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
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After
a clear vote against them, we still got eight non-elected
Regional Assemblies. When we vote against the EU Constitution,
we'll get them anyway. Letter from P.Cove, Aylesbury,
BUCKS.- Daily Mail, January 31, 2005
THE
TIMES slavish support for the Government worries some
members of the paper's staff, not to mention any perspicacious
readers who are left. Political editor Philip Webster
was questioned about this when he addressed colleagues
as part of an in-house 'masterclass' exercise. Small wonder.
One of his Blair-worshipping subordinates wrote a news
story yesterday poo-pooing the row over Labours anti-semitic
poster mocking Michael Howard, saying it was merely £5million
worth of 'free publicity' for the party. Ephraim Hardcastle
- Daily Mail, Febrauary 2, 2005
Hold
the front page
Further
to BBC bias (Mail), very often on BBC Breakfast and Breakfast
With Frost, coverage of the morning papers is censored.
If the front page of the Daily Mail is critical of Tony
Blair and his Soviet-style Government, it is not shown,
although the front pages of all the other newspapers are
shown. A supposedly independent broadcasting body is acting
as censor for this Government - an absolute disgrace.
Letter from Peter Fish, Chippenham, Wilts. .- Daily Mail,
February 17, 2005
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The
REAL nasty party
How
Labour is the true home of spite, bigotry and contempt for the
public
By
Simon Heffer - Daily Mail, February 17, 2005
You
do not need to be a Londoner, or a partisan of the Zionist cause,
to be revolted by the behaviour of the capital's mayor, Ken Livingstone,
towards a Jewish reporter from the Evening Standard. It is bad
enough that Mr Livingstone should have evoked the imagery of the
death camps to attack a conscientious journalist, what-ever his
background; but his self-righteous refusal to apologise is simply
grotesque.
Such
conduct by a Conservative would have brought the heavens down.
Accusations of racism and bigotry would have preceded hounding
of the offender from public office.
However,
what we are instead witnessing is one of the great double standards
of modern politics. Labour politicians are able to be vile, tasteless
and offensive with impunity; any Tory who does so is instantly
beyond the pale. Indeed, the Tories need no help from others to
flagellate themselves: it was one of their own chairmen, Mrs Theresa
May, who, in a moment of self-lacerating stupidity, named them
'the nasty party'.
Stinking
The
label was memorable but its application wrong. The party with
overwhelming claim of the title of 'nasty' is none other than
people's friend and touchy-feely champion, New Labour.
Leave
aside for a moment Mr Livingstone, his love of the anti-homosexual,
Israel-hating Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and his record
of odiously distasteful remarks designed to offend Jews. The stinking
territory the mayor has lately chosen to occupy is familiar to
others in his party.
Only
a couple of weeks ago, those devising the election campaign thought
it was frightfully funny to depict the two most prominent Jews
in the Tory party, Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin, as a pair
of pigs. For good measure, another poster showed Mr Howard looking
remarkably like that icon of Victorian anti-Semitism, Fagin.
Not
long before that, minister Michael O'Brien stooped to hinting
to his party's Muslim supporters - many of whom have been alienated
by the Iraq war - that they would get a rough deal at the hands
of the Jewish Tory leader, were he to become Prime Minister.
'Ask
yourself',' he wrote in The Muslim Weekly at the turn of the year,
'what will Michael Howard do for British Muslims? Will he stand
up for the right of Muslim women to wear the hijab?'
At
least Mr O'Brien, like Mr Livingstone, publicly paraded his nastiness.
Much of Labour's vileness is behind the scenes, behind the mask
of caring, sharing decency that the Prime Minister so actorishly
wears. The party is uninterested in open, intelligent debate;
it greatly prefers threats and the language of the gutter.
Take,
for example, the case of the e-mail accidentally sent by junior
minister Ben Bradshaw's office in reply to a female constituent,
accusing her of 'insufferable arrogance'. The e-mail discounted
the utterly accurate observation by the Oxford undergraduate that
Mr Bradshaw was a sycophant with no independent or original views,
because she had been to a private school.
