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 31, 2005 (761 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,657 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
July 6, 2005 (798 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,751 US - 90 UK -
>6,164? Iraqi - >17,300? civilians - 25 media
August 24, 2005 (847 days since
war ended)
Death Toll: 1,869 US - 93 UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
September
29, 2005 (883 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 1,928 US - 96 UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
October
11, 2005 (895 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 1,956 US - 96UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
October
20, 2005 (904 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 1,986 US - 97UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
October
25, 2005 (909 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 2,001 US - 97UK - >>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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November
17, 2005 (932 days since the war in Iraq ended)
Death Toll: 2,080 US - 97UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
Why
can't this (EU) fraud be halted?
Commentary
by Stephen Pollard - Daily Mail, November 16, 2005
Have
you ever filled out a tax return and left blank the boxes in which
you are supposed to put down your income? Of course not. If you
did, the tax inspector would take one look at your form and demand
that you gave him the figures.
Blair
under pressure to fight for £3bn EU rebate
By
Jane Merrick, Political Reporter - Daily Mail, November
16, 2005
Tony
Blair was last night warned it would be 'sheer folly'
to negotiate away any of Britain's £3bn EU rebate
after Brussels accounts were attacked by financial watchdogs
for the 11th year running.
The
Tories said it was more important than ever for Britain
to hold on to taxpayers' money after the Court of Auditors
said it could not vouch for almost all of the £68bn
the EU spent last year. Their warning came as the PM was
under pressure from European Commission President Jose
Manuel Barroso to break the deadlock on talks on the EU
budget ahead of a summit next month. Mr Barroso said he
hoped Britain, which holds the EU presidency, would negotiate
a 'fair and balanced agreement'.
In
its annual report yesterday, the Court of Auditors said
proper fraud checks were still not in place and it was
'still not able to provide any assurance on expenditure'
in key areas such as EU regional aid funds paid to member
states and the bloated agricultural handouts. It said
more than a third of EU far spending, which totalled £30bn
last year, did not 'provide the Commission with reasonable
assurance of compliance ... with community legislation'.
'The
vast majority of the payments budget was again materially
affected by errors of legality and regularity,' the Court's
president, Hubert Weber, told the European Parliament.
Shadow
Treasury Minister Mark Francois said: "It would be
sheer folly to negotiate away the British rebate - as
Tony Blair is currently doing in order to surrender even
more British tax-payers' money to an unreformed, financially
unreliable EU Commission.
Downing
Street played down the significance of the report. A spokesman
said: "This has happened before. We have initiated
a process to try to harmonise the process on how we put
together the accounts."
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Imagine
if you then told him you had not got the slightest idea how much
money you received, no idea how you spent it, couldn't care less
where it went, and couldn't be bothered to cooperate with his
attempts to find out. Then imagine that you had said and done
the same thing for each of the past 11 years.
It
wouldn't be long before you'd find yourself behind bars. Not,
however, if you are one of the officials responsible for keeping
track of the £70billion EU budget, which, as taxpayers,
we hand over every year.
Not
once since 1994 has the European Court of Auditors, the body appointed
to oversee the EU's accounts, been able to sign off the previous
year's figures as being accurate. Questioned at the publication
of the most recent report, the chief auditor said that he could
only properly account for 5% - just £3.5bn - of the total
EU budget. Yesterday, the auditors published - for the 11th successive
year - a report bemoaning EU's lax accounting procedures and inaccurate
figures.
With
accountant's understatement, the report says: "As in the
past, in 2004 the accounting system cannot ensure that all assets
and liabilities are recorded ... For the remainder of payments'
budget - agricultural spending, internal policies and external
action - the court is again not in a position to provide unqualified
opinions on the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions."
Translating
jargon to reality, what that means is that the EU is so riddled
with corruption that the auditors can't even begin to say that
they know where money's gone. Since the UK's annual contribution
to the EU budget is around £11billion, that means that a
lot of stolen money comes from UK taxpayers. If you dig into the
pages of any reports of the past 11 years as I have done, then
the scale of the fraud becomes truly shocking.
The
Italians favourite scam - claiming money for non-existant olive
farms (there aren't enough olive trees in the whole of Italy to
cover a fraction of subsidies claimed) - appears to be spreading.
"In Austria, the extent of eligible Alpine pasture was overestimated
by more than 60%," says the auditors' report. 30% of Greek
subsidy grants are for maize which has never existed. On an on
it goes, paragraph after paragraph of brazen fraud perpetrated
shamelessly.
On
rare occasions when 'on the spot' checks were carried out by inspectors,
they found fraud or error in 25% of farm aid in Italy, 23% in
Greece, 21% in Spain and 14% in France. And that was merely those
farms they could inspect. You might think that the Eurocrats responsible
for this would feel, at the very least, ashamed.
Think
again. The European Commission argues that because the report
shows that 80% of EU spending is conducted by national and regional
authorities, it is member states which should shoulder responsibility
for this giant free for all, not the Commission.
Up
to a point, they're right. The Commission can only do so much.
Governments authorise and hand out these corrupt payments and
turn a blind eye to theft. But the fundamental problem is that
the Commission encourages, by it's ethos, precisely the corruption
needing to be stamped out. Neil Kinnock, the former vice-president
of the Commission, or Lord Kinnock as he is now, was previously
the Commissioner charged with stamping out corruption.
He
acted decisively. He sacked two high-level employees: Marta Andreasen,
Commission's chief accountant: and another employee, Paul van
Buitenen, whose revelations of corruption within the Commission
itself led to the mass resignation of the Commission and its then
President, Jacques Santer, in 1999.
Just
one problem: Ms Andreasen and Mr van Buitenen were not the fraudsters.
They were the whistleblowers.
Ms
Adreasen discovered within months of starting her job that the
Commission's book-keeping was 'out of control' and 'shambolic'.
The Commission knew exactly how to react. First, Lord Kinnock
transferred her to the EU's Siberia, the personnel and administration
department; then he suspended her. Mr Buitenen endured similar
treatment.
To
date, they are the only two people to have lost their jobs as
a result of widespread EU fraud. The damning truth is that fraud
runs through the very heart of the EU. Whether it's subsidies
for growing real food and then letting it rot, or the fraud highlighted
in the auditors' reports, someone has to pay. And that someone
is you.
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