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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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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Tony
Blair should know that respect comes by example - from the
top. If a country's leader has no respect for the rule of
international law and no respect for the truth, how can
he expect anyone to have respect. Letter
from P.J.Atkinson, Ashford, Kent - Daily Mail, January 12,
2006
The
Chancellor's single greatest act of vandalism in almost
nine years in office has been his wanton destruction of
Britain's private retirement industry. By slapping a massive
tax on pension funds, now worth
£7.3billion a year, he has helped to turn
the best private retirement industry in Europe into a basket-case
in perpetual crisis. Together with the adoption of European
accounting rules - which make it much riskier to operate
a company pension scheme - hundreds of firms have shut their
final salary plans to new employees and slashed benefits
to existing staff. From
Allister Heath: "I've seen the future and its grey"
in THE SPECTATOR - April 15, 2006
Nine
years ago the British people were sold a fantasy of clean
and competent government of principle and honesty. Its shiny
wrappings stripped away, the product now reveals its true
nature: Personal greed, arrogance, incompetence, shamelessness,
rash warmongering and an inability to accept - as is clear
to almost everyone else - that it is time to go. Editorial
- The Mail on Sunday, May 28, 2006
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October
28, 2006 (1279 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2811 US - 120 UK - >650,000? civilians - 25 media
November
5, 2006 (1270 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2837 US - 121 UK - >650,000? civilians - 25 media
I'd
rather go to jail than carry one of Blair's ID cards
by
Leo McKinstry - Daily Mail, November 7, 2006
The
conceit of Tony Blair is breathtaking. During the past decade,
his regime has presided over the collapse of borders, breakdown
in the criminal justice system, the promotion of mass immigration
on an unprecedented scale and the consequent mounting strain on
public services and the fabric of our society.
Yet
now he has the nerve to tell us he has the solution to the very
problems he has created. Like the hapless Baldrick in the Blackadder
TV series, the Prime Minister has a cunning plan: he wants to
introduce a vast national identity scheme, including a compulsory
card to be carried by all citizens and a massive national computerised
register.
In
his briefing yesterday, Mr Blair presented his plan as a means
of tackling benefit fraud, terrorism and illegal immigration,
as well as improving access to public services. For a government
that has so dramatically failed to live up to its promises on
crime, the NHS and welfare reform, the faith that Blair seems
to have in his system is laughable.
But
in truth, there is no joke about ID cards. Far from improving
our lives, what they really involve will be a colossal expansion
in the scope and power of state bureaucracy.
Officialdom
In
the name of protection we will be forced to hand over a wealth
of private information about ourselves to an all-seeing officialdom.
Identities will soon be the property not of individuals but of
the Government - a terrifying thought.
That
is why I am so passionately opposed to Blair's proposal. I don't
want to live in a society in which I am forced to hand over so
much control of my life to the Government and its army of unelected
bureaucrats, many of whom will be incompetent, ideological or
downright criminal.
I
will be willing to go to almost any lengths to avoid compliance
- including even prison if necessary. Civil disobedience to this
sinister measure would not be a crime, it would be a moral duty.
There
is something repellingly un-British about the whole idea of ID
cards. It reeks of Eat Germany or Romania under Communist rule,
with spies on every corner and neighbours snitching on each other.
Certainly, the arrival of the ID scheme would be another hammer
blow to the England I once loved.
Born
and brought up in Northern Ireland, I chose to live in this country
partly because of its tradition of respect for personal freedom
and privacy. After growing up in the suffocating, security-dominated
culture of Ulster in the Seventies, England seemed like a breath
of fresh air.
But
everywhere I look, that sense of freedom is rapidly being eroded
We are now the most watched society in the Western world thanks
to the spread of CCTV and speed cameras and the Government is
growing every more arrogant in its eagerness to spy on us.
Over
500,000 microchips have been inserted in dustbins just to check
our refuse. The next census will ask questions about our income,
and it is now impossible to use any public service without filling
in a lengthy ethnic monitoring form.
Destruction
Ministers
are now also discussing the creation of a spy-in-the-sky satellite
network to monitor our road usage. And council inspectors may
imminently be given the right to snoop around our homes taking
photographs, supposedly for council tax valuation purposes.
The
introduction of ID cards will be another sorry step on the path
towards the destruction of our liberties.
The
paradox is that this increase in surveillance has not made us
feel any more secure. Just the opposite is the case. Anxiety about
crime has never been higher, while many of the streets of Britain
are places of fear despite all the CCTV cameras. This goes to
the heart of why the ID plan is doomed to fail. For it is not
about serving the public but about state control.