This
sneering, narrow-minded and bigoted disposition is not, though,
the greatest debt we owe to Labour's e-mail habits. Alastair Campbell,
who it was thought had retired to pursue a career as a sports
journalist, gave a bravura display of the medium only a few days
ago.
By
accidentally sending an e-mail to a journalist that was supposed
to go to a party official, Mr Campbell revealed yet again that
he conducts political discourse through a mixture of smearing,
bullying and threats. He was complaining about coverage of the
anti-Semitic posters, and suggested journalists be told to 'f***
off and cover something important, you t***s'. This, of course,
is mild by Mr Campbell's standards.
His
hysterically intemperate behaviour at the time of the 'dodgy dossier'
scandal, which drove scientist Dr David Kelly to suicide, was
well documented at the time of the inquiry into Dr Kelly's death.
He made, as we know, a career out of brutal bullying and threatening
the BBC and newspaper journalists. The fact that Labour is now
the nasty party is very largely down to him.
And,
of course, down to Peter Mandelson, whose own brand of vicious
and vindictive unpleasantness has been a part of Labour's culture
for 20 years now, ever since he became the party's communications
chief. Although now in Brussels, supposedly busy being a Commissioner,
Mr Mandelson cannot give up his old habits: only the other day
he was bullying the BBC, warning them not to 'demonise' Mr Campbell.
Unsavoury
When
one thinks of the unsavoury behaviour Labour politicians have
got away with in the past eight years, one inevitably thinks of
Mr Mandelson. Despite having committed what many considered to
be a criminal offence - applying for mortgage on property without
declaring that he already had a loan of £373,000 to purchase
it - he was brought back to Cabinet Office within a year.
In
the New Labour book of morality, dishonesty and brazenness are
not merely excusable: they are positively to be celebrated and
viewed as an important part in the destruction of opponents.
That
is why Mr Blair sees no problem with his party engaging in dirty
tricks, such as using the Freedom of Information Act to embarrass
their opponents while ensuring their own misdeeds remain, for
the moment, covered up. It is why ministers who lie or behave
improperly, such as Stephen Byers or Keith Vaz, cling on to their
jobs long after they would have been sent into disgrace in any
other regime.
The
key to Labour's sheer unpleasantness and amorality is the background
of so many of its senior ministers. Several of them started off
as thuggish student union officials with hard-Left political obsessions.
In those guises they were taught the importance of organisation
and propaganda: the importance of trampling over anyone in your
way to achieving your aims, and of telling a lie so frequently
that it becomes, to all intents and purposes, the truth.
Brazen
That
is why David Milliband, the Cabinet Office minister, could go
on the airwaves this week and blithely maintain, in the face of
overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that we have an excellent
state education system. It is why Charles Clarke talks to
private party meetings of his belief in uncontrolled immigration,
yet brazenly in his public role as Home Secretary claims to be
controlling it.
It
all signifies that the days of the good, clean fight in our politics
are over. Now that Labour is comprised entirely of professional
politicians, with little hope of being employed outside the Westminster
village, it means there is barely any act of bullying, lying,
cheating or vilification to which they will not stoop in order
to retain the jobs that pay their mortgages and pensions and give
them some sort of status.
Of
course, there are some exceptions. But when you see all too many
Labour ministers on television pretending to be compassionate
human beings motivated only by a sense of pubic service, spare
a thought for what they are really like.
Remember
the cynicism that runs through their private utterances, their
disdain for the public, for integrity and for the truth. And then,
before casting your vote at the General Election, decide who really
merits the label 'the nasty party'.
For
the health of our democracy, we, the people of the United Kingdom,
must find a way to force Mr Blair to resign
Such
defiance of the democratic process and the will of the majority
of we people of the UK, must be exposed by voters as a matter
or urgency, and not just in the two by-elections we have had this
July and the European elections in June 2004. But how can this
be done?
