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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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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June
29, 2006 (1146 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2529 US - 113 UK - >60,000? civilians - 25 media
August
1, 2006 (1193 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2579 US - 115 UK - >60,000? civilians - 25 media
Warning
from town halls chief .....
Council
tax must rise to pay for migrants
By
Tim Shipman and James Slack - Daily Mail, August 8, 2006
Council
tax will have to rise because of Labour's failure to get a grip
on immigration, town hall chiefs warned last night. They insisted
there was no way local government could afford the public services
that hundreds of thousands of immigrants from eastern Europe would
demand
Seeing
the light?
Comment
- Daily Mail - August 8, 2006
This
should be a moment of grim satisfaction for the many critics
who have been smeared as 'racists' and demonised as bigots
for daring to challenge New Labour's reckless encouragement
of mass immigration with no upper limit.
Suddenly,
the Government comes close to admitting they were right
all along. In an astonishing U-turn, Home Secretary John
Reid says he intends to consider how many migrants should
be allowed in.
In
what seems a truly Damascene conversion, he even wants
to get away from 'this daft notion that anybody who wants
to talk about immigration is somehow a racist'. Amen to
that.
But
after nine years of Labour spin and downright dishonesty
on this issue, doesn't Mr Reid's apparent change of heart
invite a certain skepticism? When Michael Howard, the
proud son of Jewish migrants, raised legitimate points
about our immigration shambles at the last election, Tony
Blair resorted to poisonous imputations of racism, while
Charles Clarke, then Home Secretary, accused him of stirring
'prejudice and bigotry'.
And
these slurs weren't uttered in the heat of the moment.
Again and again, New Labour
deliberately uses this tactic to close down debate, while
presiding without a word of explanation over the biggest
surge in immigration in our history.
So
has Mr Reid finally seen the light? We would like to think
so. But nine years on, the public will take some convincing
that his conversion isn't just another New Labour stunt.
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Sandy
Bruce-Lockhart, head of the Local Government Association, has
written a scathing letter to Home Secretary John Reid, placing
the blame squarely at the Government's door. In a devastating
critique of Labour's performance on immigration, he warns the
crisis has created 'severe problems' that will lead to council
tax rises, local job losses and cuts in services.
Official
estimates of the number of immigrants arriving in Britain have
badly underestimated the pressure on the communities where they
have settled. The LGA claims Labour's inability to calculate the
scale of the problem has left local authorities out of pocket.
Sir
Sandy's anger stems from the massive influx of Poles that has
stretched services to breaking point in Slough, Berkshire - a
situation, he says, is replicated nationwide. According to figures
provided by the Office of National Statistics, only 300 immigrants
are settling in Slough each year. But the local council says there
are at least 10,000 Poles alone living there.
Of
9,000 new National Insurance numbers handed out over the past
18 months, only 150 went to British nationals. Since local councils
are paid according to the number of residents living in their
areas, failure to calculate the number of immigrants can lead
to critical shortfalls in funds. This leaves the entire community
suffering as schools and hospitals are overstretched.
The
LGS believes the arrival of immigrants could lead to a 6% rise
in council tax - which has already soared by more than 70% under
Labour. In his letter to Mr Reid, Sir Sandy stresses that the
same problem is affecting local communities nationwide. "This
is not an issue isolated in Slough," he writes.
Twenty-five
councils from around the country were represented at a seminar
a week ago at which they expressed concerns at the Government's
inability to get its numbers right. He writes: "There
are a number of local authorities for whom the current system
of measuring the number of migrants in specific council areas
is failing to ensure adequate funding to keep council services
to local people maintained. Councils are finding it difficult
to provide services to growing populations that are not recognised
by government statistics. Working migrants have become an invisible
population whose children need school places, who need to be housed
appropriately and in some cases need social services. Official
statistics have failed to reflect this."
In
his letter to Mr Reid, Sir Sandy demands to know when the Government
will establish a system that can gather accurate information.
"Unless accurate, up-to-date figures on migration are produced,
so that the proper funding to councils can be reflected, this
could pose severe problems in the future as services get cut,
or council tax has to rise disproportionately for growing migrant
population," he warns.
He
also tells the Home Secretary existing workers are being forced
out of the workplace by eastern European immigrants. He concludes:
"Chief executives, from places like
Slough, are happy to welcome EU accession state migrants and recognise
their contribution to a thriving local economy in many parts of
the country. However, there is evidence that migration ins displacing
existing resident labour."
Labour
ministers claimed just 13,000 immigrants would come to Britain
when its borders opened to migrants from the new states of the
European Union. But since 2004, around 700,000 economic migrants
have arrived to work here.
The
letter is a crushing rebuke to Mr Reid, who used a weekend interview
to call for a mature debate about immigration and indicated that
an independent body could draw up limits on the number of immigrants
Britain is prepared to accept.
A
spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government,
said: "Government distributes formula grants to local authorities
using the best statistics that are available on a consistent basis."
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