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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May
28, 2006 (1114 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 2464 US - 111 UK - >60,000? civilians - 25 media
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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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A
victory for liars
Mother
of six claimed to be a lesbian to win asylum. Now she's been exposed
as a fraud but can't be deported ... Hopeless Home Office bungled
her case
By
Ian Drury - Daily Mail, May 30, 2006
An
asylum seeker who falsely claimed she was a lesbian has been allowed
to stay in Britain because of bungling at the Home Office. Carol
Ajoh, a married mother of six, will not be sent home to the Caribbean
after a judge ruled it would violate her human rights.
Running
rings round the Home Office
Comment
- Daily Mail, May 30, 2006
From
the Home Office, yet another depressing tale of out times.
A Jamaican woman came to this country on a visitor's visa
in 1999, enrolled on a course and was allowed to stay
as a student until September 2001. In the meantime she
was joined by her three children.
In
February 2002, she sought asylum on the grounds she was
'purely a lesbian' and would face persecution if she was
returned to her homeland - which is notoriously intolerant
of homosexuality.
Even
the Home Office baulked at this and turned down her application.
Then she married a Nigerian-born British citizen and withdrew
her request for asylum on the grounds of lesbianism (not
surprising as she was pregnant by then with twins by her
new husband) and applied to stay on the grounds that she
was married.
This
seems to have confused the Home Office so much it took
them what the High Court described as an 'inexcusable
and appalling' 22 months to turn down her application.
By this time, she was able to launch another appeal under
- yes, you've guessed! - human rights legislation, arguing
that she had put down family roots.
The
High Court reluctantly agrees, say that to send home an
ex-lesbian with six children 'lacked humanity'. Perhaps
John Reid should give her a job. She is clearly far more
adept at working the system that the Home Office is at
running it.
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In
the High Court, Mr Justice Collins said her 2002 claim that she
would be persecuted in Jamaica over her sexuality was 'totally
bogus'. But because she remarried and gave birth to three children
while her case was being decided, he said it 'lacked humanity'
to remove her.
He
laid the blame with the Home Office, which took an 'inexcusable
and appalling' 22 months to determine if she could remain on the
basis of the second marriage to a British citizen. The case is
yet another example of the crisis engulfing the Home Office.
On
Saturday, the Daily Mail told how Somalian Yonis Dirie, who violently
raped a 21-year-old woman in Stratford, East London, could not
be deported by a judge because he had been granted sanctuary in
Britain. The career criminal had been given permission to remain
in the country while serving a jail sentence for an attempted
armed robbery.
And
the fiasco of the release of foreign prisoners who should have
been deported continued to deepen this week with claims that the
number freed could be as high as 3,000, dwarfing the official
figure of 1,019.
In
Mrs. Ajoh's case, Mr Justice Collins said if her application had
been dealt with more quickly, she would have been removed even
though her second marriage, to a British citizen, was genuine.
As it was the 33-year-old, from Northolt, West London, had been
given sufficient time to put down family roots and deporting her
would disproportionately breach he right to a family life.
Mrs.
Ajoh, a divorcee, arrived in Britain in February 1999 on a six-month
visitor's visa and enrolled on a computer studies course at South
Chelsea College, Brixton. Her leave to stay as a student expired
in September 2001. But in the meantime, three children from her
first marriage in Jamaica - one now 16, one 15, and one 12 - joined
her in Britain. In February 2002, Mrs. Ajoh applied for asylum
on the grounds that she was 'purely a lesbian' after going off
men following the birth of her first three children.
She
feared she would face persecution if she was forced to return
to Jamaica, which is said to be notoriously intolerant to homosexuality.
Her claim was reject by the Home Office, but in April 2003 she
appealed against the decision. A week later, she married Anthony
Ajoh, who was born in Nigeria but is now a British citizen and
is a senior lawyer working for Tower Hamlets Council in East London.
She
withdrew her appeal against refusal of asylum on the basis of
being a lesbian and applied for leave to remain on the basis of
her marriage. By then she was pregnant and in August 2003 gave
birth to twins. Then in September last year, she had a boy.
In
March 2005, after a long delay, the Home Office immigration authorities
again refused her permission to stay in Britain and said both
she and her Jamaican children would be deported. Mrs. Ajoh launched
an appeal arguing that deportation would breach Article 8 of the
European convention on Human Rights, which protects the right
to family life. At the High Court, her counsel Ashley Offennu,
told the judge she had made her bogus asylum claim after receiving
'misleading advice'.
Her
husband had not known about it until after their marriage and
when he found out 'was not so pleased'. Parishili Patel, of the
Home Office, argued it would not be disproportionate to deport
Mrs. Ajoh. But Mr Justice Collins said the two-year delay in dealing
with her case was 'appalling' and the Home Office had failed to
comply with its own procedures. He added: "The Home Office
simply cannot get away with this sort of appalling behaviour.
It lacks merit and certainly lacks humanity. Where you are dealing
with human beings, in particular where you are dealing with a
family, with children settled down here, surely it is of more
importance that a decision is reaching within a reasonable time."
Mrs.
Ajoh's husband would find it practically impossible to uproot
himself, lose his senior legal position and go to Jamaica with
no prospect of finding a livelihood, said the judge. He said he
accepted the Home Office was under pressure,but it was 'quite
wrong' to delay making decisions without giving an explanation.
Speaking
outside the family's two-storey terrace home, Mrs. Ajoh, who has
trained at Uxbridge College to become a hairdresser, said: "I
just want the whole case to die away'.
Mr
Ajoh said his wife had lied to immigration officials to try to
get the best life possible for her children. "Sometimes people
take a wrong turn - they make some silly mistakes because they
did not get the proper advice," he added. "Then they
realise that their lives could be taken away when they decide
to tell the truth. She is feeling elated by the decision although
it has caused quite a lot of stress for the family."
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