The
most effective way of getting our deceitful PM to resign would
be to mobilise the army of Labour MPs currently in the House of
Commons and get them to demand it, the loss of their seat to be
a penalty if they did not. All voters in Labour-held constituencies
need to write a letter along these lines to their local Labour
MPs:
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Dear
Despite
his absolute and unequivocal assurances over the past year
of the serious risk to our security of Saddam Hussein's
'weapons of mass destruction', Prime Minister Blair
has admitted, that the threat was non-existent. For that
critical error of judgement and for his gross incompetence
in handling this very important issue, I ask you to take
immediate steps to ensure that Tony Blair does the honourable
thing and resign without delay..
I
would therefore be much obliged if you would propose and
help mobilise a Parliamentary vote of 'No Confidence' in
Mr Blair which, despite Labour's huge majority, would leave
the PM with no option but to resign.
If
I get no reply to this letter, I shall assume you will continue
to support Mr Blair as our Prime Minister. In such circumstances
I shall not vote for you in the forthcoming General Election.
Signed:
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Simple,
non-violent, protest letters along these lines on a variety of
issues could be the basis for re-vitalising our democracy and
increasing voters' interest and participation in politics. Download
a printable copy of the above letter here.
There
is another way for the voice of the silent majority to be heard,
a voice that made sure broken promises would not only be revealed,
but punished in subsequent elections.
In
the year available before the General Election expected in 2005,
many topics are available as ammunition, each one asking questions.
A weapon for our purpose will be the results of Opinion Polls
in individual constituencies using ICM, NOP, Gallop, Mori
or YouGov.
Questions
suggested for this purpose are listed here.
CAST
YOUR VOTE ON A VARIETY OF OTHER IMPORTANT ISSUES HERE.
Current
and prospective Parliamentary candidates of all Parties running
for election could share a platform at public forums in every
constituency. They would be presented with the results of
polls on this issue expressed by the majority of voters in that
constituency.
The candidates could be asked if their own views and that of their
Party manifesto corresponded with the polls, and if not, how they
intended to represent the will of the majority of local voters.
Local and National Press, Radio and TV coverage would be arranged
and the results published on this web site.
Here
is another powerful strategy for using your vote effectively in
the forthcoming General Election. Send your sitting and prospective
MPs a letter defining your requirements if they want your vote.
This example deals with the proposed
EU Constitutional Treaty.
Your
letters would end: "If you do not answer
this letter, I shall take it that you intend to follow the Government
line. I shall act accordingly in the forthcoming General Election.
Or
why not create a questionnaire that you send to all the candidates
in your constituency, getting them to give yes/no answers to questions
of your choice, and ending it with the same paragraph(above).
Download
a printable example of the questionnaire.
It
is high time for the people of this United Kingdom to stop allowing
themselves to be manipulated by politicians. We need our representatives
in Parliament to genuinely reflect the view of the majority in
their own constituency, even if this means going against their
personal and/or their party's policy. While they may argue their
case, hoping to change the minds of the majority in their constituency,
they should ultimately be obliged to reflect the majority view
of those who elect them.
It
will be argued by politicians of all parties that most voters
don't have the knowledge necessary to express an opinion on important
subjects at issue, and that our vote is a form of delegated democracy.
We should argue that it is their duty to ensure that we voters
do have ready access to such information as is necessary to form
an intelligent opinion. That, after all, is one main purpose of
Opposition Parties in our Parliamentary Democracy.
Most
important of all, such proceedings would rekindle in voters their
latent interest and obligation to cast their vote, knowing that
the candidate of their choice would be more likely to act in accordance
with their wishes. A much higher turnout in elections would be
the result.
Contact
your local Party Chairman. Gain his support for setting up public
forums in your constituency on these, as well as any other relevant
topics, well before the next General Election expected in 2005.
You should then, depending on the integrity of the candidate of
your choice, feel fairly certain that your view on any subject
being debated in Parliament will more accurately be reflected
by your representative in that assembly.
