self-deluding melody . . . . . . .
Saturday
Dispatch from Ann Leslie - Daily Mail, June 4, 2005
What
do you do with a dead Constitution? You can of course - like the
pet shop owner in Monty Python's sketch - simply pretend, despite
the evidence, that it isn't really dead. It's just, er,
got a few wonky feathers. You could also pretend that the dead
bird is actually in spiffing form, despite the attempts by the
wicked and deluded voters in France and the Netherlands to kill
the thing off. If the other countries in the 25-nation EU can
be persuaded that the battered bird is still very much alive,
then - hey presto - it is.
I've
just spent the past few days in Brussels watching the Eurocrats
behaving like Michael Palin, the dodgy deal parrot seller. "My
God, they're all in total denial, the penny hasn't bloody dropped
yet," one old European hand muttered to me as the results
of the Dutch 'NEE' vote came over in the crowded lobby
of the Berlaymont building, the Commission's headquarters in the
Belgian capital.
"They're
already saying the thing isn't dead, although under the rules
it is! They've started saying things like 'these referenda are
a triumph of European democracy allowing its citizens to express
their feelings' - but in the next breath more or less admitting
that they intend to ignore the results!" I was at a late
night press conference in the Commission headquarters. Commission
President Jose Manuel Barroso took centre stage, flanked by totally
silent, gloom-ridden President of the European Parliament and
the Luxembourg Prime Minister, whose country holds the six-month
rotating EU Presidency. At one moment, I thought that the latter
looked close to tears.
President
Barroso inisisted that, contrary to the views of the French and
Dutch voters: "Europe is not the problem! Europe is the solution!"
But despite uttering these brave words, all three grand panjandrums
looked faintly stunned. Frankly, I wondered why: everyone knew
for weeks that the Dutch were going to vote 'NEE'. Maybe
the panjandrums had fallen victim to Berlaymont Syndrome which
somehow seals them off from the real world and tends to give them
delusions.
Years
ago, the Berlaymont, a vast cruciform Commission building created
in the Sixties, was found to be so riddled with asbestos that
it was dangerous to the health of all those inside it who produced
the mountains of Euro-bumf. Rather than do something sensible
like pull down the lethal pile and build a new, safer HQ, Eurocrats
spent 13 years and many millions of EU taxpayers' money stripping
it out and creating a swish, no-expense-spared interior of pale
lavender carpets and velour and lots of blonde, sleek wood - on
the grounds that to pull down the sacred Berlaymont would be to
destroy a powerful and inspiring EU 'symbol'.
In
the canteen one afternoon, I looked around for a single window.
"Oh, we don't have windows here - just that one high up near
the roof, where you can only see the sky," one Eurosceptic
told me. "You see, if we had windows we might be able to
see the real world, and that would never do. We must remain sealed
in our Euro-bubble."
Berlaymont
Syndrome produces some extrordinary bouts of 'symbol' silliness.
For example, this April a Italian astronaut took a copy of the
Constitution with him into outer space. There were those who wondered
whether Roberto Vittori was quite right in the head of choosing
the brick-like 4.25 kg constitution (the 852-page version) as
a spot of light reading on board the Soyuz spacecraft.
But
it wasn't poor Roberto's idea. He was asked to take the hefty
document with its 448 clauses into space by the European Comissioner
for Industry and Enterprise, Gunter Verheugen, who declared: "Once
in orbit, the Constitution will circle not only Europe, but the
globe. It is to be hoped that this symbol of European unity will
be welcomed by both Europeans and their counterparts throughout
the world".
Inexplicably,
Commissioner Verheugen omitted to refer to the Constitution's
hopeful inspiring influence on any little green men up there.
As they say, you couldn't make it up. Was this 'symbol' silliness
designed to sway votes in the two referenda? If so, like so many
products of Berlaymont Syndrome, it has spectacularly misfired.
'E!Sharp'
magazine in Brussels pointed out acidly in its 'Euroville' column
that Eurosceptics were not surprisingly 'demanding to know why
only one copy of the Constitution was being blasted into
space, and not all of them'. There've been 45 million copies of
the tome distributed in France alone.
But
while symbol silliness may keep the likes of me amused, there
is of course a far darker and potentially dangerous side to Berlaymont
Syndrome. On the night of the press conference after the Dutch
delivered their resounding 'NO', EU President Juncker desp9ndently
remaked: "Europe no longer inspires people to dream. If they
don't like Europe as it is, what can we do?" And then, significantly
and ominously, he added: "But we have to keep going."
Ah,
keep going. Keep on churning out 'directives', keep on centralising
every aspect of European life, keep on fiddling the accounts,
keep on punishing whistleblowers, keep on wasting subsidies on
non-existent Spanish goats and non-existent Greek olive trees,
keep on appointing incompetent and/or criminal Commissioners.
Keep going on and on - apparently oblivious of the challenges
of the rising economic (and eventually political) superpowers
such as China and India, let alone the wishes of the vulgar peasantry
dwelling outside the Berlaymont Bubble.
As
John Palmer, of the European Policy Centre (a passionate pro-EU
man), told me, the Eurocrats are 'now feeling shell-shocked and
disoriented'. And that was before the Dutch referendum's
'NO' vote came in. Yet the next day, as usual, Commission spokespeople
called Krisztina and Francoise and Nikolai and Amelie appeared
on the auditorium's stage, behaving as if nothing truly spectacular
(and for them catastrophic) had just happened.
Francoise
le Bail, apparatchik spokeswoman for Commission President, was
pleased to announce to us some 'good news'. 'Latvia has just ratified
the Constitution Treaty, the tenth nation to do so!" (More
precisely, the Latvian parliament voted for it, not the people.)