If
Blair was
really interested in tackling crime or illegal immigration, he
would have done so years ago. The Government doesn't need plastic
cards and a vast database - what it needs is the political will
to tighten up our borders and impose tough sentences on criminality.
ID cards have nothing to do with that.
After
all, the courts know precisely the identity of many of the most
persistent offenders who come before them. Yet they still refuse
to give proper jail terms. Similarly Government has notoriously
failed to deport thousands of released foreign prisoners despite
knowing their identity.
Perhaps
most ludicrous of all is the claim that ID cards will help in
the fight against Islamic terrorism. Coming from a government
which not only allowed the monstrous Abu Hamza to preach his hate-filled
dogma for years but even gave him lavish benefits, this is just
offensive.
Besides,
the July bombers made no attempt to conceal their identities -
indeed, their ringleader, Mohammed Siddique Khan, was actually
employed as a classroom assistant on the public payroll. Even
if there were a coherent argument in favour of ID cards, the implementation
of the scheme, given the Government's appalling record on major
projects, is likely to be another expensive disaster. The shambolic
Child Support Agency and the fiasco over the new computer network
at the NHS are just two examples of this pattern. The scope for
chaos is all the greater with the ID card scheme because of its
massive scale, involving every citizen in the country.
Nor
should we have much faith in the integrity of the proposed database,
in view of the public sector's dismal reputation for waste inefficiency
and mismanagement. Indeed the very existence of the national register
will be a honeypot to criminals, gangsters and fraudsters seeking
to exploit the inevitable loopholes.
As
for the cost of the scheme, the Prime Minister breezily dismissed
such concerns at his Press conference yesterday, but he is hardly
someone who inspires confidence when it comes to financial rigour
with the public purse.
Squander
This,
after all, is the man who brought us the Millennium Dome. According
to reputable experts at the London School of Economics, the final
bill for ID cards could be as high as £19billion - more
than the entire cost of running our police service and prisons.
It is hard to think of a better way to squander public money than
on this monument to state control.
Such
practical doubts aside, on a deeper level there are two philosophical
objections to this whole ID scheme that run counter to everything
I once held dear about Britain.
The
first is that ID cards encourage a climate of dependency on the
machinery of the state, which poses as the sole protector of society.
This robs us of our self-reliance. We can only be safe when surrounded
by government-sponsored plastic, cameras and records, but in fact
we have traded our liberty for only the illusion of security.
The
second, even more serious problem is that the ID card scheme will
completely reverse the relationship between the individual and
the state. In a health democracy, the government should be accountable
to the public. But in Blair's brave new world, citizens will be
answerable for their actions to the Government.
"Show
us your papers" has long been the slogan of totalitarian
regimes. It could soon be the official watchword of 21st-century
Britain - unless we show a traditionally British spirit of resistance.
How
can we believe Blair over ID cards?
Comment
- Daily Mail, November7, 2006
Still
thrashing around for something to call his 'legacy', Tony
Blair makes ever more extravagant claims for his wildly
expensive scheme to introduce biometric ID cards. Not
only will it they help in the fight against crime, terrorism
and illegal immigration, he says, but they will smash
identity fraud and make it easier for everyone to access
services.
Sounds
wonderful in theory. But in practice?
Leave
aside the frightening implications for civil liberties
- and ow sinister it is that Mr Blair now wants the police
to check all our fingerprints against files on 900,000
unsolved crimes. Can anyone believe that ID cards will
be anything like as effective as he makes them out to
be.
The
Prime Minister is well aware they would have done nothing
to prevent the July 7 London bombings. He knows, too,
that millions of foreign visitors will not have to carry
them - while Britons will be subjected to the huge inconvenience
and expense of having their fingerprints and irises scanned
and being made to supply more than 50 separate pieces
of information.
Meanwhile,
the technology in which Mr Blair puts so much faith remains
untested and may be wide open to fraud. And what of the
cost?
Our
self-deluding Premier declares the cards will add no more
than £30 to the £66 cost of the new biometric
passports. Yet the London School of Economics puts the
cost per card at up to £300. On past form, which
is more likely to prove correct?
Like
some sort of King Midas in reverse, every big IT project
this Government has touched has turned to dust - the Criminal
Records Bureau, with its 300,000-case backlog, the NHS
database, the Child Support Agency .....
Haven't
we every reason to believe ID cards will prove the biggest
bureaucratic disaster of them all?
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