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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November
5, 2006 (1270 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2837 US - 121 UK - >650,000? civilians - 25 media
November
16 2006 (1281 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2863 US - 125 UK - >650,000? civilians - 25 media
Migration:
The shocking figures
Every
day, another 600 arrive on our shores from Eastern Europe
By
James Slack, Home Affairs Editor, Daily Mail, November 22, 2006
More
than half a million Eastern Europeans have come to Britain since
May 2004. The astonishing figure, a rate of almost 500 a day,
does not include the self-employed, children or partners. So the
actual number living here is likely to be close to 700,000, or
1 in every 85 people living in the UK.
Sleepwalking
into a population crisis
Comment
- Daily Mail, November 22, 2006
The sheer scale of the numbers makes
your head spin. According to Home Office figures, some
510,000 migrants have come to work in Britain since the
EU expanded two years ago.
Remember how the government predicted
a maximum of only 13,000 newcomers a year? Well, you can
multiply that by 20 - and that's just for starters. Even
yesterday's mind-boggling figure tells barely half the
story. It includes only those newcomers - flooding in
at 20,000 a month - who sign the official register.
Many hundreds of thousands more will
never appear on the list - dependents, the self-employed
and those who prefer to work in the black economy, where
no awkward questions are asked about tax.
Adopting this Government's usual policy
- when in trouble, tell lies -Immigration Minister Liam
Byrne declares: "The figures show that migrant workers
from the accession states are benefiting the UK by filling
skills and labour gaps that cannot be met from the UK-born
population."
Oh, yes? What skills shortages are they
filling, when the great majority of Eastern Europeans
take unskilled jobs? And where is that 'unfillable' labour
gap, when unemployment among the benefits-guzzling UK-born
population - including disguised jobless on incapacity
benefit - rapidly approaches five million.
Meanwhile more than 55,000 EU newcomers
- and counting - are themselves claiming state handouts
worth millions. How are they benefiting the UK?
But EU migration is only part of the
story. Separate figures show that spurious asylum seekers
are arriving much faster than they can be deported. So
much for Tony Blair's promise last year to clear the massive
400,000 backlog.
There's another alarming trend, too.
While more than 1,500 foreigners arrived every day last
year, some 500 British citizens left daily to settle abroad.
It all adds up to the most dramatic demographic upheaval
in our history.
And still it goes on. In only five weeks,
when Bulgaria and Romania join the EU, the nation must
brace itself for yet another tidal wave of foreign arrivals.
Meanwhile the Government fobs us off
with promises of a 'tough crackdown' which it knows it
is powerless to keep. For centuries, Britain has been
among the world's most harmonious nations - united by
language, culture and allegiance, while maintaining a
proud tradition of accepting as many newcomers as could
be comfortably absorbed.
Yes, of course many of these new immigrants
are bringing huge benefits to this country. But how in
the name of sanity can we go on absorbing such awesome
numbers?
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As
well as placing unprecedented pressure on schools, hospitals and
roads, the migrants are costing the taxpayer up to £60million
in benefits. According to the Home Office, 55,000 are now in receipt
of handouts such as tax credits, child benefit and council housing.
The number claiming state support - which Tony Blair insisted
would be kept to a minimum - has risen by almost 30% in the past
three months.
Last
night the Government faced accusations of breathtaking incompetence
on European migration. The Home Office had predicted only 5,000
to 13,000 citizens of the former Eastern Bloc would arrive per
year following the EU's controversial expansion. The 510,000 who
have signed the Home Office's worker registration scheme - which
includes 308,000 Poles, is at least 16 times higher than the Government's
woeful estimate. The growth in population is equivalent of a city
the size of Sheffield.
Ministers,
who yesterday admitted they do not yet understand the full impact
of the influx, had been desperately hoping the number of arrivals
would drop off. But according to yesterday's figures, the opposite
is happening. Between July and September this year, 59,000 arrived
- 3000 more than in the previous three months. It is the equivalent
of 656 new arrivals every day. The average over the course of
the past 29 months has been an incredible 586 a day.
The
latest 'accession monitoring report' also revealed a 29% surge
in the number of eastern Europeans claiming benefits.
Ministers
have repeatedly claimed most of the influx are young men with
no interest in receiving state handouts. But there are now 54,856
people in receipt of tax credits, child support or council housing.
When
they arrive immigrants are immediately entitled to child benefit,
Tax Credits and housing support. After 12 months here they can
receive income-related benefits such as unemployment benefit,
effectively the same level of support as a British citizen.
Word
has also reached Poland of generous benefit payments to eastern
Europeans with children, including a rule which allows workers
to claim Tax Credits for children even if they
remain in their homeland.
There
have been 353 successful applications for Income Support (worth
£57.45 a week), 859 for Job Seekers Allowance (£57.45)
and 32 for State Pension Credit (which gives a guaranteed income
of £114.05 a week). Some 35,k448 are claiming child benefit
(£17.45 for a first child and £11.70 for each of the
rest), 17,512 are receiving Tax credits (worth up to £5,200
a year) and 128 families have been given local authority housing.
Some 524 are receiving other homelessness support. The
total bill is likely to be £60million.
Publication
of the figures follows a warning last week by Poland's own president,
Lech Kaczynski that Britain is now the destination of choice for
'feckless' migrants who are already claiming benefits back home.
Ministers
defend the payments by arguing the vast majority are paying taxes
and contributing more to the economy than they are taking out.
But no figures are available to show the number paying tax. The
worker registration scheme is nothing more than a voluntary list
of names of who is in the country and seeking work.
There
is nothing to stop a worker signing the register then drifting
off into the black market to work illegally Ministers are also
unable to counter claims that many Poles are sending their wages
back home, rather than spending it here, effectively taking money
out of the UK economy.
To
compound the problem, Britain is braced for the arrival of tens
of thousands more migrants when Romania and Bulgaria join the
EU on January 1, 2007. Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch
UK, said: "These figures show that there is no sign of a
slowdown in eastern Europe immigration. With Romania and Bulgaria
on the doorstep, the case for reducing immigration from elsewhere
is now cast=iron."
Shadow
Home Secretary David Davis said: "The figures make nonsense
of the Government's forecasts and show we are right to call for
immediate restrictions on entrants from Bulgaria and Romania."
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