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 - >300,000? civilians - 25 media
August
11, 2006 (1203 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2597 US - 115 UK - >300,000? civilians - 25 media
August
18, 2006 (1210 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2601 US - 115 UK - >300,000? civilians - 25 media
How
shambolic staff scupper deportations
By
James Slack - Home Affairs Editor - Daily Mail, August 19, 2006
Hundreds
of failed asylum seekers are escaping deportation because of incompetence
by the government's shambolic immigration department, it emerged
last night. Leaked e-mails reveal that removals of many of the
400,000 bogus refugees living in the UK are being halted because
staff lose passports or other crucial documents.
It
forces the cancellation of their flights home at the last minute
- even though it has cost £11,000 to round them up and detain
them prior to deportation.
The
Home Office was yesterday ordered to pay an asylum seeker's
legal costs, estimated at thousands of pounds, after flouting
an injunction banning her from being deported.
The
department was told it could face a judicial review hearing
into whether Fadile Parmaksiz's detention was unlawful
after admitting being in contempt of court for illegally
removing her.
Mrs.
Parmaksiz, 33, from Turkey, and her three children aged
two, five and seven, were flown from the UK to Germany
in July despite attempts by her solicitor to stop it.
She has since returned to Britain where she is still seeking
asylum.
At
the High Court in London, Mr Justice Collins said 'substantial
blame' should be attacked to the Home Office for the breach
of the injunction banning her removal. Some staff involved
in her case had not even been aware the injunction was
in place.
"There
was a serious failure by the Home Office to follow its
own guidelines," he said. "Arrangements in the
Home Office were defective. Yet again one department did
not properly communicate with another department."
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The
loss of documents is one of the main reasons why almost a third
of removals have to be halted at the 11th hour. The failed asylum
seekers either have to be put back into detention centres while
the documents are found or set free.
The
blunders, by the Home Office's Immigration service, are costing
the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds. A series of e-mails
from an exasperated immigration official, seen by the Daily Mail,
lay bare the incompetence at the processing centre for removals
from Heathrow Airport.
One,
entitled Disappearing Files, warns that Tony Blair's promise to
increase removals is being put in peril by lost documentation.
The civil servant writes: "Due to the increasing amount of
files that are being removed from the detention hold (document
store), preset (fixed date) removal directions have had to be
reset and more are in danger of being cancelled."
Another,
entitled Matter of Urgency, and sent to all other enforcement
staff, orders a hunt for missing documents. It says: "Confirmation
of this is urgently needed."
Without
the documents, there is no way of sending failed asylum seekers
home. Countries are obliged to take bogus claimants only if the
UK has proof of their nationality. The e-mails, leaked by an angry
immigration officer, are backed by a snapshot of the removal success
rate at Heathrow. Of 1,591 people brought to the centre in a single
month, there were 450 last-minute failures.
In
95 cases, the reasons were recorded as documentation problems
- such as no ticket, no travel documents, the wrong name on a
ticket, the wrong destination or removal directions sent in error.
Staff did not record the reason for the deportation being halted
in a further 139 cases. Many of these are believed to involve
lost passports or other paperwork.
In
the remaining 216 cases, deportations were halted for reasons
including the intervention of MPs or asylum seekers becoming disruptive
so that airlines refused to allow them to fly.
Tory
immigration spokesman Damian Green said: "These documents
show that so far, John Reid's promise to sort out the chaos in
the immigration department has not been turned into effective
action. It is massively alarming if passports are going missing
at such a sensitive time. The picture painted by these leaks is
of a department with low morale, chaotic systems, and no real
sense of direction. Until the Home Office grips the basic management
failures in the immigration system, all John Reid's rhetoric about
improvement will be hollow."
The
Home Secretary promised to sort out the shambolic department following
his appointment in May. The e-mails were sent only last month
- proving that his tough rhetoric has done little to end staff
blunders. They also demonstrate the mountain the Government still
has to climb to remove all the failed asylum seekers in the UK,
estimated at anything between 287,000 and 400,000.
Tony
Blair has promised to remove more each month than there are new
unfounded claims. At current rates, clearing the backlog will
take 20 years.
Last
night, the Home Office insisted documents were not being 'lost'.
They were being taken out by officials and had not been returned
by the time other staff needed them. A spokesman said: "It
is wrong to suggest that lost documents are hampering the number
of removals made - we continue to drive up removals, and in 2005
removed more failed asylum seekers than ever before as well as
meeting our targets for removing non-asylum immigration offenders."
Yesterday,
the Mail revealed how the asylum target is forcing immigration
staff to turn a blind eye to illegal working when employers rang
them with tip-offs about illegal immigrants.
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