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
We've
all been deceived by the politicians
Commentary
by Sir Andrew Green - chairman of MigrationWatch and former ambassador
to Saudi Arabia and Syria.
Daily
Mail, November 22, 2006
Britain
is facing the largest wave of immigration for nearly 1,000 years.
The number of Huguenots in the 17th century and the Jews a century
ago are trivial compared to the present flows. Recent government
figures put the net inflow at almost 500 every day.
One
part of this inflow comes from the new East European members of
the EU. If these people wish to work, they must register, and
today's figures show that the number who have registered since
eight new countries joined in May 2004 has hit the half a million
mark. The Home Office, never let it be
forgotten, predicted that this figure would be a maximum of 26,000
over two years.
What
effect is all this having and how long can we expect it to continue?
For
a start, the registration numbers are looking increasingly dubious.
They have never included the self-employed or temporary workers
- the Government themselves have added nearly 50% to take account
of this. Even more worrying is the real number of East Europeans
who have decided to stay in Britain compared with the number the
Government claims have stayed.
Official
statistics suggest that three-quarters of them go home within
a year. But these figures are based on a passenger survey which
focuses almost entirely on Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester -
while East Europeans arrive on budget airlines, mainly at Luton,
Stansted and regional airports.
The
Governor of the Bank of England has complained twice publicly
that the numbers of immigrants are so unreliable that he cannot
estimate how tight the labour market has become and, consequently,
whether or not there is a need to raise interest rates.
There
is growing evidence of British workers being replaced by East
Europeans. And since East Europeans accept lower wages, British
workers - from construction workers to truck drivers to flow arrangers
- are suffering pay cuts.
The
East Europeans can afford a lower wage. They are mainly single.
They can, and often do, live in very crowded conditions. And,
of course, they can earn four or five times what they would earn
at home. This is all good new for them and for their employers.
East Europeans have established a solid reputation for hard work,
turning up on time, and making few demands. Lower wages mean higher
profits. They also mean lower inflation and somewhat lower interest
rates.
The
middle classes are happy too. Cheap nannies, cheaper restaurants
and a cheap hand-wash for the gas guzzler. But there are snags.
Not only do the low-paid suffer a reduction in wages. Worse, we
risk building up an underclass of long-term unemployed.
There
are a million young people who are neither in work nor education.
If you add those on incapacity benefit to the unemployed (now
at a six-year high), you have nearly five million people who are
not working and, more importantly, have little prospect of doing
so for the foreseeable future. Which employer is going to take
a young British worker off incapacity benefit, when he can take
a bright, young, energetic and probably overqualified Pole?
The
Government frequently claims that East Europeans are filling gaps
in the labour market. But we have to examine the facts, not the
spin. It is five years since the Government first proclaimed that
we need immigration to fill 600,000 vacancies in our labour market.
Since then, immigration has added about three-quarters of a million
to our population. Yet, believe it or
not, vacancies are still at 600,000.
The
reason is that immigrants are not only filling jobs, but they
are also adding to consumer demand, which, in turn, creates more
jobs so that vacancies in the labour market remain the same. The
Government's argument is demonstrably false. The main outcome
is that we become an ever-more crowded island
And
that is where the shoe really pinches. The strain on our public
services and infrastructure grows by the day. Children are turning
up at school gates with no English, and no warning. Rents are
rising sharply as the buy-to-let market booms and house prices
rise. More young people find it impossible to get on the housing
ladder as prices spiral.
I
do not mean in any way to be critical of the new arrivals. The
work hard and fit in. But the bottom line is that we are a small
island and are already overcrowded - especially in the South East.
The
Department of Transport has forecast that traffic on our roads
will increase by 30% in the next ten years and by 40% to 50% on
motorways. Grid-lock approaches. It is time that serious thought
was given to how many people we can sensibly accommodate on this
island.
Is
there any relief in sight? Not in the Third World, from where
the majority of immigrants still come. As for Europe, Romania
and Bulgaria are no longer on the horizon but on our very doorstep.
From next January, 30 million people from these countries will
be free to enter Britain.
In
the longer term much depends on how much time it will take these
countries, given substantial aid from Brussels, to reach our level
of economic prosperity. Poland, the source of 60% of East European
immigration, will be a key factor. At present, its wealth per
head is only just over a third of ours.
Even
if its economy grows at 5% a year (and we maintain our long term
growth rate of 2.5%), it will be 34 years before they catch up.
Demographics will help. The two most populous countries - Poland
and Romania - will both have a declining number of 18-year-olds
in the years to come, down by about a third over the next 20 years.
Eventually
too, the other EU countries will be obliged to open their labour
markets to the new member states. The
biggest factor of all is how long our newcomers decide to stay.
Eventually,
the flow of those going home will balance those arriving and we
will be in the same situation as we are with, say, France. This
interchange of people is what the EU is all about. Eventually
it will enrich all our lives. The Government's mistake has been
to rush into the free movement of labour with countries so much
poorer than ourselves.
It
now tries to spin this decision as a great success, hoping perhaps
that we will overlook its massive miscalculations which originally
forecast that only 13,000 East Europeans would come here a year.
The reality is it is putting a brave face on a blunder for which
the less fortunate in our society are now paying.
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