Silent Majority Speaks

Rescuing Democracy in the United Kingdom from our current Elected Dictatorship

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.

May 28, 2006 (1114 days since war ended)

Death Toll: 2464 US - 111 UK - >60,000? civilians - 25 media

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

STOP PRESS

We're letting foreign prisoners stay, but we can't tell you why

By Tim Shipman - Political Correspondent - Daily Mail, J(une 7, 2006

Up to a quarter of the released foreign prisoners who should have been deported will be allowed to stay in the UK, the head of the immigration service said yesterday. LIN HOMER told MPs that the fiasco engulfing the Home Office's Immigration and Nationality Directorate may continue for at least two years.

Police recruits 'could be terrorists' Terrorists could be infiltrating the police because of a failure to vet foreign recruits, an official report warned yesterday. A glaring loophole in vetting procedures means applicants from the EU are joining police forces in England and Wales without proper checks into their background. The report found that forces can accept 'a war criminal from a country where checks are not possible', but can reject a British applicant with a caution from 'three years and a day ago'. Serving officers from the EU could also be guilty of terrorism and other serious crimes, warned the report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary. Research exposed more than 40 'vetting failures' in a system under pressure from the arrival of thousands of additional civilian staff. The revelation is the latest failure to hit the Home Office after the foreign prisoners scandal and comes at a time when Britain is on high alert to terrorism following the July 7 attacks and last week's Forest Gate raid. Inspectors said staff vetting was crucial because police have 'extraordinary powers' over civilians and access to highly sensitive information. They warned: "The failure to properly vet staff will leave a force extremely vulnerable." The failures could lead to terrorists or criminals infiltrating the police and to other information 'leakage'. President of the Police Superintendent's Association, Rich Naylor said; "There's nothing worse than having someone inside the job who is working not for the benefit of the community but for their own possibly criminal needs." HM Inspector Jan Stichbury said the anomaly over EU citizens had been identified and was being addressed at a 'national level'.

She could not say how many foreign criminals are still on the loose or in detention. She was unable to explain why the released prisoners will be allowed to stay. Miss Homer's admissions seriously undermine Home Secretary John Reid's pledge to turn around the department in six weeks.

More than 200 foreign convicts out of the 1,019 who were wrongly set free have already been told that they will not be sent home. Only 778 have been listed for deportation. The other 241 foreign criminals - one in four - have been told they can stay or are still waiting to hear their fate.

Miss Homer revealed that in the past around four out of ten foreign criminals released from British jails have not been sent home. Asked by House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee how many of the 1,000 criminals have been deported, Miss Home said: "We have look at about a couple of hundreds where the initial decision was not to deport."

Asked whether 200 was an accurate 'ball-park figure' of the number who will be allowed to remain, she replied: "Yes, that's right." Miss Homer also admitted that eight of the most serious offenders, including rapists and paedophiles, are still at large nearly two months after the scandal first broke - even though finding them has been the Government's top priority.

"To the best of my knowledge, we have not achieved the detention of these people," she said. The immigration chief revealed that 'tens' of mentally ill foreign nationals have either been freed or are shortly due for release from secure psychiatric hospitals. And she refused to say how many foreign criminals who have been detained since the scandal broke have been granted bail.

She did admit that at least on offender in the more serious category - which includes violent and sex offenders - has successfully won bail. Miss Homer said she could not provide a figure because it changes 'on a daily basis'. She insisted a 'case by case audit' of every foreign prisoner would be compiled before the Home Office gave more figures.

But the normally mild-mannered committee chairman, John Denham, launched a withering broadside. He said: "It seems to me extraordinary that you come in front of this committee, on an issue where the Home Secretary was forced to apologise, without a very basic piece of information about whether we are doing any better. You must have been asking that on a daily basis."

Miss Homer admitted that the immigration directorate is in such a mess that she cannot 'be confident' that further problems ' have not slipped under the radar'. She added: "There's at least a couple of years to get this business into the shape I'd like to see it."

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "This all demonstrates that the Home Office still has not got control of this scandal."

Committee member Richard Benyon said: "There's a limit to our patience. This has been an utterly shambolic episode. It's no use the Prime Minister breezily saying that everyone should be deported. There was no explanation of why they are not being sent back."

Labour MP Gwyn Prosser said: "Something terrible has gone wrong and all the world knows it."

A paedophile is one of the serious foreign prisoners who has been bailed and allowed to return to the community. The American was jailed for downloading what insiders say is 'serious' child pornography. He was tol he will have to report three times a week to Huntingdon police statin in Cambridgeshire.

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