Mme
le Bail seemed slightly fazed at the mocking laughter that greeted
this 'good news' about dear little Latvia. One Irish journalist
irreverently remarked: "You know, I get the feeling that
you're all sitting on the deck of the Titanic with the orchestra
playing while the ship goes down."
Naturally,
we vulgar groundlings cackled with merriment. Naturally, Krisztina,
Francoise, Nikolai, Amelie and the rest of the apparatchiks did
not. No one in the Berlaymont Bubble will yet face up to the fact
that the euro, one of the 'triumphs' of their Project (yes, they
do call it that), is now deeply unpopular in every nation in the
EU.
In
1991, during negotiations in the pretty Dutch border town of Maastricht,
which gave its name to the Treaty, assorted spokesmen assured
people like me that the euro would bring down prices, ensure stability,
transparency and accountability, and the peoples of Europe would
fall in love with it. We curmudgeonly British, who opted out of
the euro, were regarded with pitying condescension: our economy,
our political stability, our ability to compete would be gravely
damaged and, oh, how we'd regret out insular foolishness.
Even
the Germans were persuaded by such arguments to give up their
revered Deutschmark in return for this chimerical dream. But today,
the euro is being blamed by those who live outside the Berlaymont
Bubble for the huge rise in prices and, thanks not least to the
European Central Bank's incompetence, the ever-rising unemployment
in the eurozone and its stagnant economies.
The
once-pitied Brits have self-evidently flourished outside the eurozone.
the latest opinion poll in Germany shows that 56% of Germans now
want their D-mark back and for the euro to be abolished; It's
believed that many Germans have been hoarding millions of D-marks
for when that longed-for day dawns.At Maastricht all those years
ago I told a Eurocrat spokesman: "This whole thing is going
to end in tears, you know. It's too top-down, too bureaucratic,
too unconcerned with what ordinary people feel, too obsessed with
the concept of 'one-size-fits-all'.
"Well,
it doesn't work when it comes to dress sizes, as I know to my
cost, and 'one-size' certainly does not 'fit-all' when it comes
to political systems. If you impose Utopian systems from on high,
as the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia did, then the 'peasantry' tends
to rise up, sometimes violently."
After
listening patiently to my hectoring, apolcalyptic little speech,
the Eurocrat gave me a condescending smile (well, he was French),
and responded with mock sadness: "Ah, you Little Englanders,
when will you ever learn?"
Well,
we've learned now. We allegedly 'Little Englander' sceptics were
right and arrogant utopian blueprinters like him were wrong. Indeed,
secretive little groups of European movers-and-shakers are alteady
contemplating the catastrophic possibility of a meltdown for the
euro, and what to do if that happens.
Paul
De Grauwe, one of the Commissions's Group of Economic Policy Advisers,
has openly admitted that in the long-term, eurozone members might
have to abandon the single currency on which so many hopes were
once pinned. Italy, which is in recession, hinted it might be
the first to pull out. And some EU politicians are beginning quietly
to panic. Excited rumours swirl round the bars, restaurants and
watercoolers of a now febrile Euroville in Brussels.
Not
only are there up to 20,000 lobbyists in Euroville - there are
2,600 registered 'interest groups' ranging from the Federation
of Coffee Roasters to the Bottled Water Association - but thousands
of journalists are also here, many feeding sumptuously on the
gravy train created by the Commission. (In the words of one of
them: "The Commission publishes masses of pamphlets and journals,
and we're paid very well to write them!")
No
wonder then that conspiracy theories flourish like chickweed here.
In the Kitty O'Shea Irish Pub near the Berlaymont, I was confidently
assured that the emergency meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday between
the German Chancellor and French President was all about whether
they should now go for the 'nuclear option'.
Which
is? 'To reduce the EU down to its original six members - with
the rest being confined to an outer free-trade zone,'
Of
course some of us foolishly thought that the EU was originally
about creating a free-trade zone. I, to my regret, actually campaigned
in the referendum in '75 to ratify our membership in the then
EEC. John Palmer, of the European Policy Centre, campaigned against
it. With our opposing view-points, we now both agree on at least
one thing. "The fact is that Ted Heath, by telling us that
it was just about economics, lied to us," says Palmer. "The
project was always primarily political."
Of
course, if the euro goes into meltdown, and the EU breaks apart,
we Eurosceptics should not cheer too hastily: the resulting chaos
will have a huge knowck-on effect on Britain. Astonishingly, Mr
Blair, with his genius for re-invention, is explaining passionately
how Britain can lead the way in 'reforming' Europe.
The
problem is that we all remember the same evangelical and beaming
Tony Blair (together with Jack Straw) posing last October in Rome
in from of 12-star Euro flags and signing the Constitution on
our behalf. Blair, in his heart of hearts, believed then he could
swing the British referendum vote.
He
would thus fulfil his dream of taking Britain into 'the heart
of Europe' - and, who knows, even into the euro (were it not for
his sulky next-door neighbour Gordon Brown). He didn't imagine
then that he was signing himself onto the passenger list of the
Titanic. The ship won't sink immediately: it will plough on, blunder
and lurch to and fro, even perhaps try to correct course a few
times, while constantly chipping bits off itself as it fights
to stop waves of public resentment finally engufing it.
Yesterday,
when I went into the vast Berlaymont, I looked at all the well-fed,
well-paid, hitherto complacent Eurocrats strolling through the
gleaming security entrances. Do they yet suspect that the orchestra
on the listing euro deck might well be playing its last self-deluding
medley?
If you have suggestions
for additional subjects, or material to include in the pages linked
to the subjects listed, please contact
the webmaster.
